t/uiiimi
t/uiiimi
Systematic t
"Wayne Grudem understands that every Christian 'does theology/ that doctrine inevita-
bly finds its application in the believer's life. Clearly written, this volume demonstrates an
appreciation for the rich diversity of traditions within the body of Christ while at the
same time reminding us that our faith is rooted in historic Christian truth."
Chuck Colson, Prison Fellowship Ministries
If you were hoping to find a student's textbook of theology that seeks your spiritual no
less than your intellectual formation, rejoice. Wayne Grudem has written exactly what you
wanted, and he has done so very competently indeed."
J. I. Packer, Regent College
Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem is a fair-minded, thorough text in systematic
theology — the best I have seen in recent years in terms of convenient organization, clarity,
and a willingness to tackle the most salient issues of the day. This is an admirable blending
of the scholarly and devotional elements seldom achieved in academic books."
Paige Patterson — President; Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
Systematic Theology is remarkable for its extraordinary juxtapositions. It is penetrating
but not confusing; forthright and unequivocal but not reckless or overstated; readable
and clear but not superficial; biblically grounded, even biblically saturated, but not
textually careless or glib; devout and reverent but not uncritical or naive; practical but
not trendy or sentimental; comprehensive but not majoring on minors; a book for the
church but not parochial or sectarian. I expect to turn to it for decades."
John Piper, Bethlehem Baptist ;.G.hurch, Minneapolis
Altogether a magnificent achievement which deserves to be widely used among
evangelicals."
Gerald Bray, Beeson Divinity School
Grudem has opened the windows to let fresh air blow away mustiness and permit
the Holy Spirit to infuse soundly biblical, clearheaded evangelical theology with new
life and power."
Wayne Grudem is research professor of Bible and theology at Phoenix Seminary in Phoenix, Arizona.
He previously taught for twenty years at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois. He holds
degrees from Harvard (BA), Westminster Seminary (MDiv), and Cambridge (PhD). He is the author of a
number of books and is the editor of Are Miraculous Gifts for Today? He was 1998-1999 president of the
Evangelical Theological Society.
This entire book is available on a CD from Bits & Bytes
Computer Resources, 623 N. Iowa Ave., Whitefish, MT 59937.
Cover design. Tammy Johnson
Cover photo: Vincent Macnamara. TreviHlon Images
ZONDERVAN.com/
AUTHORTRACKER
foil ow your favorite author*
RELIGION / Christian Theology I Systematic
“Wayne Grudem understands that every Christian ‘does theology,’ that doctrine inevitably finds its
application in the believer’s life. Clearly written, this volume demonstrates an appreciation for the rich
diversity of traditions within the body of Christ while at the same time reminding us that our faith is
rooted in historic Christian truth.”
Chuck Colson , Prison Fellowship Ministries
“If you were hoping to find a student’s textbook of theology that seeks your spiritual no less than your
intellectual formation, rejoice. Wayne Grudem has written exactly what you wanted, and he has done so
very competently indeed.”
/./. Packer ; Regent College
“ Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem is a fair-minded, thorough text in systematic theology — the
best I have seen in recent years in terms of convenient organization, clarity, and a willingness to tackle
the most salient issues of the day. This is an admirable blending of the scholarly and devotional elements
seldom achieved in academic books.”
Paige Patterson , Southeastern Baptist Seminary
Systematic Theology is remarkable for its extraordinary juxtapositions. It is penetrating but not confus-
ing; forthright and unequivocal but not reckless or overstated; readable and clear but not superficial;
biblically grounded, even biblically saturated, but not textually careless or glib; devout and reverent but
not uncritical or naive; practical but not trendy or sentimental; comprehensive but not majoring on
minors; a book for the church but not parochial or sectarian. I expect to turn to it for decades.”
John Piper, Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis
“Altogether a magnificent achievement which deserves to be widely used among evangelicals.”
Gerald Bray, Beeson Divinity School
Grudem’s book . . . stands squarely in the historical Reformed tradition on the main issues of the-
ology, including the doctrine of Scripture, the doctrine of God, and the doctrine of salvation
Perhaps the strongest feature of the book is its accessibility. Grudem does not water down the meat of
theology. But by minimizing technical terminology and by including hymns, questions, and indica-
tions of application, he makes systematic theology much more accessible and life-invigorating for a
large range of Christian readers.”
Vern S. Poythress, Westminster Theological Seminary
“The whole church is indebted to Wayne Grudem for a fresh presentation of evangelical Christianity. . . .
Even those who do not share his . . . positions on certain issues will be enriched by Grudem’s clear state-
ment of basic evangelical theology and his helpful cross-references to other major theological positions.
Of particular value is his constant eye to the application of doctrine to personal life, ministry, and the
church. For Grudem, intellectual understanding cannot be separated from heart experience.”
Allan Coppedge, Asbury Theological Seminary
“Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem is classic theology for today’s church Beyond most theologi-
cal works, Grudem addresses doctrine to life, in thought, practice, and worship. Although not everyone
will agree with all of Grudem’s conclusions, he has gifted the church with a wealth of biblical and theo-
logical teaching in a solid, conservative, evangelical tradition.”
Robert L. Saucy, Talbot School of Theology
“Dr. Grudem’s new work is characterized by exegetical depth, clarity of expression, and contemporary
relevance. It deserves wide acceptance as a text in systematic theology.”
John Jefferson Davis, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary
“Grudem’s Systematic Theology is destined to become a classic. He leads his readers through the most
controversial and difficult areas of theology with unparalleled clarity. . . . This work is capable of lead-
ing a beginner into the process of mature theological reflection as well as challenging and delighting the
seasoned theologian. I have never enjoyed a systematic theology as much as this.”
Jack Deere, Author and Lecturer
“Grudem builds a wonderfully personal evangelical theology from a deep commitment to the truth and
authority of Scripture that honors the best traditions of Protestant orthodoxy. ... It will help evangelicals
realize the importance of doctrine while encouraging us toward a much-needed theological consensus.”
Gerry Breshears, Western Seminary, Portland, Oregon
“Written in a clear manner, this is one theological publication that is worthy of serious study by everyone.”
Baptist Standard
“It will teach you, challenge you, expand your thinking, and warm your heart. Theologian, pastor, and
layperson alike will benefit greatly from this finely crafted work. It comes from the heart and mind of
one of the church’s finest servants and most careful and able scholars.”
James A. Borland, Liberty University
“Once in a while one encounters a book in which some statements are so apt that one feels like saying:
‘I wish I had written that.’ Dr. Grudem’s Systematic Theology is one such book! It is . . . not burdened
with technicalities that make it difficult to understand, although technical terms ... are explained so
that the reader may be cognizant of them. It is very well organized and presents a thorough evangelical
position. Where evangelicals differ it provides a fair evaluation of diverging views. It has valuable para-
graphs on application, significant Scriptures to be memorized, and an appendix with important creeds
and confessions of faith.”
Roger Nicole, Reformed Theological Seminary, Orlando, Florida
“Grudem has opened the windows to let fresh air blow away mustiness and permit the Holy Spirit to
infuse soundly biblical, clearheaded evangelical theology with new life and power.”
Jack W. Hayford, The Church on the Way, Van Nuys, California
Systematic
THEOLOGY
An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine
Wayne Grudem
0 ZONDERVAN*
ZONDERVAN .com/
AUTHORTRACKER
follow your favorite authors
ZONDERVAN
Systematic Theology
Copyright © 1994 by Wayne Grudem
Appendix 6 and glossary copyright © 2000 by Wayne Grudem
This title is also available as a Zondervan ebook. Visit www.zondervan.com/ebooks.
Requests for information should be addressed to:
Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
GB ISBN 0-85110-652-8
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Grudem, Wayne Arden.
Systematic theology: an introduction to biblical doctrine / Wayne Grudem.
p. cm.
Includes index.
USA ISBN 978-0-310-28670-7
l. Theology, Doctrinal. I. Title.
BT75.2.G78-1994
250 l .046-dc20 94-8300
This book is published jointly by Inter-Varsity Press, 38 De Montfort Street, Leicester LEl 7GP, Great Britain, and by Zondervan,
5300 Patterson Avenue S.E., Grand Rapids, Michigan 49503, USA.
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible. Copyright ©
1946, 1952, and 1971 by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All
rights reserved. However, the author has, with permission, modernized archaic personal pronouns and has changed the verbs
accordingly.
Scripture quotations marked N ASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible ®. Copyright © i960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 197T
1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version ®, N/V®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984
by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.
Use of italics in Scripture quotations indicates Wayne Grudem’s emphasis.
Any Internet addresses (websites, blogs, etc.) and telephone numbers in this book are offered as a resource. They are not
intended in any way to be or imply an endorsement by Zondervan, nor does Zondervan vouch for the content of these sites
and numbers for the life of this book.
Al rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by
wy means-electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other-except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without
the prior permission of the publisher.
fnter-Vcwsity Press, England, is the book-publishing division of the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship (formerly the
InterMnty Christian Fellowship), a student movement connecting Christian Unions in universities and colleges throughout the
(Jruted Kmgdom, and a member movement of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. For information about local
and national activities, write to UCCF, 38 De Montfort Street, Leicester LEl 7GP, Great Britain.
Interior design Mark Sheeres
Printed in the United States of America
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 /DCI/ 73 72 71 70 69 68 67 66 65 64 63 62 6l 60 59 58 57 56 55
This book is dedicated to eight people
whom God sovereignly brought into my life:
Arden and Jean Grudem, my parents,
who taught me to believe the Bible,
to trust in God,
and to speak and write clearly;
A. Kenneth Ham, my Baptist pastor,
who awakened in me a love for systematic theology
by teaching a class on Christian doctrine
when I was thirteen years old,
and who taught me by example to believe
every word of Scripture;
Edmund Clowney, John Frame, and Vern Poythress,
Westminster Seminary professors and friends,
who influenced my theological understanding
more than anyone else,
and who taught me Reformed theology in
humble submission to every word of Scripture;
and Harald Bredesen and John Wimber,
pastors and friends,
who, more than anyone else,
taught me about the power and work
of the Holy Spirit.
This entire book is now available in Pradis® (Zondervan) and Libronix (Logos) formats
on a CD-ROM and online as a downloadable product from Bits 8c Bytes, Inc.: http://
bitsbytescomputer.com/. Requires Windows® 98 or higher and 6 MB disk space. Price
in US dollars is $49.95 + $6.95 S8cH within the US; shipping higher overseas. Shipping
prices subject to change. All major credit cards accepted.
Product includes a copy of the English Standard Version (ESV) translation of the
Bible and a full, working coy of the Pradis or Libronix Bible study software, depending
on version purchased. The Bible software allows you to search for any word or phrase or
combination of words and phrases, print any range or text, and export sections to your
word processor for easy citation in sermons and Bible studies. Click on any Bible citation
to display its text in its own window. All Greek and Hebrew words can be displayed in
proper Greek and Hebrew, with accompanying Goodrick-Kohlenberger numbers.
To order, contact Bits & Bytes, Inc., 623 Iowa Ave., Whitefish, MT 59937, USA. Email:
info@bitsbytescomputer.com. Phone: (800) 361-7280 or (888) 231-7280. Fax: (406) 862-
0917 Internet: http://bitsbytescomputer.com/.
Visit the Bits & Bytes website where Electronic Systematic Theology and an out-
standing collection of other fine products for biblical studies are available: http://
bitsbytescomputer.com/.
CONTENTS
ABBREVIATIONS 13
PREFACE 15
Chapter 1: Introduction to Systematic Theology 21
What is systematic theology? Why should Christians study it?
How should we study it?
PARTI:
THE DOCTRINE OF THE WORD OF GOD
Chapter 2:
The Word of God
What are the different forms of the Word of God?
47
Chapter 3:
The Canon of Scripture
What belongs in the Bible and what does not belong?
54
Chapter 4:
The Four Characteristics of Scripture: (1) Authority
How do we know that the Bible is God's Word?
73
Chapter 5:
The Inerrancy of Scripture
Are there any errors in the Bible?
90
Chapter 6:
The Four Characteristics of Scripture: (2) Clarity
Can only Bible scholars understand the Bible rightly?
105
Chapter 7:
The Four Characteristics of Scripture: (3) Necessity
For what purposes are the Bible necessary? How much
can people know about God without the Bible?
116
Chapter 8:
The Four Characteristics of Scripture: (4) Sufficiency
Is the Bible enough for knowing what God wants us
to think or do?
PART 2:
THE DOCTRINE OF GOD
127
Chapter 9:
The Existence of God
How do we know that God exists?
141
Chapter 10:
The Knowability of God
Can we really know God? How much of God can we know?
149
Chapter 11:
The Character of God: “Incommunicable” Attributes
156
How is God different from us?
Chapter 12:
The Character of God: “Communicable” Attributes (Part 1)
How is God like us in his being and in mental
and moral attributes?
185
Chapter 13:
The Character of God: “Communicable” Attributes (Part 2)
How is God like us in attributes of will and in attributes
that summarize his excellence?
211
Chapter 14:
God in Three Persons: The Trinity
How can God be three persons, yet one God?
226
Chapter 15:
Creation
Why, how, and when did God create the universe?
262
Chapter 16:
God’s Providence
If God controls all things, how can our actions have real meaning?
What are the decrees of God?
315
Chapter 17:
Miracles
What are miracles? Can they happen today?
355
Chapter 18:
Prayer
Why does God want us to pray? How can we pray effectively?
376
Chapter 19:
Angels
What are angels? Why did God create them?
397
Chapter 20:
Satan and Demons
How should Christians think of Satan and demons today?
Spiritual warfare.
PART 3:
THE DOCTRINE OF MAN
412
Chapter 21:
The Creation of Man
Why did God create us? How did God make us like himself?
How can we please him in everyday living?
439
Chapter 22:
Man as Male and Female
Why did God create two sexes? Can men and women
be equal and yet have different roles?
454
Chapter 23:
The Essential Nature of Man
What does Scripture mean by “soul” and “spirit”?
Are they the same thing?
472
Chapter 24:
Sin
What is sin? Where did it come from? Do we inherit a sinful
nature from Adam? Do we inherit guilt from Adam?
490
Chapter 25:
The Covenants Between God and Man
What principles determine the way God relates to us?
515
PART 4:
THE DOCTRINES OF CHRIST
AND THE HOLY SPIRIT
Chapter 26:
The Person of Christ
How is Jesus fully God and fully man, yet one person?
529
Chapter 27:
The Atonement
Was it necessary for Christ to die? Did Christ’s entire
earthly life earn any saving benefits for us?
The cause and nature of the atonement Did Christ descend into hell?
568
Chapter 28:
Resurrection and Ascension
What was Christ’s resurrection body like?
What is its significance for us? What happened to Christ
when he ascended into heaven? What is meant by the
states of Jesus Christ?
608
Chapter 29:
The Offices of Christ
How is Christ prophet, priest, and king?
624
Chapter 30:
The Work of the Holy Spirit
634
What are the distinctive activities of the Holy Spirit
throughout the history of the Bible?
PART 5:
THE DOCTRINE OF THE APPLICATION
OF REDEMPTION
Chapter 31:
Common Grace
What are the undeserved blessings that God gives to all people,
both believers and unbelievers?
657
Chapter 32:
Election and Reprobation
When and why did God choose us? Are some not chosen?
669
Chapter 33:
The Gospel Call and Effective Calling
What is the gospel message? How does it become effective?
692
Chapter 34:
Regeneration
What does it mean to be born again?
699
Chapter 35:
Conversion (Faith and Repentance)
What is true repentance? What is saving faith?
Can people accept Jesus as Savior and not as Lord?
709
Chapter 36:
Justification (Right Legal Standing Before God)
How and when do we gain right legal standing before God?
722
Chapter 37: Adoption (Membership in God’s Family) 736
What are benefits of being a member of God's family?
Chapter 38: Sanctification (Growth in Likeness to Christ) 746
How do we grow in Christian maturity?
What are the blessings of Christian growth?
Chapter 39: Baptism in and Filling With the Holy Spirit 763
Should we seek a “ baptism in the Holy Spirit ” after conversion?
What does it mean to be filled with the Holy Spirit?
Chapter 40: The Perseverance of the Saints (Remaining a Christian) 788
Can true Christians lose their salvation?
How can we know if we are truly born again?
Chapter 41: Death and the Intermediate State 810
What is the purpose of death in the Christian life?
What happens to our bodies and souls when we die?
Chapter 42: Glorification (Receiving a Resurrection Body) 828
When will we receive resurrection bodies?
What will they be like?
Chapter 43: Union With Christ 840
What does it mean to be “in Christ ” or “ united with Christ ”?
PART 6:
THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
Chapter 44: The Church: Its Nature, Its Marks, and Its Purposes 853
What is necessary to make a church? How can we recognize
a true church? The purposes of the church.
Chapter 45: The Purity and Unity of the Church 873
What makes a church more or less pleasing to God?
What kinds of churches should we cooperate with or join?
Chapter 46 : The Power of the Church 887
What kind of authority does the church have?
How should church discipline function?
Chapter 47: Church Government 904
How should a church be governed? How should church
officers be chosen? Should women serve as pastors of churches?
Chapter 48: Means of Grace Within the Church 950
What are the different activities within the life of the church
that God uses to bring blessing to us? What do we miss
if we neglect involvement in a local church?
Chapter 49: Baptism 955
Who should be baptized? How should it be done?
What does it mean?
Chapter 50: The Lord’s Supper 9 gg
What is the meaning of the Lord's Supper?
How should it be observed?
Chapter 51: Worship 1003
How can our worship fulfill its great purpose in the New Testament
age? What does it mean to worship “in spirit and in truth"?
Chapter 52: Gifts of the Holy Spirit ( 1 ): General Questions 1016
What are spiritual gifts? How many are there? Have some
gifts ceased? Seeking and using spiritual gifts.
Chapter 53: Gifts of the Holy Spirit ( 2 ): Specific Gifts 1049
How should we understand and use specific spiritual gifts?
PART 7:
THE DOCTRINE OF THE FUTURE
Chapter 54: The Return of Christ: When and How? 1091
When and how will Christ return? Could he come back at any hour?
Chapter 55: The Millennium 1109
What is the Millennium? When does it occur?
Will Christians go through the Great Tribulation?
Chapter 56 : The Final Judgment and Eternal Punishment 1 140
Who will be judged? What is hell?
Chapter 57: The New Heavens and New Earth 1158
What is heaven? Is it a place? How will the earth be renewed?
What will it be like to live in the new heavens and new earth?
APPENDIX 1 : HISTORIC CONFESSIONS OF FAITH 1 168
APPENDIX 2 : SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGES
FROM THE NIV AND NASB 1208
APPENDIX 3: CONTEMPORARY WORSHIP SONGS
CLASSIFIED BY CHAPTER 1222
APPENDIX 4: ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
OF EVANGELICAL SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGIES 1224
APPENDIX 5: MASTER LIST OF SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGIES
INDEXED AT THE END OF EACH CHAPTER
1231
APPENDIX 6: THE MONOGENES CONTROVERSY:
“ONLY” OR “ONLY BEGOTTEN”?
1233
GLOSSARY
1235
INDEXES
Author Index
1258
Hymn Index
1266
Scripture Index
1267
Subject Index
1271
ABBREVIATIONS
BAGD
A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Chris-
tian Literature. Ed. Walter Bauer. Rev. and trans. Wm. Arndt, F. W.
Gingrich, and F. Danker. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979.
BDB
A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament. F. Brown, S. R.
Driver, and C. Briggs. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907; reprinted, with
corrections, 1968.
BETS
Bulletin of the Evangelical Theological Society
BibSac
Bibliotheca Sacra
cf.
compare
CRSQ
Creation Research Society Quarterly
CT
Christianity Today
CThRev
Criswell Theological Review
DPCM
Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements. Stanley M.
Burgess and Gary B. McGee, eds. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1988.
EBC
Expositor's Bible Commentary. Frank E. Gaebelein, ed. Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 1976.
ed.
edited by, edition
EDT
Evangelical Dictionary of Theology. Walter Elwell, ed. Grand Rapids:
Baker, 1984.
etal.
and others
IBD
The Illustrated Bible Dictionary. Ed. J. D. Douglas, et al. 3 vols. Leices-
ter: Inter-Varsity Press, and Wheaton: Tyndale House, 1980.
ISBE
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. Revised edition. G. W.
Bromiley, ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982.
JAMA
Journal of the American Medical Association
JBL
Journal of Biblical Literature
JETS
Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
JSOT
Journal for the Study of the Old Testament
KJV
King James Version (Authorized Version)
LSJ
A Greek-English Lexicon , ninth edition. Henry Liddell, Robert Scott,
H. S. Jones, R. McKenzie. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1940.
LXX
Septuagint
mg.
margin or marginal notes
n.
note
n.d.
no date of publication given
n.p.
no place of publication given
13
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
14
NASB
NDT
NIDCC
NIDNTT
NIGTC
NIV
NKJV
NTS
ODCC
rev.
RSV
TB
TDNT
TNTC
TOTC
trans.
TrinJ
vol.
WBC
WTJ
New American Standard Bible
New Dictionary of Theology. S. B. Ferguson, D. F. Wright, J. I. Packer,
eds. Leicester and Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press, 1988.
New International Dictionary of the Christian Church . Ed. J. D. Doug-
las et al. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1974.
The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology . 3 vols.
Colin Brown, gen. ed. Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 1975-78.
New International Greek Testament Commentaries
New International Version
New King James Version
New Testament Studies
Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church . Ed. F. L. Cross. London
and New York: Oxford University Press, 1977.
revised
Revised Standard Version
Tyndale Bulletin
Theological Dictionary of the New Testament 10 vols. G. Kittel and
G. Friedrich, eds.; trans. G. W. Bromiley. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1964-76.
Tyndale New Testament Commentaries
Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries
translated by
Trinity Journal
volume
Word Biblical Commentary
Westminster Theological Journal
PREFACE
I have not written this book for other teachers of theology (though I hope many of
them will read it). I have written it for students — and not only for students, but also for
every Christian who has a hunger to know the central doctrines of the Bible in greater
depth.
This is why I have called the book “An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine.” I have tried
to make it understandable even for Christians who have never studied theology before.
I have avoided using technical terms without first explaining them. And most of the
chapters can be read on their own, so that someone can begin at any chapter and grasp
it without having read the earlier material.
Introductory studies do not have to be shallow or simplistic. I am convinced that most
Christians are able to understand the doctrinal teachings of the Bible in considerable
depth, provided that they are presented clearly and without the use of highly technical
language. Therefore I have not hesitated to treat theological disputes in some detail where
it seemed necessary.
Yet this book, despite its size, is still an introduction to systematic theology. Entire
books have been written about the topics covered in each chapter of this book, and entire
articles have been written about many of the verses quoted in this book. Therefore each
chapter is capable of opening out into additional study in more breadth or more depth
for those who are interested. The bibliographies at the end of each chapter give some help
in that direction.
The following six distinctive features of this book grow out of my convictions about
what systematic theology is and how it should be taught:
1. A Clear Biblical Basis for Doctrines. Because I believe that theology should be
explicitly based on the teachings of Scripture, in each chapter I have attempted to show
where the Bible gives support for the doctrines under consideration. In fact, because I
believe that the words of Scripture themselves have power and authority greater than any
human words, I have not just given Bible references; I have frequently quoted Bible pas-
sages at length so that readers can easily examine for themselves the scriptural evidence
and in that way be like the noble Bereans, who were “examining the scriptures daily to
see if these things were so ’ (Acts 17:11). This conviction about the unique nature of the
Bible as God s words has also led to the inclusion of a Scripture memory passage at the
end of each chapter.
2. Clarity in the Explanation of Doctrines. I do not believe that God intended the
study of theology to result in confusion and frustration. A student who comes out of a
15
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
16
course in theology filled only with doctrinal uncertainty and a thousand unanswered
questions is hardly “able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to confute those
who contradict it” (Titus 1:9). Therefore I have tried to state the doctrinal positions of
this book clearly and to show where in Scripture I find convincing evidence for those
positions. I do not expect that everyone reading this book will agree with me at every
point of doctrine; I do think that every reader will understand the positions I am arguing
for and where Scripture can be found to support those positions.
I think it is only fair to readers of this book to say at the beginning what my own
convictions are regarding certain points that are disputed within evangelical Christi-
anity. I hold to a conservative view of biblical inerrancy, very much in agreement with
the “Chicago Statement” of the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy (chapter 5
and appendix 1, pp. 1203-7), and a traditional Reformed position with regard to ques-
tions of God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility (chapter 16), the extent of the atone-
ment (chapter 27), and the question of predestination (chapter 32). Consistent with the
Reformed view, I hold that those who are truly born again will never lose their salvation
(chapter 40). With regard to male-female relationships, I argue for a view that is neither
traditional nor feminist, but “complementarian” — namely, that God created man and
woman equal in value and personhood, and equal in bearing his image, but that both
creation and redemption indicate some distinct roles for men and women in marriage
(chapter 22) and in the church (chapter 47). On church government, I advocate a modi-
fied congregational form of government, with plural elders in governing positions (chap-
ter 47). I argue for a baptistic view of baptism, namely, that those who give a believable
profession of personal faith should be baptized (chapter 49). I hold that “baptism in the
Holy Spirit” is a phrase best applied to conversion, and subsequent experiences are better
called “being filled with the Holy Spirit” (chapter 39); moreover, that all the gifts of the
Holy Spirit mentioned in the New Testament are still valid for today, but that “apostle”
is an office, not a gift, and that office does not continue today (chapters 52, 53). I believe
that Christ’s second coming could occur any day, that it will be premillennial — that is,
that it will mark the beginning of his thousand-year reign of perfect peace on the earth —
but that it will be post-tribulational — that is, that many Christians will go through the
great tribulation (chapters 54, 55).
This does not mean that I ignore other views. Where there are doctrinal differences
within evangelical Christianity I have tried to represent other positions fairly, to explain
why I disagree with them, and to give references to the best available defenses of the oppos-
ing positions. In fact, I have made it easy for students to find a conservative evangelical
statement on each topic from within their own theological traditions, because each chap-
ter contains an index to treatments of that chapter’s subject in thirty-four other theology
texts classified by denominational background. (If I have failed to represent an opposing
view accurately I would appreciate a letter from anyone who holds that view, and I will
attempt to make corrections if a subsequent edition of this book is published.)
3. Application to Life. I do not believe that God intended the study of theology to be
dry and boring. Theology is the study of God and all his works! Theology is meant to be
lived and prayed and sung! All of the great doctrinal writings of the Bible (such as Paul’s
epistle to the Romans) are full of praise to God and personal application to life. For this
reason I have incorporated notes on application from time to time in the text, and have
added “Questions for Personal Application” at the end of each chapter, as well as a hymn
related to the topic of the chapter. True theology is “teaching which accords with godli-
ness” (1 Tim. 6:3), and theology when studied rightly will lead to growth in our Christian
lives, and to worship.
4. Focus on the Evangelical World. I do not think that a true system of theology can
be constructed from within what we may call the “liberal” theological tradition — that
is, by people who deny the absolute truthfulness of the Bible, or who do not think the
words of the Bible to be God’s very words (see chapter 4, on the authority of Scripture).
For this reason, the other writers I interact with in this book are mostly within what is
today called the larger “conservative evangelical” tradition — from the great Reformers
John Calvin and Martin Luther, down to the writings of evangelical scholars today. I
write as an evangelical and for evangelicals. This does not mean that those in the liberal
tradition have nothing valuable to say; it simply means that differences with them almost
always boil down to differences over the nature of the Bible and its authority. The amount
of doctrinal agreement that can be reached by people with widely divergent bases of
authority is quite limited. I am thankful for my evangelical friends who write extensive
critiques of liberal theology, but I do not think that everyone is called to do that, or that
an extensive analysis of liberal views is the most helpful way to build a positive system
of theology based on the total truthfulness of the whole Bible. In fact, somewhat like the
boy in Hans Christian Andersen’s tale who shouted, “The Emperor has no clothes!” I
think someone needs to say that it is doubtful that liberal theologians have given us any
significant insights into the doctrinal teachings of Scripture that are not already to be
found in evangelical writers.
It is not always appreciated that the world of conservative evangelical scholarship is so
rich and diverse that it affords ample opportunity for exploration of different viewpoints
and insights into Scripture. I think that ultimately we will attain much more depth of
understanding of Scripture when we are able to study it in the company of a great num-
ber of scholars who all begin with the conviction that the Bible is completely true and
absolutely authoritative. The cross-references to thirty-four other evangelical systematic
theologies that I have put at the end of each chapter reflect this conviction: though they
are broken down into seven broad theological traditions (Anglican/Episcopalian, Armin-
ian/Wesleyan/Methodist, Baptist, Dispensational, Lutheran, Reformed/Presbyterian, and
Renewal/Charismatic/ Pentecostal), they all would hold to the inerrancy of the Bible and
would belong to what would be called a conservative evangelical position today. (In addi-
tion to these thirty-four conservative evangelical works, I have also added to each chapter
a section of cross-references to two representative Roman Catholic theologies, because
Roman Catholicism continues to exercise such a significant influence worldwide.)
5. Hope for Progress in Doctrinal Unity in the Church. I believe that there is still
much hope for the church to attain deeper and purer doctrinal understanding, and
to overcome old barriers, even those that have persisted for centuries. Jesus is at work
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
perfecting his church “that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without
spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish’ (Eph.
5:27), and he has given gifts to equip the church “until we all attain to the unity of the
faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God” (Eph. 4:13). Though the past history of
the church may discourage us, these Scriptures remain true, and we should not abandon
hope of greater agreement. In fact, in this century we have already seen much greater
understanding and some greater doctrinal agreement between Covenant and Dispen-
sational theologians, and between charismatics and noncharismatics; moreover, I think
the church’s understanding of biblical inerrancy and of spiritual gifts has also increased
significantly in the last few decades. I believe that the current debate over appropriate
roles for men and women in marriage and the church will eventually result in much
greater understanding of the teaching of Scripture as well, painful though the contro-
versy may be at the present time. Therefore, in this book I have not hesitated to raise
a gain some of the old differences (over baptism, the Lord’s Supper, church government,
the millennium and the tribulation, and predestination, for example) in the hope that,
in some cases at least, a fresh look at Scripture may provoke a new examination of these
doctrines and may perhaps prompt some movement not just toward greater understand-
ing and tolerance of other viewpoints, but even toward greater doctrinal consensus in
the church.
6. A Sense of the Urgent Need for Greater Doctrinal Understanding in the Whole
Church. I am convinced that there is an urgent need in the church today for much greater
understanding of Christian doctrine, or systematic theology. Not only pastors and teach-
ers need to understand theology in greater depth — the whole church does as well. One
day by God’s grace we may have churches full of Christians who can discuss, apply, and
live the doctrinal teachings of the Bible as readily as they can discuss the details of their
own jobs or hobbies — or the fortunes of their favorite sports team or television pro-
gram. It is not that Christians lack the ability to understand doctrine; it is just that they
must have access to it in an understandable form. Once that happens, I think that many
Christians will find that understanding (and living) the doctrines of Scripture is one of
their greatest joys.
Many people have helped me in the writing of this book. First I should mention my
students, past and present, both at Bethel College in St. Paul, Minnesota (1977—81), and
then at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (1981-present). Their thoughtful, insightful
contributions during classroom discussions have influenced every chapter of this book.
God has blessed me with help from some excellent typists. The typing of the manu-
script was started by Sherry Kull several years ago. Later, Mary Morris, Ron Tilley, Kath-
ryn Sheehan, Shelly Mills, Rebecca Heidenreich, Jenny Hart, and Carol Pederson typed
several portions. Then the largest part of the manuscript was typed with great skill and
care by Tammy Thomas, who also helped with some editing. Andi Ledesma and Joyce
Leong cheerfully helped with photocopying many times. Finally, Kim Pennington faith-
fully and accurately typed in the many corrections and changes that came during the
editorial process. I am grateful to all of them for their help.
John O. Stevenson did excellent work in compiling the bibliographies, and Don Roth-
well completed a significant portion of the cross-references to other theology texts. H.
Scott Baldwin, Tom Provenzola, and Mark Rapinchuk were a great help in proofreading
and in library research. Mark Rapinchuk also compiled the indexes of authors and Scrip-
ture references. Beth Manley provided excellent help in proofreading. George Knight
III, Robert Reymond, Harold Hoehner, Robert Saucy, Doug Moo, Tom Nettles, Tom
McComiskey, Doug Halsne, Steve Nicholson, Doug Brandt, Steve Figard, Gregg Allison,
Ellyn Clark, and Terry Mortenson provided detailed comments on different portions.
Raymond Dillard kindly provided me with a computerized text of the Westminster
Confession of Faith. Bruce Shauger solved my computer problems several times, and
Tim McLaughlin repaired my computer at a crucial time. My long-time friend John
Hughes gave me needed advice on computers and manuscript publication several times.
My sons also helped me when deadlines approached: Elliot with library research, and
Oliver and Alexander (and Alexanders friend Matt Tooley) with compiling and correct-
ing the indexes.
One person has had greater influence on the final form of this book than any other:
David Kingdon, Theological Books Editor at Inter-Varsity Press, England, has been help-
ful far beyond my expectations in his work as an astute, conscientious, and wise editor.
He has worked through every chapter with great care, suggesting corrections, additions,
and deletions, and interacting with my arguments in extensive memos. His wide-ranging
knowledge of theology, biblical studies, and the history of doctrine has been of immense
value to me, and the book is much better as a result of his work. Moreover, Frank Entwis-
tle of Inter-Varsity Press and Stan Gundry, Jim Ruark, and Laura Weller of Zondervan
have been gracious and patient with me about many details regarding publication of the
book.
I could not have completed this work without the generous provision of sabbaticals
from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in the fall of 1983, the fall of 1985, the winter
of 1989, and the fall of 1991, and I am grateful to Trinity’s board of directors for allowing
me this time to write. I am also very thankful for the support of my parents, Arden and
Jean Grudem, who generously provided financial help that enabled me to write during
these and other times, and who have also been a constant encouragement to me along
the way, both in their prayers and in their unwavering belief that a book like this— writ-
ten in nontechnical language so that they and thousands of Christians like them could
understand it — would be valuable for the church.
I think that almost everyone who knew me was praying for this project at some time or
other especially my student advisees over several years at Trinity, and many friends in
my church. I have frequently been aware of the Lord’s help in response to those prayers,
giving me health and strength, freedom from interruptions, and an unwavering desire
to complete the book.
Most of all, I am thankful for the support of my wife, Margaret, and my sons, Elliot,
Oliver, and Alexander. They have been patient and encouraging, have prayed for me and
loved me, and continue to be a great source of joy in my life, for which I thank God.
I am sure that this book, like all merely human books, has mistakes and oversights,
and probably some faulty arguments as well. If I knew where they were, I would try to
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
20
correct them! Therefore I would be grateful if any interested readers would send me sug-
gestions for changes and corrections. I do not guarantee that I can acknowledge every
letter, but I will give consideration to the material in every letter and make corrections
where I can.
“O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures for
ever !” (Ps. 118:29).
“ Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory” (Ps. 115:1).
Wayne Grudem
Phoenix Seminary
4222 E. Thomas Road/Suite 400
Phoenix, Arizona 85018
USA
Chapter
INTRODUCTION TO
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
What is systematic theology ?
Why should Christians study it?
How should we study it?
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
A. Definition of Systematic Theology
What is systematic theology? Many different definitions have been given, but for the
purposes of this book the following definition will be used: Systematic theology is any
study that answers the question, “ What does the whole Bible teach us today?” about any
given topic. 1
This definition indicates that systematic theology involves collecting and understand-
ing all the relevant passages in the Bible on various topics and then summarizing their
teachings clearly so that we know what to believe about each topic.
1. Relationship to Other Disciplines. The emphasis of this book will not therefore be on
historical theology (a historical study of how Christians in different periods have under-
stood various theological topics) or philosophical theology (studying theological topics
largely without use of the Bible, but using the tools and methods of philosophical rea-
soning and what can be known about God from observing the universe) or apologetics
^his definition ofsystematic theology is taken from Pro- this point, and to say that he has probably influenced my
fessor John Frame, now of Westminster Seminary in Escon- theological thinking more than anyone else, especially in
dido, California, under whom I was privileged to study in the crucial areas of the nature of systematic theology and the
1971-73 (at Westminster Seminary, Philadelphia). Though doctrine of the Word of God. Many of his former students
it is impossible to acknowledge my indebtedness to him at will recognize echoes of his teaching in the following pages,
every point, it is appropriate to express gratitude to him at especially in those two areas.
21
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
22
(providing a defense of the truthfulness of the Christian faith for the purpose of con-
vincing unbelievers). These three subjects, which are worthwhile subjects for Christians
to pursue, are sometimes also included in a broader definition of the term systematic
theology. In fact, some consideration of historical, philosophical, and apologetic matters
will be found at points throughout this book. This is because historical study informs
us of the insights gained and the mistakes made by others previously in understand-
ing Scripture; philosophical study helps us understand right and wrong thought forms
common in our culture and others; and apologetic study helps us bring the teachings of
Scripture to bear on the objections raised by unbelievers. But these areas of study are not
the focus of this volume, which rather interacts directly with the biblical text in order to
understand what the Bible itself says to us about various theological subjects.
If someone prefers to use the term systematic theology in the broader sense just men-
tioned instead of the narrow sense which has been defined above, it will not make much
difference . 2 Those who use the narrower definition will agree that these other areas of
study definitely contribute in a positive way to our understanding of systematic theology,
and those who use the broader definition will certainly agree that historical theology,
philosophical theology, and apologetics can be distinguished from the process of col-
lecting and synthesizing all the relevant Scripture passages for various topics. Moreover,
even though historical and philosophical studies do contribute to our understanding
of theological questions, only Scripture has the final authority to define what we are to
believe , 3 and it is therefore appropriate to spend some time focusing on the process of
analyzing the teaching of Scripture itself.
Systematic theology, as we have defined it, also differs from Old Testament theology ;
New Testament theology y and biblical theology. These three disciplines organize their top-
ics historically and in the order the topics are presented in the Bible. Therefore, in Old
Testament theology, one might ask, “What does Deuteronomy teach about prayer?” or
“What do the Psalms teach about prayer?” or “What does Isaiah teach about prayer?”
or even, “What does the whole Old Testament teach about prayer and how is that teach-
ing developed over the history of the Old Testament?” In New Testament theology one
might ask, “What does John’s gospel teach about prayer?” or “What does Paul teach about
prayer?” or even “What does the New Testament teach about prayer and what is the his-
torical development of that teaching as it progresses through the New Testament?”
“Biblical theology” has a technical meaning in theological studies. It is the larger
category that contains both Old Testament theology and New Testament theology as
we have defined them above. Biblical theology gives special attention to the teachings of
individual authors and sections of Scripture, and to the place of each teaching in the his-
torical development of Scripture . 4 So one might ask, “What is the historical development
2 Gordon Lewis and Bruce Demarest have coined a new 3 Charles Hodge says, “The Scriptures contain all the Facts
phrase, “integrative theology,” to refer to systematic theology in of Theology” (section heading in Systematic Theology, 1:15).
this broader sense: see their excellent three-volume work, Inte- He argues that ideas gained from intuition or observation or
grative Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1987-94). For each experience are valid in theology only if they are supported by
doctrine, they analyze historical alternatives and relevant bibli- the teaching of Scripture.
cal passages, give a coherent summary of the doctrine, answer 4 The term “biblical theology” might seem to be a
philosophical objections, and give practical application. natural and appropriate one for the process I have called
CHAPTER 1 • INTRODUCTION TO SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
23
of the teaching about prayer as it is seen throughout the history of the Old Testament and
then of the New Testament?” Of course, this question comes very close to the question,
What does the whole Bible teach us today about prayer?” (which would be systematic
theology by our definition). It then becomes evident that the boundary lines between
these various disciplines often overlap at the edges, and parts of one study blend into the
next. Yet there is still a difference, for biblical theology traces the historical development
of a doctrine and the way in which one’s place at some point in that historical develop-
ment affects one’s understanding and application of that particular doctrine. Biblical
theology also focuses on the understanding of each doctrine that the biblical authors and
their original hearers or readers possessed.
Systematic theology, on the other hand, makes use of the material of biblical theology
and often builds on the results of biblical theology. At some points, especially where great
detail and care is needed in the development of a doctrine, systematic theology will even
use a biblical-theological method, analyzing the development of each doctrine through
the historical development of Scripture. But the focus of systematic theology remains dif-
ferent: its focus is on the collection and then the summary of the teaching of all the bibli-
cal passages on a particular subject. Thus systematic theology asks, for example, “What
does the whole Bible teach us today about prayer?” It attempts to summarize the teaching
of Scripture in a brief, understandable, and very carefully formulated statement.
2. Application to Life. Furthermore, systematic theology focuses on summarizing each
doctrine as it should be understood by present-day Christians. This will sometimes involve
the use of terms and even concepts that were not themselves used by any individual bibli-
cal author, but that are the proper result of combining the teachings of two or more bibli-
cal authors on a particular subject. The terms Trinity, incarnation, and deity of Christ, for
example, are not found in the Bible, but they usefully summarize biblical concepts.
Defining systematic theology to include “what the whole Bible teaches us today”
implies that application to life is a necessary part of the proper pursuit of systematic
theology. Thus a doctrine under consideration is seen in terms of its practical value for
living the Christian life. Nowhere in Scripture do we find doctrine studied for its own
sake or in isolation from life. The biblical writers consistently apply their teaching to life.
Therefore, any Christian reading this book should find his or her Christian life enriched
and deepened during this study; indeed, if personal spiritual growth does not occur, then
the book has not been written properly by the author or the material has not been rightly
studied by the reader.
3. Systematic Theology and Disorganized Theology. If we use this definition of sys-
tematic theology, it will be seen that most Christians actually do systematic theology
(or at least make systematic-theological statements) many times a week. For example:
“The Bible says that everyone who believes in Jesus Christ will be saved.” “The Bible says
"systematic theology.” However, its usage in theological stud- to use the term biblical theology to refer to what I have called
ies to refer to tracing the historical development of doctrines systematic theology would only result in confusion,
throughout the Bible is too well established, so that starting now
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
24
that Jesus Christ is the only way to God.” “The Bible says that Jesus is coming again.”
These are all summaries of what Scripture says and, as such, they are systematic-
theological statements. In fact, every time a Christian says something about what the
whole Bible says, he or she is in a sense doing “systematic theology” — according to our
definition — by thinking about various topics and answering the question, “What does
the whole Bible teach us today?” 5
How then does this book differ from the “systematic theology” that most Christians
do? First, it treats biblical topics in a carefully organized way to guarantee that all impor-
tant topics will receive thorough consideration. This organization also provides one
sort of check against inaccurate analysis of individual topics, for it means that all other
doctrines that are treated can be compared with each topic for consistency in methodol-
ogy and absence of contradictions in the relationships between the doctrines. This also
helps to ensure balanced consideration of complementary doctrines: Christ’s deity and
humanity are studied together, for example, as are God’s sovereignty and man’s respon-
sibility, so that wrong conclusions will not be drawn from an imbalanced emphasis on
only one aspect of the full biblical presentation.
In fact, the adjective systematic in systematic theology should be understood to mean
something like “carefully organized by topics,” with the understanding that the topics
studied will be seen to fit together in a consistent way, and will include all the major
doctrinal topics of the Bible. Thus “systematic” should be thought of as the opposite of
“randomly arranged” or “disorganized.” In systematic theology topics are treated in an
orderly or “systematic” way.
A second difference between this book and the way most Christians do systematic
theology is that it treats topics in much more detail than most Christians do. For example,
an ordinary Christian as a result of regular reading of the Bible may make the theological
statement, “The Bible says that everyone who believes in Jesus Christ will be saved.” That
is a perfectly true summary of a major biblical teaching. However, in this book we devote
several pages to elaborating more precisely what it means to “believe in Jesus Christ,” 6
and twelve chapters (chapters 32-43) will be devoted to explaining what it means to “be
saved” in all of the many implications of that term.
Third, a formal study of systematic theology will make it possible to formu-
late summaries of biblical teachings with much more accuracy than Christians would
normally arrive at without such a study. In systematic theology, summaries of biblical
teachings must be worded precisely to guard against misunderstandings and to exclude
false teachings.
Fourth, a good theological analysis must find and treat fairly all the relevant Bible
passages for each particular topic, not just some or a few of the relevant passages. This
5 Robert L. Reymond, "The Justification of Theology
with a Special Application to Contemporary Christology,”
in Nigel M. Cameron, ed., The Challenge of Evangelical
Theology: Essays in Approach and Method (Edinburgh:
Rutherford House, 1987), pp. 82- 104, cites several examples
from the New Testament of this kind of searching through
all of Scripture to demonstrate doctrinal conclusions: Jesus
in Luke 24:25-27 (and elsewhere); Apollos in Acts 18:28;
the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15; and Paul in Acts 17:2-3;
20:27; and all of Romans. To this list could be added Heb. 1
(on Christ’s divine Sonship), Heb. 11 (on the nature of true
faith), and many other passages from the Epistles.
6 See chapter 35, pp. 709-21, on saving faith.
CHAPTER 1 • INTRODUCTION TO SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
25
often means that it must depend on the results of careful exegesis (or interpretation) of
Scripture generally agreed upon by evangelical interpreters or, where there are significant
differences of interpretation, systematic theology will include detailed exegesis at certain
points.
Because of the large number of topics covered in a study of systematic theology and
because of the great detail with which these topics are analyzed, it is inevitable that some-
one studying a systematic theology text or taking a course in systematic theology for
the first time will have many of his or her own personal beliefs challenged or modified,
refined or enriched. It is of utmost importance therefore that each person beginning such
a course firmly resolve in his or her own mind to abandon as false any idea which is found
to be clearly contradicted by the teaching of Scripture. But it is also very important for
each person to resolve not to believe any individual doctrine simply because this textbook
or some other textbook or teacher says that it is true, unless this book or the instructor in
a course can convince the student from the text of Scripture itself. It is Scripture alone,
not “conservative evangelical tradition” or any other human authority, that must
function as the normative authority for the definition of what we should believe.
4. What Are Doctrines? In this book, the word doctrine will be understood in the fol-
lowing way: A doctrine is what the whole Bible teaches us today about some particular topic.
This definition is directly related to our earlier definition of systematic theology, since it
shows that a “doctrine” is simply the result of the process of doing systematic theology
with regard to one particular topic. Understood in this way, doctrines can be very broad or
very narrow. We can speak of “the doctrine of God” as a major doctrinal category, includ-
ing a summary of all that the Bible teaches us today about God. Such a doctrine would be
exceptionally large. On the other hand, we may also speak more narrowly of the doctrine
of God’s eternity, or the doctrine of the Trinity, or the doctrine of God’s justice. 7
The book is divided into seven major sections according to seven major “doctrines”
or areas of study:
Part 1: The Doctrine of the Word of God
Part 2: The Doctrine of God
Part 3 : The Doctrine of Man
Part 4: The Doctrines of Christ and the Holy Spirit
Part 5 : The Doctrine of the Application of Redemption
Part 6: The Doctrine of the Church
Part 7: The Doctrine of the Future
Within each of these major doctrinal categories many more specific teachings have been
selected as appropriate for inclusion. Generally these meet at least one of the following
three criteria: (1) they are doctrines that are most emphasized in Scripture; (2) they
are doctrines that have been most significant throughout the history of the church and
7 The word dogma is an approximate synonym for doctrine , term frequently refers to doctrines that have official church
but I have not used it in this book. Dogma is a term more often endorsement. Dogmatic theology is another term for systematic
used by Roman Catholic and Lutheran theologians, and the theology.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
26
have been important for all Christians at all times; (3) they are doctrines that have
become important for Christians in the present situation in the history of the church
(even though some of these doctrines may not have been of such great interest earlier in
church history). Some examples of doctrines in the third category would be the doctrine
of the inerrancy of Scripture, the doctrine of baptism in the Holy Spirit, the doctrine of
Satan and demons with particular reference to spiritual warfare, the doctrine of spiri-
tual gifts in the New Testament age, and the doctrine of the creation of man as male and
female in relation to the understanding of roles appropriate to men and women today.
Because of their relevance to the contemporary situation, doctrines such as these have
received more emphasis in the present volume than in most traditional textbooks of
systematic theology.
Finally, what is the difference between systematic theology and Christian ethics?
Although there is inevitably some overlap between the study of theology and the study
of ethics, I have tried to maintain a distinction in emphasis. The emphasis of systematic
theology is on what God wants us to believe and to know , while the emphasis in Chris-
tian ethics is on what God wants us to do and what attitudes he wants us to have. Such
a distinction is reflected in the following definition: Christian ethics is any study that
answers the question, “ What does God require us to do and what attitudes does he require us
to have today ?” with regard to any given situation. Thus theology focuses on ideas while
ethics focuses on situations in life. Theology tells us how we should think while ethics
tells us how we should live. A textbook on ethics, for example, would discuss topics such
as marriage and divorce, lying and telling the truth, stealing and ownership of prop-
erty, abortion, birth control, homosexuality, the role of civil government, discipline of
children, capital punishment, war, care for the poor, racial discrimination, and so forth.
Of course there is some overlap: theology must be applied to life (therefore it is often
ethical to some degree). And ethics must be based on proper ideas of God and his world
(therefore it is theological to some degree).
This book will emphasize systematic theology, though it will not hesitate to apply
theology to life where such application comes readily. Still, for a thorough treatment of
Christian ethics, another textbook similar to this in scope would be necessary.
B. Initial Assumptions of This Book
We begin with two assumptions or presuppositions: (1) that the Bible is true and that
it is, in fact, our only absolute standard of truth; (2) that the God who is spoken of in the
Bible exists, and that he is who the Bible says he is: the Creator of heaven and earth and
all things in them. These two presuppositions, of course, are always open to later adjust-
ment or modification or deeper confirmation, but at this point, these two assumptions
form the point at which we begin.
C. Why Should Christians Study Theology?
Why should Christians study systematic theology? That is, why should we engage
in the process of collecting and summarizing the teachings of many individual Bible
passages on particular topics? Why is it not sufficient simply to continue reading the
Bible regularly every day of our lives?
CHAPTER 1 * INTRODUCTION TO SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
27
1. The Basic Reason. Many answers have been given to this question, but too often they
leave the impression that systematic theology somehow can “improve” on the Bible by
doing a better job of organizing its teachings or explaining them more clearly than the
Bible itself has done. Thus we may begin implicitly to deny the clarity of Scripture
(see chapter 6) or the sufficiency of Scripture (see chapter 8).
However, Jesus commanded his disciples and now commands us also to teach
believers to observe all that he commanded:
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of
the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all
that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the
age. (Matt. 28:19-20)
Now to teach all that Jesus commanded, in a narrow sense, is simply to teach the con-
tent of the oral teaching of Jesus as it is recorded in the gospel narratives. However, in a
broader sense, “all that Jesus commanded” includes the interpretation and application
of his life and teachings, because in the book of Acts it is implied that it contains a nar-
rative of what Jesus continued to do and teach through the apostles after his resurrection
(note that 1:1 speaks of “all that Jesus began to do and teach”). “All that Jesus com-
manded” can also include the Epistles, since they were written under the supervision of
the Holy Spirit and were also considered to be a “command of the Lord” (1 Cor. 14:37;
see also John 14:26; 16:13; 1 Thess. 4:15; 2 Peter 3:2; and Rev. 1:1-3). Thus in a larger
sense, “all that Jesus commanded” includes all of the New Testament.
Furthermore, when we consider that the New Testament writings endorse the abso-
lute confidence Jesus had in the authority and reliability of the Old Testament Scriptures
as God’s words (see chapter 4), and when we realize that the New Testament epistles also
endorse this view of the Old Testament as absolutely authoritative words of God, then
it becomes evident that we cannot teach “all that Jesus commanded” without including
all of the Old Testament (rightly understood in the various ways in which it applies to
the new covenant age in the history of redemption) as well.
The task of fulfilling the Great Commission includes therefore not only evangelism
but also teaching. And the task of teaching all that Jesus commanded us is, in a broad
sense, the task of teaching what the whole Bible says to us today. To effectively teach
ourselves and to teach others what the whole Bible says, it is necessary to collect and
summarize all the Scripture passages on a particular subject.
For example, if someone asks me, “What does the Bible teach about Christ’s return?” I
could say, “Just keep reading your Bible and you’ll find out.” But if the questioner begins
reading at Genesis 1:1 it will be a long time before he or she finds the answer to his ques-
tion. By that time many other questions will have needed answers, and his list of unan-
swered questions will begin to grow very long indeed. What does the Bible teach about
the work of the Holy Spirit? What does the Bible teach about prayer? What does the Bible
teach about sin? There simply is not time in our lifetimes to read through the entire Bible
looking for an answer for ourselves every time a doctrinal question arises. Therefore, for
us to learn what the Bible says, it is very helpful to have the benefit of the work of others
who have searched through Scripture and found answers to these various topics.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
28
We can teach others most effectively if we can direct them to the most relevant pas-
sages and suggest an appropriate summary of the teachings of those passages. Then the
person who questions us can inspect those passages quickly for himself or herself and
learn much more rapidly what the teaching of the Bible is on a particular subject. Thus
the necessity of systematic theology for teaching what the Bible says comes about pri-
marily because we are finite in our memory and in the amount of time at our disposal.
The basic reason for studying systematic theology, then, is that it enables us to teach
ourselves and others what the whole Bible says, thus fulfilling the second part of the
Great Commission.
2. The Benefits to Our Lives. Although the basic reason for studying systematic theol-
ogy is that it is a means of obedience to our Lord’s command, there are some additional
specific benefits that come from such study.
First, studying theology helps us overcome our wrong ideas . If there were no sin in
our hearts, we could read the Bible from cover to cover and, although we would not
immediately learn everything in the Bible, we would most likely learn only true things
about God and his creation. Every time we read it we would learn more true things and
we would not rebel or refuse to accept anything we found written there. But with sin in
our hearts we retain some rebelliousness against God. At various points there are — for
all of us — biblical teachings which for one reason or another we do not want to accept.
The study of systematic theology is of help in overcoming those rebellious ideas.
For example, suppose there is someone who does not want to believe that Jesus is
personally coming back to earth again. We could show this person one verse or perhaps
two that speak of Jesus’ return to earth, but the person might still find a way to evade the
force of those verses or read a different meaning into them. But if we collect twenty-five
or thirty verses that say that Jesus is coming back to earth personally and write them all
out on paper, our friend who hesitated to believe in Christ’s return is much more likely
to be persuaded by the breadth and diversity of biblical evidence for this doctrine. Of
course, we all have areas like that, areas where our understanding of the Bible’s teaching
is inadequate. In these areas, it is helpful for us to be confronted with the total weight of
the teaching of Scripture on that subject, so that we will more readily be persuaded even
against our initial wrongful inclinations.
Second, studying systematic theology helps us to be able to make better decisions
later on new questions of doctrine that may arise. We cannot know what new doctrinal
controversies will arise in the churches in which we will live and minister ten, twenty, or
thirty years from now, if the Lord does not return before then. These new doctrinal con-
troversies will sometimes include questions that no one has faced very carefully before.
Christians will be asking, “What does the whole Bible say about this subject?” (The
precise nature of biblical inerrancy and the appropriate understanding of biblical
teaching on gifts of the Holy Spirit are two examples of questions that have arisen in our
century with much more forcefulness than ever before in the history of the church.)
Whatever the new doctrinal controversies are in future years, those who have learned
systematic theology well will be much better able to answer the new questions that
arise. The reason for this is that everything that the Bible says is somehow related to
CHAPTER 1 ■ INTRODUCTION TO SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
everything else the Bible says (for it all fits together in a consistent way, at least within
God’s own understanding of reality, and in the nature of God and creation as they really
are). Thus the new question will be related to much that has already been learned from
Scripture. The more thoroughly that earlier material has been learned, the better able
we will be to deal with those new questions.
This benefit extends even more broadly. We face problems of applying Scripture to
life in many more contexts than formal doctrinal discussions. What does the Bible teach
about husband-wife relationships? About raising children? About witnessing to a friend
at work? What principles does Scripture give us for studying psychology, or economics,
or the natural sciences? How does it guide us in spending money, or in saving, or in tith-
ing? In every area of inquiry certain theological principles will come to bear, and those
who have learned well the theological teachings of the Bible will be much better able to
make decisions that are pleasing to God.
A helpful analogy at this point is that of a jigsaw puzzle. If the puzzle represents “what
the whole Bible teaches us today about everything” then a course in systematic theology
would be like filling in the border and some of the major items pictured in the puzzle.
But we will never know everything that the Bible teaches about everything, so our jigsaw
puzzle will have many gaps, many pieces that remain to be put in. Solving a new real-life
problem is analogous to filling in another section of the jigsaw puzzle: the more pieces
one has in place correctly to begin with, the easier it is to fit new pieces in, and the less
apt one is to make mistakes. In this book the goal is to enable Christians to put into
their “theological jigsaw puzzle” as many pieces with as much accuracy as possible, and
to encourage Christians to go on putting in more and more correct pieces for the rest of
their lives. The Christian doctrines studied here will act as guidelines to help in the fill-
ing in of all other areas, areas that pertain to all aspects of truth in all aspects of life.
Third, studying systematic theology will help us grow as Christians . The more we
know about God, about his Word, about his relationships to the world and mankind, the
better we will trust him, the more fully we will praise him, and the more readily we will
obey him. Studying systematic theology rightly will make us more mature Christians.
If it does not do this, we are not studying it in the way God intends.
In fact, the Bible often connects sound doctrine with maturity in Christian living:
Paul speaks of “the teaching which accords with godliness” (1 Tim. 6:3) and says that his
work as an apostle is “to further the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth
which accords with godliness ” (Titus 1:1). By contrast, he indicates that all kinds of
disobedience and immorality are “contrary to sound doctrine” (1 Tim. 1:10).
In connection with this idea it is appropriate to ask what the difference is between
a “major doctrine” and a “minor doctrine.” Christians often say they want to seek
agreement in the church on major doctrines but also to allow for differences on minor
doctrines. I have found the following guideline useful:
A major doctrine is one that has a significant impact on our thinking about
other doctrines, or that has a significant impact on how we live the Christian
life. A minor doctrine is one that has very little impact on how we think about
other doctrines, and very little impact on how we live the Christian life.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
30
By this standard doctrines such as the authority of the Bible (chapter 4), the Trinity
(chapter 14), the deity of Christ (chapter 26), justification by faith (chapter 36), and
many others would rightly be considered major doctrines. People who disagree with
the historic evangelical understanding of any of these doctrines will have wide areas of
difference with evangelical Christians who affirm these doctrines. By contrast, it seems
to me that differences over forms of church government (chapter 47) or some details
about the Lords Supper (chapter 50) or the timing of the great tribulation (chapter 55)
concern minor doctrines. Christians who differ over these things can agree on perhaps
every other area of doctrine, can live Christian lives that differ in no important way, and
can have genuine fellowship with one another.
Of course, we may find doctrines that fall somewhere between “major” and “minor”
according to this standard. For example, Christians may differ over the degree of sig-
nificance that should attach to the doctrine of baptism (chapter 49) or the millennium
(chapter 55) or the extent of the atonement (chapter 27). That is only natural, because
many doctrines have some influence on other doctrines or on life, but we may differ over
whether we think it to be a “significant” influence. We could even recognize that there
will be a range of significance here and just say that the more influence a doctrine has on
other doctrines and on life, the more “major” it becomes. This amount of influence may
even vary according to the historical circumstances and needs of the church at any given
time. In such cases, Christians will need to ask God to give them mature wisdom and
sound judgment as they try to determine to what extent a doctrine should be considered
“major” in their particular circumstances.
D. A Note on Two Objections to the Study of Systematic Theology
1. “The Conclusions Are ‘Too Neat’ to be True.” Some scholars look with suspicion at
systematic theology when — or even because — its teachings fit together in a noncontra-
dictory way. They object that the results are “too neat” and that systematic theologians
must therefore be squeezing the Bible’s teachings into an artificial mold, distorting the
true meaning of Scripture to get an orderly set of beliefs.
To this objection two responses can be made: (1) We must first ask the people making
the objection to tell us at what specific points Scripture has been misinterpreted, and
then we must deal with the understanding of those passages. Perhaps mistakes have
been made, and in that case there should be corrections.
Yet it is also possible that the objector will have no specific passages in mind, or no
clearly erroneous interpretations to point to in the works of the most responsible evan-
gelical theologians. Of course, incompetent exegesis can be found in the writings of the
less competent scholars in any field of biblical studies, not just in systematic theology,
but those “bad examples” constitute an objection not against the scholar’s field but
against the incompetent scholar himself.
It is very important that the objector be specific at this point because this objec-
tion is sometimes made by those who — perhaps unconsciously — have adopted from
our culture a skeptical view of the possibility of finding universally true conclusions
about anything, even about God from his Word. This kind of skepticism regarding
CHAPTER 1 ■ INTRODUCTION TO SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
31
theological truth is especially common in the modern university world where “system-
atic theology” — if it is studied at all — is studied only from the perspectives of philo-
sophical theology and historical theology (including perhaps a historical study of the
various ideas that were believed by the early Christians who wrote the New Testament,
and by other Christians at that time and throughout church history). In this kind of
intellectual climate the study of “systematic theology” as defined in this chapter would
be considered impossible, because the Bible would be assumed to be merely the work of
many human authors who wrote out of diverse cultures and experiences over the course
of more than one thousand years: trying to find “what the whole Bible teaches” about
any subject would be thought nearly as hopeless as trying to find “what all philosophers
teach” about some question, for the answer in both cases would be thought to be not
one view but many diverse and often conflicting views. This skeptical viewpoint must be
rejected by evangelicals who see Scripture as the product of human and divine author-
ship, and therefore as a collection of writings that teach noncontradictory truths about
God and about the universe he created.
(2) Second, it must be answered that in Gods own mind, and in the nature of reality
itself, true facts and ideas are all consistent with one another. Therefore if we have accu-
rately understood the teachings of God in Scripture we should expect our conclusions
to “fit together” and be mutually consistent. Internal consistency, then, is an argument
for, not against, any individual results of systematic theology.
2. “The Choice of Topics Dictates the Conclusions.” Another general objection to sys-
tematic theology concerns the choice and arrangement of topics, and even the fact that
such topically arranged study of Scripture, using categories sometimes different from
those found in Scripture itself, is done at all. Why are these theological topics treated rather
than just the topics emphasized by the biblical authors, and why are the topics arranged in
this way rather than in some other way? Perhaps — this objection would say — our tradi-
tions and our cultures have determined the topics we treat and the arrangement of topics,
so that the results of this systematic-theological study of Scripture, though acceptable in
our own theological tradition, will in fact be untrue to Scripture itself.
A variant of this objection is the statement that our starting point often determines
our conclusions on controversial topics: if we decide to start with an emphasis on
the divine authorship of Scripture, for example, we will end up believing in biblical
inerrancy, but if we start with an emphasis on the human authorship of Scripture, we
will end up believing there are some errors in the Bible. Similarly, if we start with an
emphasis on Gods sovereignty, we will end up as Calvinists, but if we start with an
emphasis on man's ability to make free choices, we will end up as Arminians, 8 and so
forth. This objection makes it sound as if the most important theological questions
could probably be decided by flipping a coin to decide where to start, since different and
equally valid conclusions will inevitably be reached from the different starting points.
Those who make such an objection often suggest that the best way to avoid this
problem is not to study or teach systematic theology at all, but to limit our topical
8 See chapter 16, pp. 315, 337-51, for a discussion of the
terms Calvinist and Arminian.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
32
studies to the field of biblical theology, treating only the topics and themes the biblical
authors themselves emphasize and describing the historical development of these bibli-
cal themes through the Bible.
In response to this objection, much of the discussion in this chapter about the neces-
sity to teach Scripture will be relevant. Our choice of topics need not be restricted to the
main concerns of the biblical authors, for our goal is to find out what God requires of
us in all areas of concern to us today.
For example, it was not the main concern of any New Testament author to explain
such topics as “baptism in the Holy Spirit,” or women’s roles in the church, or the doc-
trine of the Trinity, but these are valid areas of concern for us today, and we must look
at all the places in Scripture that have relevance for those topics (whether those specific
terms are mentioned or not, and whether those themes are of primary concern to each
passage we examine or not) if we are going to be able to understand and explain to others
“what the whole Bible teaches” about them.
The only alternative — for we will think something about those subjects — is to form our
opinions haphazardly from a general impression of what we feel to be a “biblical” position
on each subject, or perhaps to buttress our positions with careful analysis of one or two
relevant texts, yet with no guarantee that those texts present a balanced view of “the whole
counsel of God” (Acts 20:27) on the subject being considered. In fact this approach — one
all too common in evangelical circles today — could, I suppose, be called “unsystematic
theology” or even “disorderly and random theology” ! Such an alternative is too subjective
and too subject to cultural pressures. It tends toward doctrinal fragmentation and wide-
spread doctrinal uncertainty, leaving the church theologically immature, like “children,
tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine” (Eph. 4:14).
Concerning the objection about the choice and sequence of topics, there is nothing
to prevent us from going to Scripture to look for answers to any doctrinal questions,
considered in any sequence. The sequence of topics in this book is a very common one
and has been adopted because it is orderly and lends itself well to learning and teaching.
But the chapters could be read in any sequence one wanted and the conclusions should
not be different, nor should the persuasiveness of the arguments — if they are rightly
derived from Scripture — be significantly diminished. In fact, I suspect that most read-
ers of this book will not read it through from chapter 1 to chapter 57, but will begin with
the chapters of most interest to them, and read others later. That does not really matter,
because I have tried to write the chapters so that they can be read as independent units,
and I have added cross-references to sections in other chapters where relevant. Whether
one reads the chapter on the new heavens and new earth (chapter 57) first or last or
somewhere in between, the arguments will be the same, the Scripture passages quoted
for support will be the same, and the conclusions should be the same.
E. How Should Christians Study Systematic Theology?
How then should we study systematic theology? The Bible provides some guidelines
for answering this question.
CHAPTER 1 ♦ INTRODUCTION TO SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1. We Should Study Systematic Theology With Prayer. If studying systematic theology is
simply a certain way of studying the Bible, then the passages in Scripture that talk about
the way in which we should study Gods Word give guidance to us in this task. Just as the
psalmist prays in Psalm 119:18, “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out
of your law,” so we should pray and seek God’s help in understanding his Word. Paul tells
us in 1 Corinthians 2:14 that “the unspiritual man does not receive the gifts of the Spirit
of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are
spiritually discerned .” Studying theology is therefore a spiritual activity in which we need
the help of the Holy Spirit.
No matter how intelligent, if the student does not continue to pray for God to give
him or her an understanding mind and a believing and humble heart, and the student
does not maintain a personal walk with the Lord, then the teachings of Scripture will be
misunderstood and disbelieved, doctrinal error will result, and the mind and heart of the
student will not be changed for the better but for the worse. Students of systematic theol-
ogy should resolve at the beginning to keep their lives free from any disobedience to God
or any known sin that would disrupt their relationship with him. They should resolve to
maintain with great regularity their own personal devotional lives. They should continu-
ally pray for wisdom and understanding of Scripture.
Since it is the Holy Spirit who gives us the ability rightly to understand Scripture, we
need to realize that the proper thing to do, particularly when we are unable to understand
some passage or some doctrine of Scripture, is to pray for God’s help. Often what we need
is not more data but more insight into the data we already have available. This insight is
given only by the Holy Spirit (cf. 1 Cor. 2:14; Eph. 1:17-19).
2. We Should Study Systematic Theology With Humility. Peter tells us, “Clothe your-
selves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for ‘God opposes the proud, but
gives grace to the humble’ ” (1 Peter 5:5). Those who study systematic theology will learn
many things about the teachings of Scripture that are perhaps not known or not known
well by other Christians in their churches or by relatives who are older in the Lord than
they are. They may also find that they understand things about Scripture that some of
their church officers do not understand, and that even their pastor has perhaps forgotten
or never learned well.
In all of these situations it would be very easy to adopt an attitude of pride or superi-
ority toward others who have not made such a study. But how ugly it would be if anyone
were to use this knowledge of God’s Word simply to win arguments or to put down a fel-
low Christian in conversation, or to make another believer feel insignificant in the Lord’s
work. James counsel is good for us at this point: “Let every man be quick to hear, slow
to speak, slow to anger, for the anger of man does not work the righteousness of God”
(James 1:19-20). He tells us that one’s understanding of Scripture is to be imparted in
humility and love:
Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good life let him show his
works in the meekness of wisdom. . . . But the wisdom from above is first pure,
then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, without
uncertainty or insincerity. And the harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by
those who make peace. (James 3:13, 17- 18)
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
34
Systematic theology rightly studied will not lead to the knowledge that “puffs up”
(1 Cor. 8:1) but to humility and love for others.
3. We Should Study Systematic Theology With Reason. We find in the New Testament
that Jesus and the New Testament authors will often quote a verse of Scripture and then
draw logical conclusions from it. They reason from Scripture. It is therefore not wrong to
use human understanding, human logic, and human reason to draw conclusions from
the statements of Scripture. Nevertheless, when we reason and draw what we think to
be correct logical deductions from Scripture, we sometimes make mistakes. The deduc-
tions we draw from the statements of Scripture are not equal to the statements of Scrip-
ture themselves in certainty or authority, for our ability to reason and draw conclusions
is not the ultimate standard of truth — only Scripture is.
What then are the limits on our use of our reasoning abilities to draw deductions from
the statements of Scripture? The fact that reasoning to conclusions that go beyond the mere
statements of Scripture is appropriate and even necessary for studying Scripture, and the
fact that Scripture itself is the ultimate standard of truth, combine to indicate to us that we
are free to use our reasoning abilities to draw deductions from any passage of Scripture so long
as these deductions do not contradict the clear teaching of some other passage of Scripture . 9
This principle puts a safeguard on our use of what we think to be logical deductions
from Scripture. Our supposedly logical deductions may be erroneous, but Scripture
itself cannot be erroneous. Thus, for example, we may read Scripture and find that God
the Father is called God (1 Cor. 1:3), that God the Son is called God (John 20:28; Titus
2:13), and that God the Holy Spirit is called God (Acts 5:3-4). We might deduce from
this that there are three Gods. But then we find the Bible explicitly teaching us that
God is one (Deut. 6:4; James 2:19). Thus we conclude that what we thoughtto be a valid
logical deduction about three Gods was wrong and that Scripture teaches both (a) that
there are three separate persons (the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit), each of whom
is fully God, and (b) that there is one God.
We cannot understand exactly how these two statements can both be true, so together
they constitute a paradox (“a seemingly contradictory statement that may nonetheless be
true”). 10 We can tolerate a paradox (such as “God is three persons and one God”) because
we have confidence that ultimately God knows fully the truth about himself and about
the nature of reality, and that in his understanding the different elements of a paradox are
fully reconciled, even though at this point God’s thoughts are higher than our thoughts
(Isa. 55:8-9). But a true contradiction (such as, “God is three persons and God is not
9 This guideline is also adopted from Professor John Frame
at Westminster Seminary (see p. 21).
10 The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language ,
ed. William Morris (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1980), p. 950
(first definition). Essentially the same meaning is adopted by
the Oxford English Dictionary (1913 ed., 7:450), the Concise
Oxford Dictionary (1981 ed., p. 742), the Random House Col-
lege Dictionary (1979 ed., p. 964), and the Chambers Twentieth
Century Dictionary (p. 780), though all note that paradox can
also mean “contradiction” (though less commonly); compare
the Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Paul Edwards (New York:
Macmillan and The Free Press, 1967), 5:45, and the entire
article “Logical Paradoxes” by John van Heijenoort on pp.
45-51 of the same volume, which proposes solutions to
many of the classical paradoxes in the history of philosophy.
(If paradox meant “contradiction,” such solutions would be
impossible.)
When I use the word paradox in the primary sense defined
by these dictionaries today I realize that I am differing some-
what with the article “Paradox” by K. S. Kantzer in the EDT,
CHAPTER 1 • INTRODUCTION TO SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
three persons ) would imply ultimate contradiction in God’s own understanding of
himself or of reality, and this cannot be.
When the psalmist says, “The sum of your word is truth; and every one of your righ-
teous ordinances endures for ever” (Ps. 119:160), he implies that God’s words are not
only true individually but also viewed together as a whole. Viewed collectively, their
sum is also “truth.” Ultimately, there is no internal contradiction either in Scripture
or in God’s own thoughts.
4. We Should Study Systematic Theology With Help From Others. We need to be
thankful that God has put teachers in the church (“And God has appointed in the church
first apostles, second prophets, third teachers . . .” [1 Cor. 12:28]. We should allow those
with gifts of teaching to help us understand Scripture. This means that we should make
use of systematic theologies and other books that have been written by some of the teach-
ers that God has given to the church over the course of its history. It also means that our
study of theology should include talking with other Christians about the things we study.
Among those with whom we talk will often be some with gifts of teaching who can
explain biblical teachings clearly and help us to understand more easily. In fact, some
of the most effective learning in systematic theology courses in colleges and seminaries
often occurs outside the classroom in informal conversations among students who are
attempting to understand Bible doctrines for themselves.
5. We Should Study Systematic Theology by Collecting and Understanding All the
Relevant Passages of Scripture on Any Topic. This point was mentioned in our defini-
tion of systematic theology at the beginning of the chapter, but the actual process needs
to be described here. How does one go about making a doctrinal summary of what all
the passages of Scripture teach on a certain topic? For topics covered in this book, many
people will think that studying the chapters in this book and reading the Bible verses
noted in the chapters is enough. But some people will want to do further study of Scrip-
ture on a particular topic or study some new topic not covered here. How could a student
ed. Walter Elwell, pp. 826-27 (which takes paradox to mean
essentially “contradiction”). However, I am using paradox in
an ordinary English sense and one also familiar in philosophy.
There seems to me to be available no better word than paradox
to refer to an apparent but not real contradiction.
There is, however, some lack of uniformity in the use of
the term paradox and a related term, antinomy , in contem-
porary evangelical discussion. The word antinomy has some-
times been used to apply to what I here call paradox , that is,
“seemingly contradictory statements that may nonetheless
both be true” (see, for example, John Jefferson Davis, Theol-
ogy Primer [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1981], p. 18). Such a sense
for antinomy gained support in a widely read book, Evange-
lism and the Sovereignty of God, by J. I. Packer (London: Inter-
Varsity Press, 1961). On pp. 18-22 Packer defines antinomy
as “an appearance of contradiction” (but admits on p. 18 that
his definition differs with the Shorter Oxford Dictionary ). My
problem with using antinomy in this sense is that the word
is so unfamiliar in ordinary English that it just increases the
stock of technical terms Christians have to learn in order to
understand theologians, and moreover such a sense is unsup-
ported by any of the dictionaries cited above, all of which
define antinomy to mean “contradiction” (e.g., Oxford English
Dictionary, 1:371). The problem is not serious, but it would
help communication if evangelicals could agree on uniform
senses for these terms.
A paradox is certainly acceptable in systematic theology,
and paradoxes are in fact inevitable so long as we have finite
understanding of any theological topic. However, it is impor-
tant to recognize that Christian theology should never affirm
a contradiction (a set of two statements, one of which denies
the other). A contradiction would be, “God is three persons
and God is not three persons” (where the term persons has the
same sense in both halves of the sentence).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
36
go about using the Bible to research its teachings on some new subject, perhaps one not
discussed explicitly in any of his or her systematic theology textbooks?
The process would look like this: (1) Find all the relevant verses. The best help in this
step is a good concordance, which enables one to look up key words and find the verses
in which the subject is treated. For example, in studying what it means that man is cre-
ated in the image and likeness of God, one needs to find all the verses in which “image”
and “likeness” and “create” occur. (The words “man” and “God” occur too often to be
useful for a concordance search.) In studying the doctrine of prayer, many words could
be looked up {pray, prayer, intercede , petition, supplication, confess, confession, praise,
thanks, thanksgiving, et al.) — and perhaps the list of verses would grow too long to be
manageable, so that the student would have to skim the concordance entries without
looking up the verses, or the search would probably have to be divided into sections or
limited in some other way. Verses can also be found by thinking through the overall his-
tory of the Bible and then turning to sections where there would be information on the
topic at hand — for example, a student studying prayer would want to read passages like
the one about Hannah’s prayer for a son (in 1 Sam. 1), Solomon’s prayer at the dedication
of the temple (in 1 Kings 8), Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane (in Matt. 26 and
parallels), and so forth. Then in addition to concordance work and reading other pas-
sages that one can find on the subject, checking the relevant sections in some systematic
theology books will often bring to light other verses that had been missed, sometimes
because none of the key words used for the concordance were in those verses. 11
(2) The second step is to read, make notes on, and try to summarize the points made
in the relevant verses. Sometimes a theme will be repeated often and the summary of
the various verses will be relatively easy. At other times, there will be verses difficult
to understand, and the student will need to take some time to study a verse in depth
(just by reading the verse in context over and over, or by using specialized tools such as
commentaries and dictionaries) until a satisfactory understanding is reached.
(3) Finally, the teachings of the various verses should be summarized into one or
more points that the Bible affirms about that subject. The summary does not have to
take the exact form of anyone else’s conclusions on the subject, because we each may see
things in Scripture that others have missed, or we may organize the subject differently
or emphasize different things.
On the other hand, at this point it is also helpful to read related sections, if any can be
found, in several systematic theology books. This provides a useful check against error
and oversight, and often makes one aware of alternative perspectives and arguments
that may cause us to modify or strengthen our position. If a student finds that others
have argued for strongly differing conclusions, then these other views need to be stated
fairly and then answered. Sometimes other theology books will alert us to historical or
philosophical considerations that have been raised before in the history of the church,
and these will provide additional insight or warnings against error.
n I have read a number of student papers telling me that four times in reference to Jesus praying in John 14, 16, and 17.
John’s gospel says nothing about how Christians should pray, for They overlooked the fact that John contains several important
example, because they looked at a concordance and found that verses where the word ask rather than the word pray is used
the word prayer was not in John, and the word pray only occurs (John 14:13- 14; 15:7, 16, et al.).
CHAPTER 1 • INTRODUCTION TO SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
37
The process outlined above is possible for any Christian who can read his or her
Bible and can look up words in a concordance. Of course people will become faster and
more accurate in this process with time and experience and Christian maturity, but it
would be a tremendous help to the church if Christians generally would give much more
time to searching out topics in Scripture for themselves and drawing conclusions in the
way outlined above. The joy of discovery of biblical themes would be richly rewarding.
Especially pastors and those who lead Bible studies would find added freshness in their
understanding of Scripture and in their teaching.
6. We Should Study Systematic Theology With Rejoicing and Praise. The study of
theology is not merely a theoretical exercise of the intellect. It is a study of the living
God, and of the wonders of all his works in creation and redemption. We cannot study
this subject dispassionately! We must love all that God is, all that he says and all that he
does. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart” (Deut. 6:5). Our response
to the study of the theology of Scripture should be that of the psalmist who said, “How
precious to me are your thoughts, O God!” (Ps. 139:17). In the study of the teachings of
God’s Word, it should not surprise us if we often find our hearts spontaneously breaking
forth in expressions of praise and delight like those of the psalmist:
The precepts of the Lord are right,
rejoicing the heart. (Ps. 19:8)
In the way of your testimonies I delight
as much as in all riches. (Ps. 119:14)
How sweet are your words to my taste,
sweeter than honey to my mouth! (Ps. 119:103)
Your testimonies are my heritage for ever;
yea, they are the joy of my heart. (Ps. 119:111)
I rejoice at your word
like one who finds great spoil. (Ps. 119:162)
Often in the study of theology the response of the Christian should be similar to that
of Paul in reflecting on the long theological argument that he has just completed at the
end of Romans 11:32. He breaks forth into joyful praise at the richness of the doctrine
which God has enabled him to express:
O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearch-
able are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
“For who has known the mind of the Lord,
or who has been his counselor?”
“Or who has given a gift to him
that he might be repaid?”
For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory
for ever. Amen. (Rom. 11:33 - 36)
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
38
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
These questions at the end of each chapter focus on application to life. Because I think
doctrine is to be felt at the emotional level as well as understood at the intellectual level,
in many chapters I have included some questions about how a reader feels regarding a
point of doctrine. I think these questions will prove quite valuable for those who take
the time to reflect on them.
1. In what ways (if any) has this chapter changed your understanding of what system-
atic theology is? What was your attitude toward the study of systematic theology
before reading this chapter? What is your attitude now?
2. What is likely to happen to a church or denomination that gives up learning sys-
tematic theology for a generation or longer? Has that been true of your church?
3. Are there any doctrines listed in the Contents for which a fuller understanding
would help to solve a personal difficulty in your life at the present time? What are
the spiritual and emotional dangers that you personally need to be aware of in
studying systematic theology?
4. Pray for God to make this study of basic Christian doctrines a time of spiritual
growth and deeper fellowship with him, and a time in which you understand and
apply the teachings of Scripture rightly.
SPECIAL TERMS
apologetics
biblical theology
Christian ethics
contradiction
doctrine
dogmatic theology
historical theology
major doctrine
BIBLIOGRAPHY
In these bibliographies I have usually listed only works written from what would today
be called a conservative evangelical position. This is because the purpose of this section
is to give the student ready access to other treatments of each topic by theologians who
share with this book the same general convictions about the nature of Scripture — that
all of it is totally truthful and that it is God’s unique and absolutely authoritative Word to
us. Once we step outside of that conviction, the variety of theological positions becomes
amazingly large, and sufficient bibliographies are easily found in the more recent works
cited below. (However, I have also included two representative Roman Catholic works
minor doctrine
New Testament theology
Old Testament theology
paradox
philosophical theology
presupposition
systematic theology
CHAPTER 1 • INTRODUCTION TO SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
39
because of the great influence of the Roman Catholic Church in almost every society in
the world.)
Writers are grouped according to broad denominational categories, and the writers
within the groups are arranged chronologically. Of course, the categories below are
not airtight, for there is often overlap — many Anglicans and many Baptists are theo-
logically “Reformed” while others in those groups are theologically “Arminian”; many
Dispensationalists are also Baptists, while others are Presbyterians, and so forth. Yet
the categories are fairly representative of distinguishable theological traditions within
evangelicalism.
Dates given are the dates of publication of the final edition of each author’s system-
atic theology or major theological writing. Where no single major theological work was
published, the dates represent the years during which the author was actively teaching
and writing about systematic theology. Complete bibliographical data may be found on
pp. 1224-30.
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1882-92 Litton, 1-8
1930 Thomas, xvii-xxviii, 146-52
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1875-76
Pope, 1:3-32,42-46
1892-94
Miley, 1:2-54
1940
Wiley, 1:13-123
1960
Purkiser, 19-38
1983
Carter, 1:19-101
1987-90
Oden, 1:11 -14, 375-406
3. Baptist
1767
Gill, l:vii-xxx
1887
Boyce, 1-8
1907
Strong, 1-51
1917
Mullins, 1-136
1976-83
Henry, 1:13-411; 6:7-34
1983-85
Erickson, 9- 149
1987-94
Lewis/Demarest, 1:13-123
4. Dispensational
1947
Chafer, 1:3-17
1949
Thiessen, 1-20
1986
Ryrie, 9-22
5. Lutheran
1917-24
Pieper, 1:3-190
1934
Mueller, 1-89
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
40
6. Reformed (or Presbyterian) 12
1559
Calvin, 1:3-33, 35-43 (prefaces and 1.1-2)
1724-58
Edwards, 2:157-63
1861
Heppe, 1-11,42-47
1871-73
Hodge, 1:1-150
1878
Dabney, 133-44
1887-1921
Warfield, SSW, 2:207-320
1889
Shedd, 1:3-58; 3:1-26
1937-66
Murray, CW, 1:3-8, 169-73; CW, 4:1-21
1938
Berkhof, Intro., 15-128, 170-86
1962
Buswell, 1:13-26
7. Renewal (or charismatic/Pentecostal)
1988-92 Williams, 1:11-28
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
1. Roman Catholic: Traditional
1955 Ott, 1-10
2. Roman Catholic: Post-Vatican II
1980 McBrien, 1:3-78, 183-200
Other Works
Baker, D. L. “Biblical Theology” In NDT, p. 671.
Berkhof, Louis. Introduction to Systematic Theology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982,
pp. 15-75 (first published 1932).
Bray, Gerald L., ed. Contours of Christian Theology. Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press,
1993.
. “Systematic Theology, History of.” In NDT, pp. 671-72.
Cameron, Nigel M., ed. The Challenge of Evangelical Theology: Essays in Approach and
Method. Edinburgh: Rutherford House, 1987.
Carson, D. A. “Unity and Diversity in the New Testament: The Possibility of Systematic
Theology.” In Scripture and Truth. Ed. by D. A. Carson and John Woodbridge. Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 1983, pp. 65-95.
Davis, John Jelferson. Foundations of Evangelical Theology. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1984.
. The Necessity of Systematic Theology. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980.
. Theology Primer: Resources for the Theological Student. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1981.
Demarest, Bruce. “Systematic Theology.” In EDT, pp. 1064-66.
12 In the Reformed category I have cross-referenced (Wheaton, 111.: Tyndale House, 1993), but I have not cross-
eleven systematic theologies (those listed in this chap- referenced them at the end of every chapter, because they are
ter plus Bavinck in some chapters). Two other very well- written for more popular audiences than the other Reformed
written Reformed works are Foundations of the Christian works listed and because I thought that eleven Reformed the-
Faith by James Montgomery Boice (Downers Grove, 111.: ologies were already enough to give a sufficient sampling of
InterVarsity Press, 1986) and Concise Theology by J. I. Packer Reformed thought.
CHAPTER 1 • INTRODUCTION TO SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
Erickson, Millard. Concise Dictionary of Christian Theology. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1986.
Frame, John. Van Til the Theologian. Phillipsburg, N.J.: Pil grim, 1976 .
Geehan, E. R., ed. Jerusalem and Athens. Nutley, N.J.: Craig Press, 1971.
Grenz, Stanley J. Revisioning Evangelical Theology: A Fresh Agenda for the 21st Century.
Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press, 1993.
House, H. Wayne. Charts of Christian Theology and Doctrine. Grand Rapids: Zondervan,
1992.
Kuyper, Abraham. Principles of Sacred Theology. Trans, by J. H. DeVries. Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1968 (reprint; first published as Encyclopedia of Sacred Theology in
1898).
Machen, J. Gresham. Christianity and Liberalism. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1923. (This
180-page book is, in my opinion, one of the most significant theological studies ever
written. It gives a clear overview of major biblical doctrines and shows the vital dif-
ferences with Protestant liberal theology at every point, differences that still confront
us today. It is required reading in all my introductory theology classes.)
Morrow, T. W. “Systematic Theology.” In NDT, p. 671.
Poythress, Vern. Symphonic Theology: The Validity of Multiple Perspectives in Theology.
Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1987.
Preus, Robert D. The Theology of Post-Reformation Lutheranism: A Study of Theological
Prolegomena. 2 vols. St. Louis: Concordia, 1970.
Van Til, Cornelius. In Defense of the Faith, vol. 5: An Introduction to Systematic Theology.
N.p.: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1976, pp. 1-61, 253-62.
. The Defense of the Faith. Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1955.
Vos, Geerhardus. The Idea of Biblical Theology as a Science and as a Theological Disci-
pline.” In Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation, pp. 3-24. Ed. by Richard
Gaffin. Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1980 (article first published
1894).
Warfield, B. B. “The Indispensableness of Systematic Theology to the Preacher.” In Selected
Shorter Writings of Benjamin B. Warfield, 2:280-88. Ed. by John E. Meeter. Nutley,
N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1973 (article first published 1897).
. The Right of Systematic Theology.” In Selected Shorter Writings of Benjamin
B. Warfield, 2:21—279. Ed. by John E. Meeter. Nutley, N.J.: Presbyterian and
Reformed, 1973 (article first published 1896).
Wells, David. No Place for Truth, or, Whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology ? Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993.
Woodbridge, John D., and Thomas E. McComiskey, eds. Doing Theology in Today’s World:
Essays in Honor of Kenneth S. Kantzer. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1991.
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
Students have repeatedly mentioned that one of the most valuable parts of any of
their courses in college or seminary has been the Scripture passages they were required
to memorize. “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you” (Ps.
119.11 NIV). In each chapter, therefore, I have included an appropriate memory passage
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
42
so that instructors may incorporate Scripture memory into the course requirements
wherever possible. (Scripture memory passages at the end of each chapter are taken from
the RSV. These same passages in the NIV and NASB may be found in appendix 2.)
Matthew 28:18-20: And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on
earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them
in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all
that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age. n
HYMN
Systematic theology at its best will result in praise. It is appropriate therefore at the end
of each chapter to include a hymn related to the subject of that chapter. In a classroom
setting, the hymn can be sung together at the beginning or end of class. Alternatively, an
individual reader can sing it privately or simply meditate quietly on the words.
For almost every chapter the words of the hymns were found in Trinity Hymnal
(Philadelphia: Great Commission Publications, 1990), 13 the hymnal of the Presbyterian
Church in America and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, but most of them are found
in many other common hymnals. Unless otherwise noted, 14 the words of these hymns
are now in public domain and no longer subject to copyright restrictions: therefore they
may be freely copied for overhead projector use or photocopied.
Why have I used so many old hymns? Although I personally like many of the more
recent worship songs that have come into wide use, when I began to select hymns that
would correspond to the great doctrines of the Christian faith, I realized that the great
hymns of the church throughout history have a doctrinal richness and breadth that is
still unequaled. For several of the chapters in this book, I know of no modern worship
song that covers the same subject in an extended way — perhaps this can be a challenge to
modern songwriters to study these chapters and then write songs reflecting the teaching
of Scripture on the respective subjects. 15
For this chapter, however, I found no hymn ancient or modern that thanked God for
the privilege of studying systematic theology from the pages of Scripture. Therefore I
have selected a hymn of general praise, which is always appropriate.
“O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing”
This hymn by Charles Wesley (1707-88) begins by wishing for “a thousand tongues”
to sing God’s praise. Verse 2 is a prayer that God would “assist me” in singing his praise
throughout the earth. The remaining verses give praise to Jesus (vv. 3-6) and to God
the Father (v. 7).
13 This hymn book is completely revised from a similar hym- permission from the owner of the copy right,
nal of the same title published by the Orthodox Presbyterian 15 In appendix 3 (pp. 1222-23) I have listed the first lines
Church in WW 1961 . of contemporary worship songs that correspond to twenty-six
14 Copyright restrictions still apply to the hymns in chap- of the fifty-seven chapters in this book,
ters 21, 37, and 5, and these may not be reproduced without
CHAPTER 1 • INTRODUCTION TO SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
43
O for a thousand tongues to sing
My great Redeemer’s praise,
The glories of my God and King,
The triumphs of His grace.
My gracious Master and my God,
Assist me to proclaim,
To spread through all the earth abroad,
The honors of Thy name.
Jesus! the name that charms our fears,
That bids our sorrows cease;
’Tis music in the sinner s ears,
’Tis life and health and peace.
He breaks the powr of reigning sin,
He sets the prisoner free;
His blood can make the foulest clean;
His blood availed for me.
He speaks and, list’ning to His voice,
New life the dead receive;
The mournful, broken hearts rejoice;
The humble poor believe.
Hear him, ye deaf; his praise, ye dumb,
Your loosened tongues employ,
Ye blind, behold your Savior come;
And leap, ye lame, for joy.
Glory to God and praise and love
Be ever, ever giv’n
By saints below and saints above —
The church in earth and heav’n.
AUTHOR: CHARLES WESLEY, 1739, ALT.
Part
THE DOCTRINE
OF THE WORD
OF GOD
Chapter
THE WORD OF GOD
What are the different forms
of the Word of God?
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
What is meant by the phrase the Word of God”? Actually, there are several different
meanings taken by this phrase in the Bible. It is helpful to distinguish these different
senses clearly at the beginning of this study.
A. “The Word of God” as a Person: Jesus Christ
Sometimes the Bible refers to the Son of God as “the Word of God.” In Revelation
19.13, John sees the risen Lord Jesus in heaven and says, “The name by which he is called
is The Word of God.” Similarly, in the beginning of John’s gospel we read, “In the begin-
ning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). It
is clear that John is speaking of the Son of God here, because in verse 14 he says, “And
the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his
glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father.” These verses (and perhaps 1 John 1:1) are
the only instances where the Bible refers to God the Son as “the Word” or “the Word of
God ,” so this usage is not common. But it does indicate that among the members of the
Trinity it is especially God the Son who in his person as well as in his words has the role
of communicating the character of God to us and of expressing the will of God for us.
B. “The Word of God” as Speech by God
1. God s Decrees. Sometimes God s words take the form of powerful decrees that cause
events to happen or even cause things to come into being. “And God said, ‘Let there be
light ; and there was light (Gen. 1:3). God even created the animal world by speaking
his powerful word: And God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth living creatures accord-
ing to their kinds: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their
47
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
kinds.’ And it was so” (Gen. 1:24). Thus, the psalmist can say, “By the word of the Lord the
heavens were made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth” (Ps. 33:6).
These powerful, creative words from God are often called God’s decrees. A decree of God
is a word of God that causes something to happen. These decrees of God include not only the
events of the original creation but also the continuing existence of all things, for Hebrews
1:3 tells us that Christ is continually “upholding the universe by his word of power.”
2. God’s Words of Personal Address. God sometimes communicates with people on
earth by speaking directly to them. These can be called instances of God’s Word of
personal address. Examples are found throughout Scripture. At the very beginning of
creation God speaks to Adam: “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, ‘You
may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die’ ” (Gen. 2:16-17). After
the sin of Adam and Eve, God still comes and speaks directly and personally to them
in the words of the curse (Gen. 3:16-19). Another prominent example of God’s direct
personal address to people on earth is found in the giving of the Ten Commandments:
“And God spoke all these words , saying, ‘I am the Lord your God, who brought you out
of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before
me . . .’” (Ex. 20:1-3). In the New Testament, at Jesus’ baptism, God the Father spoke
with a voice from heaven, saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased”
(Matt. 3:17).
In these and several other instances where God spoke words of personal address to indi-
vidual people it was clear to the hearers that these were the actual words of God: they were
hearing God’s very voice, and they were therefore hearing words that had absolute divine
authority and that were absolutely trustworthy. To disbelieve or disobey any of these words
would have been to disbelieve or disobey God and therefore would have been sin.
Though the words of God’s personal address are always seen in Scripture to be the
actual words of God, they are also “human” words in that they are spoken in ordinary
human language that is immediately understandable. The fact that these words are spo-
ken in human language does not limit their divine character or authority in any way: they
are still entirely the words of God, spoken by the voice of God himself.
Some theologians have argued that since human language is always in some sense
“imperfect,” any message that God addresses to us in human language must also be
limited in its authority or truthfulness. But these passages and many others that record
instances of God’s words of personal address to individuals give no indication of any lim-
itation of the authority or truthfulness of God’s words when they are spoken in human
language. Quite the contrary is true, for the words always place an absolute obligation
upon the hearers to believe them and to obey them fully. To disbelieve or disobey any
part of them is to disbelieve or disobey God himself.
3. God’s Words as Speech Through Human Lips. Frequently in Scripture God raises
up prophets through whom he speaks. Once again, it is evident that although these
are human words, spoken in ordinary human language by ordinary human beings,
the authority and truthfulness of these words is in no way diminished: they are still
completely God’s words as well.
CHAPTER 2 • THE WORD OF GOD
49
In Deuteronomy 18, God says to Moses:
I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brethren; and /
will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command
him. And whoever will not give heed to my words which he shall speak in my
name, I myself will require it of him. But the prophet who presumes to speak a
word in my name which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in
the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die. (Deut. 18:18-20)
God made a similar statement to Jeremiah: “Then the Lord put forth his hand and
touched my mouth; and the Lord said to me, ‘Behold, I have put my words in your mouth’ ”
(Jer. 1:9). God tells Jeremiah, “Whatever I command you you shall speak” (Jer. 1:7; see also
Ex. 4:12; Num. 22:38; 1 Sam. 15:3, 18, 23; 1 Kings 20:36; 2 Chron. 20:20; 25:15-16; Isa.
30:12-14; Jer. 6:10—12; 36:29—31, et al.). Anyone who claimed to be speaking for the
Lord but who had not received a message from him was severely punished (Ezek. 13:1-7;
Deut. 18:20-22).
Thus God’s words spoken through human lips were considered to be just as authorita-
tive and just as true as God’s words of personal address. There was no diminishing of the
authority of these words when they were spoken through human lips. To disbelieve or
disobey any of them was to disbelieve or disobey God himself.
4. God’s Words in Written Form (the Bible) . In addition to God’s words of decree, God’s
words of personal address, and God s words spoken through the lips of human beings, we
also find in Scripture several instances where God’s words were put in written form. The
first of these is found in the narrative of the giving of the two tablets of stone on which
were written the Ten Commandments: “And he gave to Moses, when he had made an end
of speaking with him upon Mount Sinai, the two tables of the testimony, tables of stone,
written with the finger of God” (Ex. 31:18). “And the tables were the work of God, and the
writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables” (Ex. 32:16; 34:1, 28).
Further writing was done by Moses:
And Moses wrote this law, and gave it to the priests the sons of Levi, who
carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and to all the elders of Israel. And
Moses commanded them, “At the end of every seven years . . . you shall read
this law before all Israel in their hearing . . . that they may hear and learn to
fear the Lord your God, and be careful to do all the words of this law, and that
their children, who have not known it, may hear and learn to fear the Lord your
God. ...” (Deut. 31:9-13)
This book which Moses wrote was then deposited by the side of the ark of the covenant:
When Moses had finished writing the words of this law in a book, to the very end, Moses
commanded the Levites who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord, ‘Take this book
of the law, and put it by the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it
may be there for a witness against you’ ” (Deut. 31:24-26).
Further additions were made to this book of God’s words. “And Joshua wrote these
words in the book of the law of God” (Josh. 24:26). God commanded Isaiah, “And now,
go, write it before them on a tablet, and inscribe it in a book, that it may be for the time
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
50
to come as a witness for ever” (Isa. 30:8). Once again, God said to Jeremiah, “ Write in a
book all the words that I have spoken to you” (Jer. 30:2; cf. Jer. 36:2-4, 27-31; 51:60). In
the New Testament, Jesus promises his disciples that the Holy Spirit would bring to their
remembrance the words which he, Jesus, had spoken (John 14:26; cf. 16:12-13). Paul
can say that the very words he writes to the Corinthians are “a command of the Lord”
(1 Cor. 14:37; cf. 2 Peter 3:2).
Once again it must be noted that these words are still considered to be God’s own
words, even though they are written down mostly by human beings and always in
human language. Still, they are absolutely authoritative and absolutely true: to disobey
them or disbelieve them is a serious sin and brings judgment from God (1 Cor. 14:37;
Jer. 36:29-31).
Several benefits come from the writing down of God’s words. First, there is a much
more accurate preservation of God’s words for subsequent generations. To depend on
memory and the repeating of oral tradition is a less reliable method of preserving these
words throughout history than is their recording in writing (cf. Deut. 31:12-13). Second,
the opportunity for repeated inspection of words that are written down permits careful
study and discussion, which leads to better understanding and more complete obedi-
ence. Third, God’s words in writing are accessible to many more people than they are when
preserved merely through memory and oral repetition. They can be inspected at any time
by any person and are not limited in accessibility to those who have memorized them or
those who are able to be present when they are recited orally. Thus, the reliability, per-
manence, and accessibility of the form in which God’s words are preserved are all greatly
enhanced when they are written down. Yet there is no indication that their authority or
truthfulness is diminished.
C. The Focus of Our Study
Of all the forms of the Word of God, 1 the focus of our study in systematic theology
is God’s Word in written form, that is, the Bible. This is the form of God’s Word that
is available for study, for public inspection, for repeated examination, and as a basis for
mutual discussion. It tells us about and points us to the Word of God as a person, namely
Jesus Christ, whom we do not now have present in bodily form on earth. Thus, we are no
longer able to observe and imitate his life and teachings firsthand.
The other forms of the Word of God are not suitable as the primary basis for the
study of theology. We do not hear God’s words of decree and thus cannot study them
directly but only through observation of their effects. God’s words of personal address are
uncommon, even in Scripture. Furthermore, even if we did hear some words of personal
address from God to ourselves today, we would not have certainty that our understand-
iln addition to the forms of God’s Word mentioned above, that comes through the inner sense of right and wrong in
God communicates to people through different types of every person’s heart (Rom. 2:15). These kinds of revelation are
“general revelation” — that is, revelation that is given not just nonverbal in form, and I have not included them in the list of
to certain people but to all people generally. General revela- various forms of the Word of God discussed in this chapter,
tion includes both the revelation of God that comes through (See chapter 7, pp. 122-24, for further discussion of general
nature (see Ps. 19:1-6; Acts 14:17) and the revelation of God revelation.)
CHAPTER 2 • THE WORD OF GOD
ing of it, our memory of it, and our subsequent report of it was wholly accurate. Nor
would we be readily able to convey to others the certainty that the communication was
from God, even if it was. God’s words as spoken through human lips ceased to be given
when the New Testament canon was completed. 2 Thus, these other forms of God’s words
are inadequate as a primary basis for study in theology.
It is most profitable for us to study God’s words as written in the Bible. It is God’s
written Word that he commands us to study. The man is “blessed” who “meditates” on
God’s law “day and night” (Ps. 1:1-2). God’s words to Joshua are also applicable to us:
“This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day
and night, that you may be careful to do all that is written in it; for then you shall make
your way prosperous, and then you shall have good success” (Josh. 1:8). It is the Word
of God in the form of written Scripture that is “God-breathed” and “useful for teaching,
rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16 NIV).
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. Do you think you would pay more attention if God spoke to you from heaven
or through the voice of a living prophet than if he spoke to you from the written
words of Scripture? Would you believe or obey such words more readily than you
do Scripture? Do you think your present level of response to the written words of
Scripture is an appropriate one? What positive steps can you take to make your
attitude toward Scripture more like the kind of attitude God wants you to have?
2. When you think about the many ways in which God speaks and the frequency with
which God communicates with his creatures through these means, what conclu-
sions might you draw concerning the nature of God and the things that bring
delight to him?
SPECIAL TERMS
decree personal address
Word of God
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter
1, pp. 38-39. Complete bibliographical data may be found on pp. 1224-30.) The subject
of this chapter has not been treated explicitly in many systematic theologies, but similar
material is often covered in the section on the authority of the Word of God: see the
bibliography at the end of chapter 4 for that subject.
2 See chapter 3, pp. 54- 72, on the canon of Scripture, and,
for a discussion of the nature of contemporary Christian
prophecy, see chapter 53, pp. 1049-61.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
52
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1882 -92 Litton, 9-10
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1940 Wiley, 1:124-65
3. Baptist
1917 Mullins, 137-53
6. Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1861 Heppe, 12-21
1889 Shedd, 1:61-70
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
No explicit treatment.
Other Works
Kline, Meredith. The Structure of Biblical Authority. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972.
Kuyper, Abraham. Principles of Sacred Theology. Trans, by J. H. de Vries. Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1968, pp. 405-12 (originally published as Encyclopedia of Sacred
Theology in 1898).
McDonald, H. D. Theories of Revelation: An Historical Study, 1860-1960. Grand Rapids:
Baker, 1979.
. “Word, Word of God, Word of the Lord.” In EDT, pp. 1185-88.
Packer, J. I. “Scripture.” In NDT, pp. 585-87.
Pinnock, C. H. “Revelation.” In NDT, pp. 585-87.
Vos, Geerhardus. Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1948, pp. 28-55; 321-27.
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
Ps. 1:1-2: Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
CHAPTER 2 • THE WORD OF GOD
53
HYMN
“Break Thou the Bread of Life”
This hymn is a prayer asking the Lord to give us not physical bread but spiritual nour-
ishment from the “bread of life,” a metaphor referring both to the written Word of God
(“the sacred page,” v. 1) and to Christ himself, the “Living Word” (see w. 1, 3).
Break thou the bread of life, dear Lord, to me.
As thou didst break the loaves beside the sea;
Throughout the sacred page I seek thee. Lord,
My spirit pants for thee, O Living Word.
Bless thou the truth, dear Lord, to me, to me,
As thou didst bless the bread by Galilee;
Then shall all bondage cease, all fetters fall;
And I shall find my peace, my all in all.
Thou art the bread of life, O Lord, to me.
Thy holy Word the truth that saveth me;
Give me to eat and live with thee above;
Teach me to love thy truth, for thou art love.
O send thy Spirit, Lord, now unto me.
That he may touch mine eyes, and make me see:
Show me the truth concealed within thy Word,
And in thy Book revealed I see the Lord.
AUTHOR: MARY A. LATHBURY, 1877
Chapter
THE CANON OF SCRIPTURE
What belongs in the Bible and
what does not belong?
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
The previous chapter concluded that it is especially the written words of God in the
Bible to which we are to give our attention. Before we can do this, however, we must know
which writings belong in the Bible and which do not. This is the question of the canon
of Scripture, which may be defined as follows: The canon of Scripture is the list of all the
books that belong in the Bible.
We must not underestimate the importance of this question. The words of Scripture
are the words by which we nourish our spiritual lives. Thus we can reaffirm the comment
of Moses to the people of Israel in reference to the words of God’s law: “For it is no trifle
for you, but it is your life , and thereby you shall live long in the land which you are going
over the Jordan to possess” (Deut. 32:47).
To add to or subtract from God’s words would be to prevent God’s people from obey-
ing him fully, for commands that were subtracted would not be known to the people, and
words that were added might require extra things of the people which God had not com-
manded. Thus Moses warned the people of Israel, “You shall not add to the word which I
command you, nor take from it; that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your
God which I command you” (Deut. 4:2).
The precise determination of the extent of the canon of Scripture is therefore of the
utmost importance. If we are to trust and obey God absolutely we must have a collec-
tion of words that we are certain are God’s own words to us. If there are any sections of
Scripture about which we have doubts whether they are God’s words or not, we will not
consider them to have absolute divine authority and we will not trust them as much as
we would trust God himself.
54
A. The Old Testament Canon
CHAPTER 3 • THE CANON OF SCRIPTURE
55
Where did the idea of a canon begin — the idea that the people of Israel should
preserve a collection of written words from God? Scripture itself bears witness to the
historical development of the canon. The earliest collection of written words of God
was the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments thus form the beginning of
the biblical canon. God himself wrote on two tablets of stone the words which he com-
manded his people: “And he gave to Moses, when he had made an end of speaking with
him upon Mount Sinai, the two tables of the testimony, tables of stone, written with the
finger of God” (Ex. 31:18). Again we read, “And the tables were the work of God, and the
writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables” (Ex. 32:16; cf. Deut. 4:13; 10:4).
The tablets were deposited in the ark of the covenant (Deut. 10:5) and constituted the
terms of the covenant between God and his people. 1
This collection of absolutely authoritative words from God grew in size throughout
the time of Israel’s history. Moses himself wrote additional words to be deposited beside
the ark of the covenant (Deut. 31:24—26). The immediate reference is apparently to the
book of Deuteronomy, but other references to writing by Moses indicate that the first
four books of the Old Testament were written by him as well (see Ex. 17:14; 24:4; 34:27;
Num. 33:2; Deut. 31:22). After the death of Moses, Joshua also added to the collection of
written words of God: “Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God” (Josh.
24:26). This is especially surprising in light of the command not to add to or take away
from the words which God gave the people through Moses: “You shall not add to the
word which I command you, nor take from it . . .” (Deut. 4:2; cf. 12:32). In order to have
disobeyed such a specific command, Joshua must have been convinced that he was not
taking it upon himself to add to the written words of God, but that God himself had
authorized such additional writing.
Later, others in Israel, usually those who fulfilled the office of prophet, wrote
additional words from God:
Samuel told the people the rights and duties of the kingship; and he wrote them
in a book and laid it up before the Lord. (1 Sam. 10:25)
The acts of King David, from first to last, are written in the Chronicles of
Samuel the seer, and in the Chronicles of Nathan the prophet, and in the Chron-
icles of Gad the seer. (1 Chron. 29:29)
Now the rest of the acts of Jehoshaphat, from first to last, are written in the
chronicles of Jehu the son of Hanani, which are recorded in the Book of the
Kings of Israel. (2 Chron. 20:34; cf. 1 Kings 16:7 where Jehu the son of Hanani
is called a prophet)
Now the rest of the acts of Uzziah, from first to last, Isaiah the prophet the son
of Amoz wrote. (2 Chron. 26:22)
'See Meredith Kline, The Structure of Biblical Author-
ity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972), esp. pp. 48-53 and
113-30.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
56
Now the rest of the acts of Hezekiah, and his good deeds, behold, they are writ-
ten in the vision of Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz, in the Book of the Kings
of Judah and Israel. (2 Chron. 32:32)
Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Write in a book all the words that I have
spoken to you. 2 (Jer. 30:2)
The content of the Old Testament canon continued to grow until the time of the
end of the writing process. If we date Haggai to 520 B.C., Zechariah to 520-518 B.C.
(with perhaps more material added after 480 B.C.), and Malachi around 435 B.C., we
have an idea of the approximate dates of the last Old Testament prophets. Roughly coin-
ciding with this period are the last books of Old Testament history — Ezra, Nehemiah,
and Esther. Ezra went to Jerusalem in 458 B.C., and Nehemiah was in Jerusalem from
445-433 B.C. 3 Esther was written sometime after the death of Xerxes-I (= Ahasuerus)
in 465 B.C., and a date during the reign of Artaxerxes I (464-423 B.C.) is probable.
Thus, after approximately 435 B.C. there were no further additions to the Old Testament
canon. The subsequent history of the Jewish people was recorded in other writings, such
as the books of the Maccabees, but these writings were not thought worthy to be included
with the collections of God’s words from earlier years.
When we turn to Jewish literature outside the Old Testament, we see that the belief that
divinely authoritative words from God had ceased is clearly attested in several different
strands of extrabiblical Jewish literature. In 1 Maccabees (about 100 B.C.) the author writes
of the defiled altar, “So they tore down the altar and stored the stones in a convenient place
on the temple hill until there should come a prophet to tell what to do with them” (1 Macc.
4:45-46). They apparently knew of no one who could speak with the authority of God as
the Old Testament prophets had done. The memory of an authoritative prophet among
the people was one that belonged to the distant past, for the author could speak of a great
distress “such as had not been since the time that prophets ceased to appear among them”
(1 Macc. 9:27; cf. 14:41).
Josephus (born c. A.D. 37/38) explained, “From Artaxerxes to our own times a com-
plete history has been written, but has not been deemed worthy of equal credit with the
earlier records, because of the failure of the exact succession of the prophets” ( Against
Apion 1.41). This statement by the greatest Jewish historian of the first century A.D.
shows that he knew of the writings now considered part of the “Apocrypha,” but that
he (and many of his contemporaries) considered these other writings “not . . . worthy
of equal credit” with what we now know as the Old Testament Scriptures. There had
been, in Josephus’s viewpoint, no more “words of God” added to Scripture after about
435 B.C.
Rabbinic literature reflects a similar conviction in its repeated statement that the Holy
Spirit (in the Spirit’s function of inspiring prophecy) departed from Israel. “After the
latter prophets Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi had died, the Holy Spirit departed from
2 For other passages that illustrate the growth in the collec- a prophet,
tion of written words from God see 2 Chron. 9:29; 12:15; 13:22; 3 See “Chronology of the Old Testament,” in IBD ,
Isa. 30:8; Jer. 29:1; 36:1-32; 45:1; 51:60; Ezek. 43:11; Dan. 7:1; 1:277.
Hab. 2:2. Additions to it were usually through the agency of
CHAPTER 3 • THE CANON OF SCRIPTURE
Israel, but they still availed themselves of the bath qdl” (Babylonian Talmud, Yomah 9b,
repeated in Sota 48b, Sanhedrin 11a, and Midrash Rabbah on Song of Songs, 8.9.3). 4
The Qumran community (the Jewish sect that left behind the Dead Sea Scrolls) also
awaited a prophet whose words would have authority to supersede any existing regula-
tions (see 1 QS 9.11), and other similar statements are found elsewhere in ancient Jewish
literature (see 2 Baruch 85.3 and Prayer of Azariah 15). Thus, writings subsequent to
about 435 B.C. were not accepted by the Jewish people generally as having equal authority
with the rest of Scripture.
In the New Testament, we have no record of any dispute between Jesus and the Jews
over the extent of the canon. Apparently there was full agreement between Jesus and his
disciples, on the one hand, and the Jewish leaders or Jewish people, on the other hand,
that additions to the Old Testament canon had ceased after the time of Ezra, Nehemiah,
Esther, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. This fact is confirmed by the quotations of Jesus
and the New Testament authors from the Old Testament. According to one count, Jesus
and the New Testament authors quote various parts of the Old Testament Scriptures as
divinely authoritative over 295 times, 5 but not once do they cite any statement from the
• books of the Apocrypha or any other writings as having divine authority. 6 The absence of
any such reference to other literature as divinely authoritative, and the extremely frequent
reference to hundreds of places in the Old Testament as divinely authoritative, gives strong
confirmation to the fact that the New Testament authors agreed that the established Old
Testament canon, no more and no less, was to be taken as God’s very words.
What then shall be said about the Apocrypha, the collection of books included in >
the canon by the Roman Catholic Church but excluded from the canon by Protestant-
ism? 7 These books were never accepted by the Jews as Scripture, but throughout the
early history of the church there was a divided opinion on whether they should be part
of Scripture or not. In fact, the earliest Christian evidence is decidedly against viewing
the Apocrypha as Scripture, but the use of the Apocrypha gradually increased in some
parts of the church until the time of the Reformation. 8 The fact that these books were
4 That “the Holy Spirit” is primarily a reference to divinely
authoritative prophecy is clear both from the fact that the bath
qdl (a voice from heaven) is seen as a substitute for it, and from
the very frequent use of “the Holy Spirit” to refer to prophecy
elsewhere in Rabbinic literature.
5 See Roger Nicole, “New Testament Use of the Old Testa-
ment,” in Revelation and the Bible , ed. Carl F. H. Henry (Lon-
don: Tyndale Press, 1959), pp. 137-41.
6 Jude 14-15 does cite 1 Enoch 60.8 and 1.9, and Paul at
least twice quotes pagan Greek authors (see Acts 17:28; Titus
1:12), but these citations are more for purposes of illustration
than proof. Never are the works introduced with a phrase like,
“God says,” or “Scripture says,” or “it is written,” phrases that
imply the attribution of divine authority to the words cited. (It
should be noted that neither 1 Enoch nor the authors cited by
Paul are part of the Apocrypha.) No book of the Apocrypha is
even mentioned in the New Testament.
7 The Apocrypha includes the following writings: 1 and 2
Esdras, Tobit, Judith, the Rest of Esther, the Wisdom of Solo-
mon, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch (including the Epistle of Jere-
miah), the Song of the Three Holy Children, Susanna, Bel and
the Dragon, the Prayer of Manasseh, and 1 and 2 Maccabees.
These writings are not found in the Hebrew Bible, but they
were included with the Septuagint (the translation of the Old
Testament into Greek, which was used by many Greek-speak-
ing Jews at the time of Christ). A good modern translation is
The Oxford Annotated Apocrypha (RSV), ed. Bruce M. Metzger
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1965). Metzger includes
brief introductions and helpful annotations to the books.
The Greek word apocrypha means “things that are hid-
den,” but Metzger notes (p. ix) that scholars are not sure why
this word came to be applied to these writings.
8 A detailed historical survey of the differing views of Chris-
tians regarding the Apocrypha is found in F. F. Bruce, The
Canon of Scripture (Downers Grove, 111. : InterVarsity Press,
1988), pp. 68-97. An even more detailed study is found in
Roger Beckwith, The Old Testament Canon of the New Testa-
ment Church and Its Background in Early Judaism (London:
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
58
included by Jerome in his Latin Vulgate translation of the Bible (completed in A.D. 404)
gave support to their inclusion, even though Jerome himself said they were not “books of
the canon” but merely “books of the church” that were helpful and useful for believers.
The wide use of the Latin Vulgate in subsequent centuries guaranteed their continued
accessibility, but the lack of any known Hebrew text behind most of them, and their
exclusion from the Jewish canon, as well as the lack of their citation in the New Testa-
ment, led many to view them with suspicion or to reject their authority. For instance,
the earliest Christian list of Old Testament books that exists today is by Melito, bishop of
Sardis, writing about A.D. 170: 9
When I came to the east and reached the place where these things were
preached and done, and learnt accurately the books of the Old Testament, I
set down the facts and sent them to you. These are their names: five books of
Moses, Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Joshua the son of
Nun, Judges, Ruth, four books of Kingdoms, 10 two books of Chronicles, the
Psalms of David, the Proverbs of Solomon and his Wisdom, 11 Ecclesiastes, the
Song of Songs, Job, the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, the Twelve in a single book,
Daniel, Ezekiel, Ezra. 12
It is noteworthy here that Melito names none of the books of the Apocrypha, but he
includes all of our present Old Testament books except Esther. 13 Eusebius also quotes
Origen as affirming most of the books of our present Old Testament canon (including
Esther), but no book of the Apocrypha is affirmed as canonical, and the books of Mac-
cabees are explicitly said to be “outside of these [canonical books] ” 14 Similarly, in A.D.
367, when the great church leader Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, wrote his Paschal
Letter, he listed all the books of our present New Testament canon and all the books of
our present Old Testament canon except Esther. He also mentioned some books of the
Apocrypha such as the Wisdom of Solomon, the Wisdom of Sirach, Judith, and Tobit,
and said these are “not indeed included in the Canon, but appointed by the Fathers
SPCK, 1985, and Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), esp. pp.
338-433. Beckwith’s book has now established itself as the
definitive work on the Old Testament canon. At the conclusion
of his study Beckwith says, “The inclusion of various Apocrypha
and Pseudepigrapha in the canon of the early Christians was not
done in any agreed way or at the earliest period, but occurred
in Gentile Christianity, after the church’s breach with the syna-
gogue, among those whose knowledge of the primitive Christian
canon was becoming blurred.” He concludes, “On the question
of the canonicity of the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha the truly
primitive Christian evidence is negative” (pp. 436-37).
9 From Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 4.26.14. Eusebius,
writing in A.D. 325, was the first great church historian. This
quotation is from the translation by Kirsopp Lake, Eusebius:
The Ecclesiastical History, two vols. (London: Heinemann; and
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard, 1975), 1:393.
10 That is, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, and 2 Kings.
u This does not refer to the apocryphal book called the
Wisdom of Solomon but is simply a fuller description of Prov-
erbs. Eusebius notes in 4.22.9 that Proverbs was commonly
called Wisdom by ancient writers.
12 Ezra would include both Ezra and Nehemiah, accord-
ing to a common Hebrew way of referring to the combined
books.
13 For some reason there was doubt about the canonicity
of Esther in some parts of the early church (in the East but
not in the West), but the doubts were eventually resolved, and
Christian usage eventually became uniform with the Jewish
view, which had always counted Esther as part of the canon,
although it had been opposed by certain rabbis for their own
reasons. (See the discussion of the Jewish view in Beckwith,
Canon, pp. 288-97.)
14 Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 6.15.2. Origen died
about A.D. 254. Origen names all the books of the present
Old Testament canon except the twelve minor prophets
CHAPTER 3 * THE CANON OF SCRIPTURE
to be read by those who newly join us, and who wish for instruction in the word of
godliness.” 15 However, other early church leaders did quote several of these books as
Scripture. 16
There are doctrinal and historical inconsistencies with a number of these books.
E. J. Young notes:
There are no marks in these books which would attest a divine origin both
Judith and Tobit contain historical, chronological and geographical errors. The
books justify falsehood and deception and make salvation to depend upon works
of merit. . . . Ecclesiasticus and the Wisdom of Solomon inculcate a morality
based upon expediency. Wisdom teaches the creation of the world out of pre-
existent matter (11:17). Ecclesiasticus teaches that the giving of alms makes
atonement for sin (3:30). In Baruch it is said that God hears the prayers of the
dead (3:4), and in I Maccabees there are historical and geographical errors. 17
It was not until 1546, at the Council of Trent, that the Roman Catholic Church offi-
cially declared the Apocrypha to be part of the canon (with the exception of 1 and 2
Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh). It is significant that the Council of Trent was the
response of the Roman Catholic Church to the teachings of Martin Luther and the rap-
idly spreading Protestant Reformation, and the books of the Apocrypha contain support
for the Catholic teaching of prayers for the dead and justification by faith plus works, not
by faith alone. In affirming the Apocrypha as within the canon, Roman Catholics would
hold that the church has the authority to constitute a literary work as “Scripture,” while
Protestants have held that the church cannot make something to be Scripture, but can
only recognize what God has already caused to be written as his own words. 18 (One anal-
ogy here would be to say that a police investigator can recognize counterfeit money as
counterfeit and can recognize genuine money as genuine, but he cannot make counterfeit
money to be genuine, nor can any declaration by any number of police make counterfeit
money to be something it is not. Only the official treasury of a nation can make money
that is real money; similarly, only God can make words to be his very words and worthy
of inclusion in Scripture.)
Thus the writings of the Apocrypha should not be regarded as part of Scripture: (1)
they do not claim for themselves the same kind of authority as the Old Testament writ-
ings; (2) they were not regarded as Gods words by the Jewish people from whom they
(which would be counted as one book), but this leaves his list of
“twenty- two books” incomplete at twenty- one, so apparently
Eusebius’s citation is incomplete, at least in the form we have
it today.
Eusebius himself elsewhere repeats the statement of
the Jewish historian Josephus that the Scriptures contain
twenty-two books, but nothing since the time of Artaxerxes
(3.10.1-5), and this would exclude all of the Apocrypha.
15 Athanasius, Letter 39, in Nicene and PostNicene Fathers,
2d ser., ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1978), vol. 4: Athanasius, pp. 551-52.
16 See Metzger, Apocrypha, pp. xii-xiii. Metzger notes that
none of the early Latin and Greek church fathers who quoted
from the Apocrypha as Scripture knew any Hebrew. Beckwith,
Canon, pp. 386-89, argues that the evidence of Christian
writers quoting the Apocrypha as Scripture is considerably
less extensive and less significant than scholars often claim
it to be.
17 E. J. Young, “The Canon of the Old Testament,” in Rev-
elation and the Bible, pp. 167-68.
18 It should be noted that Roman Catholics use the term
deuterocanonical rather than apocryphal to refer to these
books. They understand this to mean “later added to the
canon” (the prefix deutero- means “second”).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
60
originated; (3) they were not considered to be Scripture by Jesus or the New Testament
authors; and (4) they contain teachings inconsistent with the rest of the Bible. We must
conclude that they are merely human words, not God-breathed words like the words of
Scripture. They do have value for historical and linguistic research, and they contain a
number of helpful stories about the courage and faith of many Jews during the period
after the Old Testament ends, but they have never been part of the Old Testament canon,
and they should not be thought of as part of the Bible. Therefore, they have no binding
authority for the thought or life of Christians today.
In conclusion, with regard to the canon of the Old Testament, Christians today should
have no worry that anything needed has been left out or that anything that is not God’s
words has been included.
B. The New Testament Canon
The development of the New Testament canon begins with the writings of the apostles.
It should be remembered that the writing of Scripture primarily occurs in connection
with God’s great acts in redemptive history. The Old Testament records and interprets for
us the calling of Abraham and the lives of his descendants, the exodus from Egypt and
the wilderness wanderings, the establishment of God’s people in the land of Canaan, the
establishment of the monarchy, and the Exile and return from captivity. Each of these
great acts of God in history is interpreted for us in God’s own words in Scripture. The
Old Testament closes with the expectation of the Messiah to come (Mai. 3:1-4; 4:1-6).
The next stage in redemptive history is the coming of the Messiah, and it is not surpris-
ing that no further Scripture would be written until this next and greatest event in the
history of redemption occurred.
This is why the New Testament consists of the writings of the apostles. 19 It is primar-
ily the apostles who are given the ability from the Holy Spirit to recall accurately the
words and deeds of Jesus and to interpret them rightly for subsequent generations.
Jesus promised this empowering to his disciples (who were called apostles after the
resurrection) in John 14:26: “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will
send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that
I have said to you.” Similarly, Jesus promised further revelation of truth from the Holy
Spirit when he told his disciples, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you
into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he
will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me,
for he will take what is mine and declare it to you” (John 16:13- 14). In these verses the
disciples are promised amazing gifts to enable them to write Scripture: the Holy Spirit
would teach them “all things,” would cause them to remember “all” that Jesus had said,
and would guide them into “all the truth.”
Furthermore, those who have the office of apostle in the early church are seen to claim
an authority equal to that of the Old Testament prophets, an authority to speak and write
19 A few New Testament books (Mark, Luke, Acts, Hebrews, associated with them and apparently authorized by them: see
and Jude) were not written by apostles but by others closely the discussion below, pp. 62-63.
CHAPTER 3 • THE CANON OF SCRIPTURE
words that are God’s very words. Peter encourages his readers to remember “the command-
ment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles” (2 Peter 3:2). To lie to the apostles (Acts
5:2) is equivalent to lying to the Holy Spirit (Acts 5:3) and lying to God (Acts 5:4).
This claim to be able to speak words that were the words of God himself is especially
frequent in the writings of the apostle Paul. He claims not only that the Holy Spirit has
revealed to him “what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived”
(1 Cor. 2:9), but also that when he declares this revelation, he speaks it “in words not taught
by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting Spiritual things in Spiritual
words” (1 Cor. 2:13, author’s translation). 20
Similarly, Paul tells the Corinthians, “If any one thinks that he is a prophet, or spiri-
tual, he should acknowledge that what I am writing to you is a command of the Lord”
(1 Cor. 14:37). The word translated “what” in this verse is a plural relative pronoun in
Greek (ha) and more literally could be translated “the things that I am writing to you.”
Thus, Paul claims that his directives to the church at Corinth are not merely his own but
a command of the Lord. Later, in defending his apostolic office, Paul says that he will
give the Corinthians “proof that Christ is speaking in me” (2 Cor. 13:3). Other similar
verses could be mentioned (for example, Rom. 2:16; Gal. 1:8-9; 1 Thess. 2:13; 4:8, 15;
5:27; 2 Thess. 3:6, 14).
The apostles, then, have authority to write words that are God’s own words, equal in
truth status and authority to the words of the Old Testament Scriptures. They do this to
record, interpret, and apply to the lives of believers the great truths about the life, death,
and resurrection of Christ.
It would not be surprising therefore to find some of the New Testament writings
being placed with the Old Testament Scriptures as part of the canon of Scripture. In
fact, this is what we find in at least two instances. In 2 Peter 3:16, Peter shows not only
an awareness of the existence of written epistles from Paul, but also a clear willingness
to classify “all of his [Paul’s] epistles” with “the other scriptures”: Peter says, “So also our
beloved brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, speaking of this
as he does in all his letters. There are some things in them hard to understand, which
the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures”
(2 Peter 3:15—16). The word translated “scriptures” here is graphe, a word that occurs
fifty-one times in the New Testament and that refers to the Old Testament Scriptures
in every one of those occurrences. Thus, the word Scripture was a technical term for the
New Testament authors, and it was used only of those writings that were thought to be
God’s words and therefore part of the canon of Scripture. But in this verse, Peter classi-
fies Paul’s writings with the “other Scriptures” (meaning the Old Testament Scriptures).
Paul’s writings are therefore considered by Peter also to be worthy of the title “Scripture”
and thus worthy of inclusion in the canon.
A second instance is found in 1 Timothy 5:17- 18. Paul says, “Let the elders who rule
well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and
20 This is my own translation of the last phrase of 1 Cor. 2:13: crucial to the main point: namely, that Paul speaks words taught
see Wayne Grudem, “Scripture’s Self-Attestation,” in Scripture by the Holy Spirit, a point that is affirmed in the first part of the
and Truth, ed. D. A. Carson and John Woodbridge (Grand Rap- verse, no matter how the second half is translated,
ids: Zondervan, 1983), p. 365, n. 61. But this translation is not
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
62
teaching; for the scripture says, ‘You shall not muzzle an ox when it is treading out the
grain, 1 and, ‘The laborer deserves his wages.’ ” The first quotation from “Scripture” is
found in Deuteronomy 25:4, but the second quotation, “The laborer deserves his wages,”
is found nowhere in the Old Testament. It does occur, however, in Luke 10:7 (with exactly
the same words in the Greek text). So here we have Paul apparently quoting a portion
of Luke’s gospel 21 and calling it “Scripture,” that is, something that is to be considered
part of the canon. 22 In both of these passages (2 Peter 3:16 and 1 Tim. 5.17-18) we see
evidence that very early in the history of the church the writings of the New Testament
began to be accepted as part of the canon.
Because the apostles, by virtue of their apostolic office, had authority to write words
of Scripture, the authentic written teachings of the apostles were accepted by the early
church as part of the canon of Scripture. If we accept the arguments for the traditional
views of authorship of the New Testament writings, 23 then we have most of the New
Testament in the canon because of direct authorship by the apostles. This would include
Matthew; John; Romans to Philemon (all of the Pauline epistles); James; 24 1 and 2 Peter;
1, 2, and 3 John; and Revelation.
This leaves five books, Mark, Luke, Acts, Hebrews, and Jude, which were not written
by apostles. The details of the historical process by which these books came to be counted
as part of Scripture by the early church are scarce, but Mark, Luke, and Acts were com-
monly acknowledged very early, probably because of the close association of Mark with
the apostle Peter, and of Luke (the author of Luke-Acts) with the apostle Paul. Similarly,
Jude apparently was accepted by virtue of the author’s connection with James (see Jude 1)
and the fact that he was the brother of Jesus. 25
The acceptance of Hebrews as canonical was urged by many in the church on the
basis of an assumed Pauline authorship. But from very early times there were others
who rejected Pauline authorship in favor of one or another of several different sugges-
tions. Origen, who died about A.D. 254, mentions various theories of authorship and
concludes, “But who actually wrote the epistle, only God knows.” 26 Thus, the accep-
tance of Hebrews as canonical was not entirely due to a belief in Pauline authorship.
Rather, the intrinsic qualities of the book itself must have finally convinced early
readers, as they continue to convince believers today, that whoever its human author
may have been, its ultimate author can only have been God himself. The majestic
glory of Christ shines forth from the pages of the epistle to the Hebrews so brightly
21 Someone might object that Paul could be quoting an
oral tradition of Jesus’ words rather than Luke’s gospel, but it
is doubtful that Paul would call any oral tradition “Scripture,”
since the word (Gk. graphe, “writing”) is always in New Testa-
ment usage applied to written texts, and since Paul’s close asso-
ciation with Luke makes it very possible that he would quote
Luke’s written gospel.
22 Luke himself was not an apostle, but his gospel is here
accorded authority equal with that of the apostolic writings.
Apparently this was due to his very close association with the
apostles, especially Paul, and the endorsement of his gospel
by an apostle.
23 For a defense of traditional views of authorship of the
New Testament writings, see Donald Guthrie, New Testament
Introduction (Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press, 1970).
24 James seems to be considered an apostle in 1 Cor. 15:7
and Gal. 1:19. He also fulfills functions appropriate to an
apostle in Acts 12:17; 15:13; 21:18; Gal. 2:9, 12: see p. 908
below.
25 The acceptance of Jude in the canon was slow, primarily
because of doubts concerning his quotation of the noncanoni-
cal book of 1 Enoch.
26 Origen’s statement is quoted in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical
History, 6.25.14.
CHAPTER 3 • THE CANON OF SCRIPTURE
that no believer who reads it seriously should ever want to question its place in the
canon.
This brings us to the heart of the question of canonicity. For a book to belong in the
canon, it is absolutely necessary that the book have divine authorship. If the words of
the book are God’s words (through human authors), and if the early church, under the
direction of the apostles, preserved the book as part of Scripture, then the book belongs
in the canon. But if the words of the book are not God’s words, it does not belong in the
canon. The question of authorship by an apostle is important because it was primarily
the apostles to whom Christ gave the ability to write words with absolute divine author-
ity. If a writing can be shown to be by an apostle, then its absolute divine authority
is automatically established. 27 Thus, the early church automatically accepted as part of
the canon the written teachings of the apostles which the apostles wanted preserved as
Scripture.
But the existence of some New Testament writings that were not authored directly by
apostles shows that there were others in the early church to whom Christ also gave the
ability, through the work of the Holy Spirit, to write words that were God’s own words
and also therefore intended to be part of the canon. In these cases, the early church had
the task of recognizing which writings had the characteristic of being God’s own words
(through human authors).
For some books (at least Mark, Luke, and Acts, and perhaps Hebrews and Jude as
well), the church had, at least in some areas, the personal testimony of some living apos-
tles to affirm the absolute divine authority of these books. For example, Paul would have
affirmed the authenticity of Luke and Acts, and Peter would have affirmed the authen-
ticity of Mark as containing the gospel which he himself preached. In other cases, and in
some geographical areas, the church simply had to decide whether it heard the voice of
God himself speaking in the words of these writings. In these cases, the words of these
books would have been self-attesting; that is, the words would have borne witness to their
own divine authorship as Christians read them. This seems to have been the case with
Hebrews.
It should not surprise us that the early church should have been able to recognize
Hebrews and other writings, not written by apostles, as God’s very words. Had not Jesus
said “My sheep hear my voice” (John 10:27)? It should not be thought impossible or
unlikely, therefore, that the early church would be able to use a combination of fac-
tors, including apostolic endorsement, consistency with the rest of Scripture, and the
perception of a writing as “God-breathed” on the part of an overwhelming majority of
27 Of course, this does not mean that everything an apostle
wrote, including even grocery lists and receipts for business
transactions, would be considered Scripture. We are speak-
ing here of writings done when acting in the role of an apostle
and giving apostolic instructions to churches and to individual
Christians (such as Timothy or Philemon).
It is also very likely that the living apostles themselves
gave some guidance to the churches concerning which
works they intended to be preserved and used as Scripture
in the churches (see Col. 4:16; 2 Thess. 3:14; 2 Peter 3:16).
There were apparently some writings that had absolute
divine authority but that the apostles did not decide to pre-
serve as “Scripture” for the churches (such as Paul’s “previ-
ous letter” to the Corinthians: see 1 Cor. 5:9). Moreover,
the apostles did much more oral teaching, which had divine
authority (see 2 Thess. 2:15) but was not written down
and preserved as Scripture. Thus, in addition to apostolic
authorship, preservation by the church under the direction
of the apostles was necessary for a work to be included in
the canon.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
64
believers, to decide that a writing was in fact God’s words (through a human author) and
therefore worthy of inclusion in the canon. Nor should it be thought unlikely that the
church would be able to use this process over a period of time — as writings were circu-
lated to various parts of the early church — and finally to come to a completely correct
decision, without excluding any writings that were in fact “God-breathed” and without
including any that were not. 28
In A.D. 367 the Thirty-ninth Paschal Letter of Athanasius contained an exact list
of the twenty-seven New Testament books we have today. This was the list of books
accepted by the churches in the eastern part of the Mediterranean world. Thirty years
later, in A.D. 397, the Council of Carthage, representing the churches in the western part
of the Mediterranean world, agreed with the eastern churches on the same list. These are
the earliest final lists of our present-day canon.
Should we expect any more writings to be added to the canon? The opening sentence
in Hebrews puts this question in the proper historical perspective, the perspective of the
history of redemption: “In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the
prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed the heir
of all things, through whom also he created the world” (Heb. 1:1-2).
The contrast between the former speaking “of old” by the prophets and the recent
speaking “in these last days” suggests that God’s speech to us by his Son is the culmina-
tion of his speaking to mankind and is his greatest and final revelation to mankind in
this period of redemptive history. The exceptional greatness of the revelation that comes
through the Son, far exceeding any revelation in the old covenant, is emphasized again
and again throughout chapters 1 and 2 of Hebrews. These facts all indicate that there
is a finality to the revelation of God in Christ and that once this revelation has been
completed, no more is to be expected.
But where do we learn about this revelation through Christ? The New Testament
writings contain the final, authoritative, and sufficient interpretation of Christ’s work
of redemption. The apostles and their close companions report Christ’s words and
deeds and interpret them with absolute divine authority. When they have finished their
writing, there is no more to be added with the same absolute divine authority. Thus,
once the writings of the New Testament apostles and their authorized companions are
completed, we have in written form the final record of everything that God wants us
to know about the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, and its meaning for the lives
of believers for all time. Since this is God’s greatest revelation for mankind, no more is
to be expected once this is complete. In this way, then, Hebrews 1:1-2 shows us why
no more writings can be added to the Bible after the time of the New Testament. The
canon is now closed.
A similar kind of consideration may be drawn from Revelation 22:18-19:
I warn every one who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if any one
adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if
any one takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take
28 I am not discussing at this point the question of textual that are to be found among the many ancient copies of Scripture
variants (that is, differences in individual words and phrases that still exist). This question is treated in chapter 5, p. 96-97.
CHAPTER 3 • THE CANON OF SCRIPTURE
away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in
this book.
The primary reference of these verses is clearly to the book of Revelation itself, for
John refers to his writing as “the words of the prophecy of this book” in verses 7 and
10 of this chapter (and the entire book is called a prophecy in Rev. 1:3). Furthermore,
the reference to “the tree of life and . . . the holy city, which are described in this book”
indicates that the book of Revelation itself is intended.
It is, however, not accidental that this statement comes at the end of the last chapter of
Revelation, and that Revelation is the last book in the New Testament. In fact, Revelation
has to be placed last in the canon. For many books, their placement in the assembling of
the canon is of little consequence. But just as Genesis must be placed first (for it tells us of
creation), so Revelation must be placed last (for its focus is to tell us of the future and God’s
new creation) . The events described in Revelation are historically subsequent to the events
described in the rest of the New Testament and require that Revelation be placed where
it is. Thus, it is not inappropriate for us to understand this exceptionally strong warning
at the end of Revelation as applying in a secondary way to the whole of Scripture. Placed
here, where it must be placed, the warning forms an appropriate conclusion to the entire
canon of Scripture. Along with Hebrews 1:1—2 and the history-of- redemption perspective
implicit in those verses, this broader application of Revelation 22 : 18 - 19 also suggests to us
that we should expect no more Scripture to be added beyond what we already have.
How do we know, then, that we have the right books in the canon of Scripture we now
possess? The question can be answered in two different ways. First, if we are asking upon
what we should base our confidence, the answer must ultimately be that our confidence is
based on the faithfulness of God. We know that God loves his people, and it is supremely
important that God’s people have his own words, for they are our life (Deut. 32:47; Matt.
4:4). They are more precious, more important to us than anything else in this world. We
also know that God our Father is in control of all history, and he is not the kind of Father
who will trick us or fail to be faithful to us or keep from us something we absolutely
need.
The severity of the punishments in Revelation 22:18-19 that come to those who add
to or take from God’s words also confirms the importance for God’s people of having a
correct canon. There could be no greater punishments than these, for they are the pun-
ishments of eternal judgment. This shows that God himself places supreme value on our
having a correct collection of God-breathed writings, no more and no less. In the light of
this fact, could it be right for us to believe that God our Father, who controls all history,
would allow all of his church for almost two thousand years to be deprived of something
he himself values so highly and is so necessary for our spiritual lives? 29
29 This is of course not to affirm the impossible notion
that God providentially preserves every word in every copy of
every text, no matter how careless the copyist, or that he must
miraculously provide every believer with a Bible instantly.
Nevertheless, this consideration of God’s faithful care of his
children should certainly cause us to be thankful that in God’s
providence there is no significantly attested textual variant that
would change any point of Christian doctrine or ethics, so faith-
fully has the text been transmitted and preserved. However, we
must say clearly that there are a number of differing words in
the different ancient manuscripts of the Bible that are preserved
today. These are called “textual variants.” The question of tex-
tual variants within the surviving manuscripts of the books
that belong in the canon is discussed in chapter 5, p. 96-97.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
66
The preservation and correct assembling of the canon of Scripture should ultimately
be seen by believers, then, not as part of church history subsequent to God’s great central
acts of redemption for his people, but as an integral part of the history of redemp-
tion itself. Just as God was at work in creation, in the calling of his people Israel, in
the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, and in the early work and writings of the
apostles, so God was at work in the preservation and assembling together of the books
of Scripture for the benefit of his people for the entire church age. Ultimately, then,
we base our confidence in the correctness of our present canon on the faithfulness
of God.
The question of how we know that we have the right books can, secondly, be answered
in a somewhat different way. We might wish to focus on the process by which we become
persuaded that the books we have now in the canon are the right ones. In this process
two factors are at work: the activity of the Holy Spirit convincing us as we read Scripture
for ourselves, and the historical data that we have available for our consideration.
As we read Scripture the Holy Spirit works to convince us that the books we have in
Scripture are all from God and are his words to us. It has been the testimony of Chris-
tians throughout the ages that as they read the books of the Bible, the words of Scripture
speak to their hearts as no other books do. Day after day, year after year, Christians
find that the words of the Bible are indeed the words of God speaking to them with an
authority, a power, and a persuasiveness that no other writings possess. Truly the Word
of God is “living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division
of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of
the heart” (Heb.4:12).
Yet the process by which we become persuaded that the present canon is right is also
helped by historical data. Of course, if the assembling of the canon was one part of God’s
central acts in the history of redemption (as was stated above), then Christians today
should not presume to take it upon themselves to attempt to add to or subtract from
the books of the canon: the process was completed long ago. Nevertheless, a thorough
investigation of the historical circumstances surrounding the assembling of the canon
is helpful in confirming our conviction that the decisions made by the early church
were correct decisions. Some of this historical data has been mentioned in the preceding
pages. Other, more detailed data is available for those who wish to pursue more special-
ized investigations. 30
Yet one further historical fact should be mentioned. Today there exist no strong can-
didates for addition to the canon and no strong objections to any book presently in the
canon. Of those writings that some in the early church wanted to include in the canon,
it is safe to say that there are none that present-day evangelicals would want to include.
30 A very helpful recent survey of this field is David Dun- Its Background in Early Judaism (London: SPCK, 1985, and
bar, “The Biblical Canon,” in Hermeneutics, Authority, and Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986); Bruce Metzger, The Canon
Canon, ed. D. A. Carson and John Woodbridge (Grand Rap- of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development , and Signifi-
es: Zondervan, 1986), pp. 295-360. In addition, three recent cance (Oxford: Clarendon; New York: Oxford University
books are of such excellent quality that they will define the Press, 1987); and F. F. Bruce, The Canon of Scripture (Downers
discussion of canon for many years to come: Roger Beckwith, Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press, 1988).
The Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church and
CHAPTER 3 - THE CANON OF SCRIPTURE
Some of the very early writers distinguished themselves quite clearly from the apostles
and their writings from the writings of the apostles. Ignatius, for example, about A.D.
110, said, I do not order you as did Peter and Paul; they were apostles , I am a convict;
they were free, I am even until now a slave” (Ignatius, To the Romans, 4.3; compare the
attitude toward the apostles in 1 Clement 42:1, 2; 44:1-2 [A.D. 95]; Ignatius, To the
Magnesians, 7:1; 13:1-2, et al.).
Even those writings that were for a time thought by some to be worthy of inclusion
in the canon contain doctrinal teaching that is contradictory to the rest of Scripture.
“The Shepherd” of Hermas, for example, teaches “the necessity of penance” and “the
possibility of the forgiveness of sins at least once after baptism The author seems to
identify the Holy Spirit with the Son of God before the Incarnation, and to hold that the
Trinity came into existence only after the humanity of Christ had been taken up into
heaven” (Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, p. 641).
The Gospel of Thomas, which for a time was held by some to belong to the canon, ends
with the following absurd statement (par. 114):
Simon Peter said to them: “Let Mary go away from us, for women are not wor-
thy of life.” Jesus said: “Lo, I shall lead her, so that I may make her a male, that
she too may become a living spirit, resembling you males. For every woman
who makes herself a male will enter the kingdom of heaven.” 31
All other existing documents that had in the early church any possibility of inclu-
sion in the canon are similar to these in that they either contain explicit disclaimers of
canonical status or include some doctrinal aberrations that clearly make them unworthy
of inclusion in the Bible. 32
On the other hand, there are no strong objections to any book currently in the canon.
In the case of several New Testament books that were slow to gain approval by the whole
church (books such as 2 Peter or 2 and 3 John), much of the early hesitancy over their
inclusion can be attributed to the fact that they were not initially circulated very widely,
and that full knowledge of the contents of all the New Testament writings spread through
the church rather slowly. (Martin Luther’s hesitancies concerning James are quite under-
standable in view of the doctrinal controversy in which he was engaged, but such hesi-
31 This document was not written by Thomas the apostle.
Current scholarly opinion attributes it to an unknown author in
the second century A.D. who used Thomas’s name.
32 It is appropriate here to say a word about the writing
called the Didache. Although this document was not con-
sidered for inclusion in the canon during the early history of
the church, many scholars have thought it to be a very early
document and some today quote it as if it were an authority
on the teaching of the early church on the same level as the
New Testament writings. It was first discovered in 1875 at a
library in Constantinople but probably dates from the first
or second century A.D. Yet it contradicts or adds to the com-
mands of the New Testament at many points. For example,
Christians are told to let alms sweat in their hands until they
know to whom they are giving (1.6); food offered to idols is
forbidden (6.3); people are required to fast before baptism,
and baptism must be done in running water (7.1-4); fasting is
required on Wednesdays and Fridays but prohibited on Mon-
days and Thursdays (8.1); Christians are required to pray the
Lord’s Prayer three times a day (8.3); unbaptized persons are
excluded from the Lord’s Supper, and prayers unknown in the
New Testament are given as a pattern for celebrating the Lord’s
Supper (9.1-5); apostles are prohibited from staying in a city
more than two days (11.5; but note that Paul stayed a year
and a half in Corinth and three years in Ephesus!); prophets
who speak in the Spirit cannot be tested or examined (11.7, in
contradiction to 1 Cor. 14:29 and 1 Thess. 5:20-21); salvation
requires perfection at the last time (16.2). Such a document, of
unknown authorship, is hardly a reliable guide for the teach-
ings and practices of the early church.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
68
tancy was certainly not necessary. The apparent doctrinal conflict with Paul’s teaching is
easily resolved once it is recognized that James is using three key terms, justification, faith,
and works in senses different from those with which Paul used them.) 33
There is therefore historical confirmation for the correctness of the current canon.
Yet it must be remembered in connection with any historical investigation that the work
of the early church was not to bestow divine authority or even ecclesiastical author-
ity upon some merely human writings, but rather to recognize the divinely authored
characteristic of writings that already had such a quality. This is because the ultimate
criterion of canonicity is divine authorship, not human or ecclesiastical approval.
At this point someone may ask a hypothetical question about what we should do if
another one of Paul’s epistles were discovered, for example. Would we add it to Scrip-
ture? This is a difficult question, because two conflicting considerations are involved.
On the one hand, if a great majority of believers were convinced that this was indeed
an authentic Pauline epistle, written in the course of Paul’s fulfillment of his apostolic
office, then the nature of Paul’s apostolic authority would guarantee that the writing
would be God’s very words (as well as Paul’s), and that its teachings would be consistent
with the rest of Scripture. But the fact that it was not preserved as part of the canon
would indicate that it was not among the writings the apostles wanted the church to
preserve as part of Scripture. Moreover, it must immediately be said that such a hypo-
thetical question is just that: hypothetical. It is exceptionally difficult to imagine what
kind of historical data might be discovered that could convincingly demonstrate to the
church as a whole that a letter lost for over 1,900 years was genuinely authored by Paul,
and it is more difficult still to understand how our sovereign God could have faith-
fully cared for his people for over 1,900 years and still allowed them to be continually
deprived of something he intended them to have as part of his final revelation of himself
in Jesus Christ. These considerations make it so highly improbable that any such manu-
script would be discovered at some time in the future, that such a hypothetical question
really does not merit further serious consideration.
In conclusion, are there any books in our present canon that should not be there? No.
We can rest our confidence in this fact in the faithfulness of God our Father, who would
not lead all his people for nearly two thousand years to trust as his Word something that
is not. And we find our confidence repeatedly confirmed both by historical investigation
and by the work of the Holy Spirit in enabling us to hear God’s voice in a unique way as
we read from every one of the sixty-six books in our present canon of Scripture.
But are there any missing books, books that should have been included in Scripture
but were not? The answer must be no. In all known literature there are no candidates
that even come close to Scripture when consideration is given both to their doctrinal
consistency with the rest of Scripture and to the type of authority they claim for them-
selves (as well as the way those claims of authority have been received by other believers).
Once again, God’s faithfulness to his people convinces us that there is nothing missing
33 See R. V. G. Tasker, The General Epistle of James , TNTC over half of the verses in Janies as authoritative in various parts
(London: Tyndale Press, 1956), pp. 67-71. Although Luther of his writings (see Douglas Moo, The Letter of James, TNTC
placed James near the end of his German translation of the New (Leicester and Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press, 1985),
Testament, he did not exclude it from the canon, and he cited p. 18; see also pp. 100-117 on faith and works in James.
CHAPTER 3 ■ THE CANON OF SCRIPTURE
69
from Scripture that God thinks we need to know for obeying him and trusting him fully.
The canon of Scripture today is exactly what God wanted it to be, and it will stay that
way until Christ returns.
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. Why is it important to your Christian life to know which writings are Gods words
and which are not? How would your relationship with God be different if you
had to look for his words that were scattered among all the writings of Christians
throughout church history? How would your Christian life be different if Gods
words were contained not only in the Bible but also in the official declarations of
the church throughout history?
2. Have you had doubts or questions about the canonicity of any of the books of the
Bible? What caused those questions? What should one do to resolve them?
3. Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and members of other cults have claimed present-
day revelations from God that they count equal to the Bible in authority. What
reasons can you give to indicate the falsity of those claims? In practice, do these
people treat the Bible as an authority equal to these other “revelations”?
4. If you have never read any parts of the Old Testament Apocrypha, perhaps you
would want to read some sections. 34 Do you feel you can trust these writings in the
same way you trust Scripture? Compare the effect these writings have on you with
the effect Scripture has on you. You might want to make a similar comparison with
some writings from a collection of books called the New Testament Apocrypha, 35
or perhaps with the Book of Mormon or the Qur'an. Is the spiritual effect of these
writings on your life positive or negative? How does it compare with the spiritual
effect the Bible has on your life?
SPECIAL TERMS
Apocrypha
apostle
canon
canonical
covenant
God-breathed
history of redemption
self-attesting
34 A good recent translation is The Oxford Annotated
Apocrypha (RSV), ed. Bruce M. Metzger (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1965). There is also a collection of nonbibli-
cal writings from the time of the New Testament called “New
Testament apocrypha” (see next note), but these are much
less commonly read. When people speak of “the Apocrypha”
without further specification, they are referring only to the
Old Testament Apocrypha.
35 E. Hennecke, New Testament Apocrypha , ed. W.
Schneemelcher; English trans. ed. R. McL. Wilson (2 vols.:
SCM Press, 1965). It should also be noted that some other,
more orthodox literature from the early church can be found
conveniently in a collection of writings referred to as the
“Apostolic Fathers.” A good translation is found in Kirsopp
Lake, trans., The Apostolic Fathers , Loeb Classical Library
(2 vols.: Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1912,
1913), but other useful translations are also available.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
70
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter 1,
pp. 38-39. Complete bibliographical data may be found on pp. 1224-30.)
In the “Other Works” section of this chapter’s bibliography I have included some
works written from a nonevangelical perspective because of their importance for
investigating the historical data relevant to the question of canon.
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1882-92 Litton, 10-18
1930 Thomas, 101-15
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1875 - 76 Pope, 1:193-230
1940 Wiley, 1:185-214
1983 Carter, 1:291-94
3. Baptist
1907 Strong, 145- 72; 236-40
1976- 83 Henry, 2:69-76; 4:405-75
1987-94 Lewis/Demarest, 1:147-48
4. Dispensational
1947 Chafer, 1:95-102, 124-28
1949 Thiessen, 50-61
1986 Ryrie, 105-9
5. Lutheran
1917-24 Pieper, 1:330-48
6. Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1861 Heppe, 12-21,28-31
1871-73 Hodge, 1:152-53
1887 - 1921 Warfield, IAB, 411-18
1889 Shedd, 1:134-47
1938 Berkhof, Intro., 116-43
1962 Buswell, 1:193-98
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
1. Roman Catholic: Traditional
1955 Ott (no explicit treatment)
2. Roman Catholic: Post-Vatican II
1980 McBrien, 1:50- 62, 201-43; 2:817-42
CHAPTER 3 * THE CANON OF SCRIPTURE
71
Other Works
Beckwith, R. T. “Canon of the Old Testament” In IBD , 1:235-38.
Beckwith, Roger. The Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church and Its Back-
ground in Early Judaism. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985.
Birdsall, J. N. “Apocrypha” In IBD y 1:75-77 .
. “Canon of the New Testament” In IBD, 1:240-45.
Bruce, F. F. The Canon of Scripture. Downers Grove, 111: InterVarsity Press, 1988.
Carson, D. A., and John D. Woodbridge, eds. Hermeneutics , Authority, and Canon. Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 1986.
Dunbar, David G. “The Biblical Canon.” In Hermeneutics , Authority, and Canon. Ed. by
D. A. Carson and John Woodbridge. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986.
Green, William Henry. General Introduction to the Old Testament: The Canon. New York:
Scribners, 1898.
Harris, R. Laird. “Chronicles and the Canon in New Testament Times.” IETS. Vol. 33, no.
1 (March 1990): 75-84.
• Inspiration and Canonicity of the Bible: An Historical and Exegetical Study. Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 1989.
Kline, Meredith G. The Structure of Biblical Authority. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1972.
Leiman, S. Z. The Canonization of Hebrew Scripture: The Talmudic and Midrashic Evidence.
Hamden, Conn.: Archon, 1976.
McRay, J. R. “Bible, Canon of.” In EDT, pp. 140-41.
Metzger, Bruce M. The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Signifi-
cance. Oxford: Clarendon; and New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.
Packer, J. I. “Scripture.” NDT, 627-31.
Ridderbos, Herman N. Redemptive History and the New Testament Scriptures. Formerly,
The Authority of the New Testament Scriptures. 2d rev. ed. Trans, by H. D. Jong-
ste. Rev. by Richard B. Gaffin, Jr. Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed,
1988.
Westcott, Brooke Foss. The Bible in the Church: A Popular Account of the Collection and
Reception of the Holy Scriptures in the Christian Churches. First ed. with alterations.
London: Macmillan, 1901.
Zahn, Theodor. Geschichte des Neutestamentlichen Kanons. 2 vols. Erlangen: Deichert,
1888-90. Reprint ed., Hildesheim and New York: Olms, 1975.
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
Hebrews 1:1—2 : In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets;
but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things,
through whom also he created the world.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
72
HYMN
“O Word of God Incarnate”
O Word of God incarnate, O wisdom from on high,
O truth unchanged, unchanging, O light of our dark sky;
We praise thee for the radiance that from the hallowed page,
A lantern to our footsteps, shines on from age to age.
The church from her dear Master received the gift divine,
And still that light she lifteth o’er all the earth to shine.
It is the golden casket, where gems of truth are stored;
It is the heav’n-drawn picture of Christ, the Living Word.
It floateth like a banner before God’s host unfurled;
It shineth like a beacon above the darkling world.
It is the chart and compass that o’er life’s surging sea,
’Mid mists and rocks and quicksands, still guides, O Christ, to thee.
O make thy church, dear Savior, a lamp of purest gold,
To bear before the nations thy true light, as of old.
O teach thy wand ’ring pilgrims by this their path to trace,
Till, clouds and darkness ended, they see thee face to face.
AUTHOR: WILLIAM WALSHAM HOW, 1867
Chapter
THE FOUR CHARACTERISTICS
OF SCRIPTURE: (1) AUTHORITY
How do we know that the Bible is God’s Word ?
In the previous chapter our goal was to determine which writings belong in the Bible
and which writings do not. But once we have determined what the Bible is, our next step
is to ask what it is like. What does the whole Bible teach us about itself?
The major teachings of the Bible about itself can be classified into four characteristics
(sometimes termed attributes): (1) the authority of Scripture; (2) the clarity of Scripture;
(3) the necessity of Scripture; and (4) the sufficiency of Scripture.
With regard to the first characteristic, most Christians would agree that the Bible is
our authority in some sense. But in exactly what sense does the Bible claim to be our
authority? And how do we become persuaded that the claims of Scripture to be God’s
Word are true? These are the questions addressed in this chapter.
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
The authority of Scripture means that all the words in Scripture are God’s words in such a
way that to disbelieve or disobey any word of Scripture is to disbelieve or disobey God.
This definition may now be examined in its various parts.
A. All the Words in Scripture Are God’s Words
1. This Is What the Bible Claims for Itself. There are frequent claims in the Bible that
all the words of Scripture are God’s words (as well as words that were written down
by men). 1 In the Old Testament, this is frequently seen in the introductory phrase,
'Of course, I do not mean to say that every word in Scrip- quotations of other people are God’s reports of what they said,
ture was audibly spoken by God himself, since the Bible records and, rightly interpreted in their contexts, come to us with God’s
the words of hundreds of different people, such as King David authority,
and Peter and even Satan himself. But I do mean that even the
73
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
74
“Thus says the Lord,” which appears hundreds of times. In the world of the Old Testa-
ment, this phrase would have been recognized as identical in form to the phrase, “Thus
says king . . . ,” which was used to preface the edict of a king to his subjects, an edict
that could not be challenged or questioned but that simply had to be obeyed. 2 Thus,
when the prophets say, “Thus says the Lord,” they are claiming to be messengers from the
sovereign King of Israel, namely, God himself, and they are claiming that their words are
the absolutely authoritative words of God. When a prophet spoke in God’s name in this
way, every word he spoke had to come from God, or he would be a false prophet (cf. Num.
22:38; Deut. 18:18-20; Jer. 1:9; 14:14; 23:16-22; 29:31-32; Ezek. 2:7; 13:1-16).
Furthermore, God is often said to speak “through” the prophet (1 Kings 14:18; 16:12,
34; 2 Kings 9:36; 14:25; Jer. 37:2; Zech. 7:7, 12). Thus, what the prophet says in God’s
name, God says (1 Kings 13:26 with v. 21; 1 Kings 21:19 with 2 Kings 9:25-26; Hag.
1:12; cf. 1 Sam. 15:3, 18). In these and other instances in the Old Testament, words that
the prophets spoke can equally be referred to as words that God himself spoke. Thus,
to disbelieve or disobey anything a prophet says is to disbelieve or disobey God himself
(Deut. 18:19; 1 Sam. 10:8; 13:13-14; 15:3, 19, 23; 1 Kings 20:35, 36).
These verses of course do not claim that all the words in the Old Testament are God’s
words, for these verses themselves are referring only to specific sections of spoken or
written words in the Old Testament. But the cumulative force of these passages, including
the hundreds of passages that begin “Thus says the Lord,” is to demonstrate that within
the Old Testament we have written records of words that are said to be God’s own words.
These words when written down constitute large sections of the Old Testament.
In the New Testament, a number of passages indicate that all of the Old Testament
writings are thought of as God’s words. Second Timothy 3:16 says, “All Scripture is God-
breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness”
(NIV). 3 Here “Scripture” ( graphe ) must refer to the Old Testament written Scripture, for
that is what the word graphe refers to in every one of its fifty-one occurrences in the New
Testament. 4 Furthermore, the “sacred writings” of the Old Testament are what Paul 5 has
just referred to in verse 15.
Paul here affirms that all of the Old Testament writings are theopneustos, “breathed
out by God.” Since it is writings that are said to be “breathed out,” this breathing must be
understood as a metaphor for speaking the words of Scripture. This verse thus states in
2 See Wayne Grudem, The Gift of Prophecy in 1 Corinthians best understood as predicate adjectives, and the best trans-
(Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1982), pp. 12-13; lation is, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is profitable for
also Wayne Grudem, “Scripture’s Self-Attestation,” in Scripture teaching ”
and Truth , ed. D. A. Carson and J. Woodbridge, pp. 21-22. 4 In at least two cases, 1 Tim. 5:18 and 2 Peter 3:16, gra-
3 Some have suggested an alternative translation, namely, phe also includes some of the New Testament writings along
“Every God-breathed Scripture is also profitable for teach- with the Old Testament writings that it is referring to (see
ing ” However, this translation is highly unlikely because discussion below).
it makes the kai (“also”) extremely awkward in the Greek sen- 5 I assume Pauline authorship of 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus
tence. In coherent speech, one must say that something that throughout this book. For recent arguments defending Pau-
has one characteristic before saying that it “also” has another line authorship see George W. Knight III, The Pastoral Epistles t
characteristic. The “also” must indicate an addition to some- NIGTC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, and Carlisle: Paternoster,
thing that has previously been predicated. Thus, theopneus - 1992), pp. 4-54.
tos (“God-breathed”) and ophelimos (“profitable”) are both
CHAPTER 4 - THE AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE
75
brief form what was evident in many passages in the Old Testament: the Old Testament
writings are regarded as God’s Word in written form. For every word of the Old Testa-
ment, God is the one who spoke (and still speaks) it, although God used human agents
to write these words down. 6
A similar indication of the character of all Old Testament writings as God’s words is
found in 2 Peter 1:21. Speaking of the prophecies of Scripture (v. 20), which means at
least the Old Testament Scriptures to which Peter encourages his readers to give careful
attention (v. 19), Peter says that none of these prophecies ever came “by the impulse of
man, but that men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.” It is not Peter’s inten-
tion to deny completely human volition or personality in the writing of Scripture (he
says that the men “spoke”), but rather to say that the ultimate source of every prophecy
was never a man’s decision about what he wanted to write, but rather the Holy Spirit’s
action in the prophet’s life, carried out in ways unspecified here (or, in fact, elsewhere in
Scripture). This indicates a belief that all of the Old Testament prophecies (and, in light
of w. 19-20, this probably includes all of the written Scripture of the Old Testament) are
spoken “from God”: that is, they are God’s own words.
Many other New Testament passages speak in similar ways about sections of the Old
Testament. In Matthew 1:22, Isaiah’s words in Isaiah 7:14 are cited as “what the Lord
had spoken by the prophet.” In Matthew 4:4 Jesus says to the devil, “Man shall not live
by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” In the context of
Jesus repeated citations from Deuteronomy to answer every temptation, the words that
proceed “from the mouth of God” are the written Scriptures of the Old Testament.
In Matthew 19:5, the words of the author in Genesis 2:24, not attributed to God in
the Genesis narrative, are quoted by Jesus as words that God “said.” In Mark 7:9-13, the
same Old Testament passage can be called interchangeably “the commandment of God,”
or what “Moses said,” or “the word of God.” In Acts 1:16, the words of Psalms 69 and
109 are said to be words which “the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand by the mouth of David.”
Words of Scripture are thus said to be spoken by the Holy Spirit. In Acts 2 : 16 - 17, in quot-
ing “what was spoken by the prophet Joel” in Joel 2:28-32, Peter inserts “God declares,”
thus attributing to God words written by Joel, and claiming that God is presently
saying them.
Many other passages could be cited (see Luke 1:70; 24:25; John 5:45-47; Acts 3:18,
21; 4:25; 13:47; 28:25; Rom. 1:2; 3:2; 9:17; 1 Cor. 9:8—10; Heb. 1:1—2, 6—7), but the pat-
tern of attributing to God the words of Old Testament Scripture should be very clear.
Moreover, in several places it is all of the words of the prophets or the words of the Old
Testament Scriptures that are said to compel belief or to be from God (see Luke 24:25,
27, 44; Acts 3:18; 24:14; Rom. 15:4).
6 01der systematic theologies used the words inspired and are said to give “inspired” performances) that I have not used it
inspiration to speak of the fact that the words of Scripture are in this text. I have preferred the NIV rendering of 2 Tim. 3:16,
spoken by God. This terminology was based especially on an “God-breathed,” and have used other expressions to say that
older translation of 2 Tim. 3:16, which said, All scripture is the words of Scripture are Gods very words. The older phrase
given by inspiration of God. . .” (KJV). However, the word inspi- “ plenary inspiration” meant that all the words of Scripture are
ration has such a weak sense in ordinary usage today (every poet God’s words (the word plenary means “full”), a fact that I affirm
or songwriter claims to be inspired” to write, and even athletes in this chapter without using the phrase.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
76
But if Paul meant only the Old Testament writings when he spoke of “Scripture” in 2
Timothy 3:16, how can this verse apply to the New Testament writings as well? Does it say
anything about the character of the New Testament writings? To answer that question,
we must realize that the Greek word graphe (“scripture”) was a technical term for the
New Testament writers and had a very specialized meaning. Even though it is used fifty-
one times in the New Testament, every one of those instances uses it to refer to the Old
Testament writings, not to any other words or writings outside the canon of Scripture.
Thus, everything that belonged in the category “scripture” had the character of being
“God-breathed”: its words were Gods very words.
But at two places in the New Testament we see New Testament writings also being
called “scripture” along with the Old Testament writings. As we noted in chapter 3, in
2 Peter 3:16, Peter shows not only an awareness of the existence of written epistles from
Paul, but also a clear willingness to classify “all of his [Paul’s] epistles” with “the other
scriptures.” This is an indication that very early in the history of the church all of Paul’s
epistles were considered to be God’s written words in the same sense as the Old Testa-
ment texts were. Similarly, in 1 Timothy 5:18, Paul quotes Jesus’ words as found in Luke
10:7 and calls them “scripture.” 7
These two passages taken together indicate that during the time of the writing of the
New Testament documents there was an awareness that additions were being made to this
special category of writings called “scripture,” writings that had the character of being
God’s very words. Thus, once we establish that a New Testament writing belongs to the
special category “scripture,” then we are correct in applying 2 Timothy 3:16 to that writ-
ing as well, and saying that that writing also has the characteristic Paul attributes to “all
scripture”: it is “God-breathed,” and all its words are the very words of God.
Is there further evidence that the New Testament writers thought of their own writ-
ings (not just the Old Testament) as being words of God? In some cases, there is. In 1
Corinthians 14:37, Paul says, “If any one thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he
should acknowledge that what I am writing to you is a command of the Lord” Paul has
here instituted a number of rules for church worship at Corinth and has claimed for them
the status of “commands of the Lord,” for the phrase translated “what I am writing to
you” contains a plural relative pronoun in Greek (ha) and is more literally translated “the
things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord.”
One objection to seeing the words of New Testament writers as words of God is some-
times brought from 1 Corinthians 7:12, where Paul distinguishes his words from words
of the Lord: “To the rest I say, not the Lord ...” A proper understanding of this passage
is gained from verses 25 and 40, however. In verse 25 Paul says he has no command of
the Lord concerning the unmarried but will give his own opinion. This must mean that
he had possession of no earthly word that Jesus had spoken on this subject and probably
also that he had received no subsequent revelation about it from Jesus. This is unlike the
situation in verse 10 where he could simply repeat the content of Jesus’ earthly teaching,
“that the wife should not separate from her husband” and “that the husband should not
divorce his wife.” Thus, verse 12 must mean that Paul has no record of any earthly teaching
7 See chapter 3, pp. 61 -62, for discussion of 2 Peter 3:16 and
1 Tim. 5:17-18.
CHAPTER 4 • THE AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE
of Jesus on the subject of a believer who is married to an unbelieving spouse. Therefore,
Paul gives his own instructions: “To the rest I say, not the Lord, that if any brother has a
wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her”
(1 Cor. 7:12).
It is remarkable therefore that Paul can go on in verses 12—15 to give several specific
ethical standards for the Corinthians. What gave him the right to make such moral com-
mands? He said that he spoke as one “who by the Lord’s mercy is trustworthy” (1 Cor.
7:25). He seems to imply here that his considered judgments were able to be placed on
the same authoritative level as the words of Jesus. Thus, 1 Corinthians 7:12, “To the rest
I say, not the Lord, is an amazingly strong affirmation of Paul’s own authority: if he did
not have any words of Jesus to apply to a situation, he would simply use his own words,
for his own words had just as much authority as the words of Jesus!
Indications of a similar view of the New Testament writings are found in John 14:26
and 16:13, where Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would bring all that he had said to the
disciples remembrance and would guide them into all the truth. This indicates a special
superintending work of the Holy Spirit whereby the disciples would be able to remember and
record without error all that Jesus had said. Similar indications are also found in 2 Peter 3:2;
1 Corinthians 2:13; 1 Thessalonians 4:15; and Revelation 22:18-19.
2. We Are Convinced of the Bible’s Claims to Be God’s Words as We Read the Bible. It
is one thing to affirm that the Bible claims to be the words of God. It is another thing to
be convinced that those claims are true. Our ultimate conviction that the words of the
Bible are God s words comes only when the Holy Spirit speaks in and through the words
of the Bible to our hearts and gives us an inner assurance that these are the words of our
Creator speaking to us. Just after Paul has explained that his apostolic speech consists of
words taught by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 2:13), he says, “The natural man does not receive
the things® of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand
them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14). Apart from the work of the
Spirit of God, a person will not receive spiritual truths and in particular will not receive
or accept the truth that the words of Scripture are in fact the words of God.
But for those in whom God s Spirit is working there is a recognition that the words of
the Bible are the words of God. This process is closely analogous to that by which those
who believed in Jesus knew that his words were true. He said, “My sheep hear my voice,
and I know them, and they follow me (John 10:27). Those who are Christ’s sheep hear
the words of their great Shepherd as they read the words of Scripture, and they are con-
vinced that these words are in fact the words of their Lord.
It is important to remember that this conviction that the words of Scripture are the
words of God does not come apart from the words of Scripture or in addition to the words
of Scripture. It is not as if the Holy Spirit one day whispers in our ear, “Do you see that
Bible sitting on your desk? I want you to know that the words of that Bible are God’s
words.” It is rather as people read Scripture that they hear their Creator’s voice speaking
8 I have translated the verse “things of the Spirit of God” the RSV translation “the gifts of the Spirit of God” is more
because the Greek text has only the neuter plural definite article restrictive in subject matter than the actual words would justify
(ta) used as a substantive, and no specific noun is given. Thus, and is certainly not required by the context.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
78
to them in the words of Scripture and realize that the book they are reading is unlike any
other book, that it is indeed a book of God’s own words speaking to their hearts.
3. Other Evidence Is Useful but Not Finally Convincing. The previous section is not
meant to deny the validity of other kinds of arguments that may be used to support the
claim that the Bible is God’s words. It is helpful for us to learn that the Bible is histori-
cally accurate, that it is internally consistent, that it contains prophecies that have been
fulfilled hundreds of years later, that it has influenced the course of human history more
than any other book, that it has continued changing the lives of millions of individu-
als throughout its history, that through it people come to find salvation, that it has a
majestic beauty and a profound depth of teaching unmatched by any other book, and
that it claims hundreds of times over to be God’s very words. All of these arguments and
others are useful to us and remove obstacles that might otherwise come in the way of
our believing Scripture. But all of these arguments taken individually or together cannot
finally be convincing. As the Westminster Confession of Faith said in 1643-46,
We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the Church to an high and
reverent esteem of the Holy Scripture. And the heavenliness of the matter, the
efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts,
the scope of the whole (which is, to give all glory to God), the full discov-
ery it makes of the only way of man’s salvation, the many other incomparable
excellencies, and the entire perfection thereof, are arguments whereby it doth
abundantly evidence itself to be the Word of God: yet notwithstanding, our full
persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof, is
from the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word
in our hearts, (chap. 1, para. 5)
4. The Words of Scripture Are Self-Attesting. Thus, the words of Scripture are
“self-attesting.” They cannot be “proved” to be God’s words by appeal to any higher
authority. For if an appeal to some higher authority (say, historical accuracy or logi-
cal consistency) were used to prove that the Bible is God’s Word, then the Bible itself
would not be our highest or absolute authority: it would be subordinate in authority
to the thing to which we appealed to prove it to be God’s Word. If we ultimately appeal
to human reason, or to logic, or to historical accuracy, or to scientific truth, as the
authority by which Scripture is shown to be God’s words, then we have assumed the
thing to which we appealed to be a higher authority than God’s words and one that is
more true or more reliable.
5. Objection: This Is a Circular Argument. Someone may object that to say Scripture
proves itself to be God’s words is to use a circular argument: we believe that Scrip-
ture is God’s Word because it claims to be that. And we believe its claims because
Scripture is God’s Word. And we believe that it is God’s Word because it claims to be
that, and so forth.
It should be admitted that this is a kind of circular argument. However, that does not
make its use invalid, for all arguments for an absolute authority must ultimately appeal
CHAPTER 4 * THE AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE
to that authority for proof: otherwise the authority would not be an absolute or highest
authority. This problem is not unique to the Christian who is arguing for the authority
of the Bible. Everyone either implicitly or explicitly uses some kind of circular argument
when defending his or her ultimate authority for belief.
Although these circular arguments are not always made explicit and are sometimes
hidden beneath lengthy discussions or are simply assumed without proof, arguments for
an ultimate authority in their most basic form take on a similar circular appeal to that
authority itself, as some of the following examples show:
My reason is my ultimate authority because it seems reasonable to me to
make it so.”
“Logical consistency is my ultimate authority because it is logical to make
it so.”
“The findings of human sensory experiences are the ultimate authority
for discovering what is real and what is not, because our human senses have
never discovered anything else: thus, human sense experience tells me that my
principle is true.”
“I know there can be no ultimate authority because I do not know of any
such ultimate authority.”
In all of these arguments for an ultimate standard of truth, an absolute authority for
what to believe, there is an element of circularity involved. 9
How then does a Christian, or anyone else, choose among the various claims for
absolute authorities? Ultimately the truthfulness of the Bible will commend itself as
being far more persuasive than other religious books (such as the Book of Mormon or the
Qur'an), or than any other intellectual constructions of the human mind (such as logic,
human reason, sense experience, scientific methodology, etc.). It will be more persuasive
because in the actual experience of life, all of these other candidates for ultimate author-
ity are seen to be inconsistent or to have shortcomings that disqualify them, while the
Bible will be seen to be fully in accord with all that we know about the world around us,
about ourselves, and about God.
The Bible will commend itself as being persuasive in this way, that is, if we are think-
* n 8 rightly about the nature of reality, our perception of it and of ourselves, and our
perception of God. The trouble is that because of sin our perception and analysis of God
and creation is faulty. Sin is ultimately irrational, and sin makes us think incorrectly
about God and about creation. Thus, in a world free from sin, the Bible would com-
mend itself convincingly to all people as Gods Word. But because sin distorts people’s
perception of reality, they do not recognize Scripture for what it really is. Therefore it
requires the work of the Holy Spirit, overcoming the effects of sin, to enable us to be
persuaded that the Bible is indeed the Word of God and that the claims it makes for
itself are true.
9 This point has been made well by John M. Frame, “God
and Biblical Language: Transcendence and Immanence,” in
God's Inerrant Word , ed. John Warwick Montgomery (Min-
neapolis: Bethany Fellowship, 1974), pp. 159-77. See also J.
P. Moreland, “The Rationality of Belief in Inerrancy,” TritiJ
7:1 (1986), 75-86, for a helpful discussion of the way we
reach convictions about issues of major significance in our
lives.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
80
Thus, in another sense, the argument for the Bible as God’s Word and our ultimate
authority is not a typical circular argument. The process of persuasion is perhaps better
likened to a spiral in which increasing knowledge of Scripture and increasingly correct
understanding of God and creation tend to supplement one another in a harmonious
way, each tending to confirm the accuracy of the other. This is not to say that our knowl-
edge of the world around us serves as a higher authority than Scripture, but rather that
such knowledge, if it is correct knowledge, continues to give greater and greater assur-
ance and deeper conviction that the Bible is the only truly ultimate authority and that
other competing claims for ultimate authority are false.
6. This Does Not Imply Dictation From God as the Sole Means of Communication.
The entire preceding part of this chapter has argued that all the words of the Bible are
God’s words. At this point a word of caution is necessary. The fact that all the words of
Scripture are God’s words should not lead us to think that God dictated every word of
Scripture to the human authors.
When we say that all the words of the Bible are God’s words, we are talking about the
result of the process of bringing Scripture into existence. To raise the question of dicta-
tion is to ask about the process that led to that result or the manner by which God acted
in order to ensure the result that he intended. 10 It must be emphasized that the Bible
does not speak of only one type of process or one manner by which God communicated
to the biblical authors what he wanted to be said. In fact, there is indication of a wide
variety of processes God used to bring about the desired result.
A few scattered instances of dictation are explicitly mentioned in Scripture. When the
apostle John saw the risen Lord in a vision on the island of Patmos, Jesus spoke to him as
follows: “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write . . (Rev. 2:1); “And to the angel of
the church in Smyrna write . . .” (Rev. 2:8); “And to the angel of the church in Pergamum
write . . (Rev. 2:12). These are examples of dictation pure and simple. The risen Lord
tells John what to write, and John writes the words he hears from Jesus.
Something akin to this process is probably also seen occasionally in the Old Testa-
ment prophets. We read in Isaiah, “Then the word of the Lord came to Isaiah: ‘Go and
say to Hezekiah, Thus says the Lord, the God of David your father: I have heard your
prayer, I have seen your tears; behold, I will add fifteen years to your life. I will deliver
you and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria, and defend this city’ ” (Isa.
38:4-6). The picture given us in this narrative is that Isaiah heard (whether with his
physical ear or with a very forceful impression made upon his mind is difficult to say)
the words God wanted him to say to Hezekiah, and Isaiah, acting as God’s messenger,
then took those words and spoke them as he had been instructed.
But in many other sections of Scripture such direct dictation from God is certainly
not the manner by which the words of Scripture were caused to come into being. The
author of Hebrews says that God spoke to our fathers by the prophets “in many and
10 In some systematic theologies, this process by which book, since it does not seem to be a readily understandable
God used human authors to write his very words is called “the phrase today,
mode of inspiration ” I have not used this terminology in this
CHAPTER 4 ■ THE AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE
various ways (Heb. 1:1). On the opposite end of the spectrum from dictation we have,
for instance, Luke s ordinary historical research for writing his gospel. He says:
Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things
which have been accomplished among us, just as they were delivered to us by
those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, it
seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to
write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus ” (Luke 1:1-3)
This is clearly not a process of dictation. Luke used ordinary processes of speaking
to eyewitnesses and gathering historical data in order that he might write an accurate
account of the life and teachings of Jesus. He did his historical research thoroughly,
listening to the reports of many eyewitnesses and evaluating his evidence carefully. The
gospel he wrote emphasizes what he thought important to emphasize and reflects his
own characteristic style of writing.
In between these two extremes of dictation pure and simple on the one hand, and
ordinary historical research on the other hand, we have many indications of various
ways by which God communicated with the human authors of Scripture. In some cases
Scripture gives us hints of these various processes: it speaks of dreams, of visions, of
hearing the Lord s voice or standing in the council of the Lord; it also speaks of men who
were with Jesus and observed his life and listened to his teaching, men whose memory of
these words and deeds was made completely accurate by the working of the Holy Spirit
as he brought things to their remembrance (John 14:26). Yet in many other cases the
manner used by God to bring about the result that the words of Scripture were his words
is simply not disclosed to us. Apparently many different methods were used, but it is not
important that we discover precisely what these were in each case.
In cases where the ordinary human personality and writing style of the author were
prominently involved, as seems the case with the major part of Scripture, all that we are
able to say is that God’s providential oversight and direction of the life of each author
was such that their personalities, their backgrounds and training, their abilities to evalu-
ate events in the world around them, their access to historical data, their judgment with
regard to the accuracy of information, and their individual circumstances when they
wrote, 11 were all exactly what God wanted them to be, so that when they actually came to
the point of putting pen to paper, the words were fully their own words but also fully the
words that God wanted them to write, words that God would also claim as his own.
B. Therefore to Disbelieve or Disobey Any Word of Scripture
Is to Disbelieve or Disobey God
The preceding section has argued that all the words in Scripture are God’s words.
Consequently, to disbelieve or disobey any word of Scripture is to disbelieve or disobey
n This would also include even the influence of a secretary
(technically called an amanuensis) on the wording of a book:
see the greeting from Tertius in Rom. 16:22.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
82
God himself. Thus, Jesus can rebuke his disciples for not believing the Old Testament
Scriptures (Luke 24:25). Believers are to keep or obey the disciples’ words (John 15:20:
“If they kept my word, they will keep yours also”). Christians are encouraged to remem-
ber “the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles” (2 Peter 3:2). To
disobey Paul’s writings was to make oneself liable to church discipline, such as excom-
munication (2 Thess. 3:14) and spiritual punishment (2 Cor. 13:2-3), including pun-
ishment from God (this is the apparent sense of the passive verb “he is not recognized”
in 1 Cor. 14:38). By contrast, God delights in everyone who “trembles” at his word
(Isa. 66:2).
Throughout the history of the church the greatest preachers have been those who
have recognized that they have no authority in themselves and have seen their task
as being to explain the words of Scripture and apply them clearly to the lives of their
hearers. Their preaching has drawn its power not from the proclamation of their own
Christian experiences or the experiences of others, nor from their own opinions, cre-
ative ideas, or rhetorical skills, but from God’s powerful words. 12 Essentially they stood
in the pulpit, pointed to the biblical text, and said in effect to the congregation, “This is
what this verse means. Do you see that meaning here as well? Then you must believe it
and obey it with all your heart, for God himself, your Creator and your Lord, is saying
this to you today!” Only the written words of Scripture can give this kind of authority
to preaching.
C. The Truthfulness of Scripture
1. God Cannot Lie or Speak Falsely. The essence of the authority of Scripture is its abil-
ity to compel us to believe and to obey it and to make such belief and obedience equiva-
lent to believing and obeying God himself. Because this is so, it is needful to consider the
truthfulness of Scripture, since to believe all the words of Scripture implies confidence
in the complete truthfulness of the Scripture that we believe. Although this issue will
be dealt with more fully when we consider the inerrancy of Scripture (see chapter 5), a
brief treatment is given here.
Since the biblical writers repeatedly affirm that the words of the Bible, though
human, are God’s own words, it is appropriate to look at biblical texts that talk about
the character of God's words and to apply these to the character of the words of Scripture.
Specifically, there are a number of biblical passages that talk about the truthfulness of
God’s speech. Titus 1:2 speaks of “God, who never lies,” or (more literally translated),
“the unlying God.” Because God is a God who cannot speak a “lie,” his words can always
be trusted. Since all of Scripture is spoken by God, all of Scripture must be “unlying,”
just as God himself is: there can be no untruthfulness in Scripture. 13
13 Some scholars object that it is “too simplistic” to argue
as follows: “The Bible is God’s words. God never lies. There-
fore the Bible never lies.” Yet it is precisely that kind of argu-
ment that Paul uses in Titus 1:2. He refers to the promises of
eternal life made “ages ago” in Scripture and says the prom-
ises were made by God “who never lies.” He thus calls on the
12 I am not denying that good speaking ability or creativity
or telling of personal experiences have a place in preaching, for
good preaching will include all of these (see Prov. 16:21, 23). I
am saying that the power to change lives must come from the
Word itself, and it will be evident to the hearers when a preacher
really believes this.
CHAPTER 4 ■ THE AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE
83
Hebrews 6:18 mentions two unchangeable things (God’s oath and his promise) “in
which it is impossible for God to lie (author’s translation).” Here the author says not
merely that God does not lie, but that it is not possible for him to lie. Although the
immediate reference is only to oaths and promises, if it is impossible for God to lie in
these utterances, then certainly it is impossible for him ever to lie (for Jesus harshly
rebukes those who tell the truth only when under oath: Matt. 5:33-37; 23:16-22). Simi-
larly, David says to God, “You are God, and your words are true ” (2 Sam. 7:28).
2. Therefore All the Words in Scripture Are Completely True and Without Error in
Any Part. Since the words of the Bible are God’s words, and since God cannot lie or
speak falsely, it is correct to conclude that there is no untruthfulness or error in any part
of the words of Scripture. We find this affirmed several places in the Bible. “The words
of the Lord are words that are pure, silver refined in a furnace on the ground, purified
seven times” (Ps. 12:6, author’s translation). Here the psalmist uses vivid imagery to
speak of the undiluted purity of God’s words: there is no imperfection in them. Also in
Proverbs 30:5, we read, “ Every word of God proves true; he is a shield to those who take
refuge in him.” It is not just some of the words of Scripture that are true, but every word.
In fact, God’s Word is fixed in heaven for all eternity: “For ever, O Lord, your word is
firmly fixed in the heavens'’ (Ps. 119:89). Jesus can speak of the eternal nature of his
own words: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (Matt.
24:35). God’s speech is placed in marked contrast to all human speech, for “God is not
man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should repent” (Num. 23:19). These
verses affirm explicitly what was implicit in the requirement that we believe all of the
words of Scripture, namely, that there is no untruthfulness or falsehood affirmed in any
of the statements of the Bible.
3. God’s Words Are the Ultimate Standard of Truth. In John 17 Jesus prays to the Father,
Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17). This verse is interesting
because Jesus does not use the adjectives alethinos or alethes (“true”), which we might
have expected, to say, “Your word is true.” Rather, he uses a noun, aletheia (“truth”), to
say that God’s Word is not simply “true,” but it is truth itself.
The difference is significant, for this statement encourages us to think of the Bible not
simply as being “true” in the sense that it conforms to some higher standard of truth, but
rather to think of the Bible as being itself the final standard of truth. The Bible is God’s
Word, and God s Word is the ultimate definition of what is true and what is not true:
God s Word is itself truth. Thus we are to think of the Bible as the ultimate standard of
truth, the reference point by which every other claim to truthfulness is to be measured.
Those assertions that conform with Scripture are “true” while those that do not con-
form with Scripture are not true.
What then is truth? Truth is what God says, and we have what God says (accurately
but not exhaustively) in the Bible.
truthfulness of God’s own speech to prove the truthfulness of is scriptural, and it is true. We should therefore not hesitate to
the words of Scripture. A “simple” argument this may be, but it accept it and use it.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
84
4. Might Some New Fact Ever Contradict the Bible? Will any new scientific or historical
fact ever be discovered that will contradict the Bible? Here we can say with confidence
that this will never happen — it is in fact impossible. If any supposed “fact” is ever dis-
covered that is said to contradict Scripture, then (if we have understood Scripture rightly)
that “fact” must be false, because God, the author of Scripture, knows all true facts (past,
present, and future). No fact will ever turn up that God did not know about ages ago and
take into account when he caused Scripture to be written. Every true fact is something
that God has known already from all eternity and is something that therefore cannot
contradict God’s speech in Scripture.
Nevertheless, it must be remembered that scientific or historical study (as well as other
kinds of study of creation) can cause us to reexamine Scripture to see if it really teaches
what we thought it taught. The Bible certainly does not teach that the earth was created in
the year 4004 B.C., as some once thought (for the genealogical lists in Scripture have gaps
in them). 14 Yet it was in part historical, archaeological, astronomical, and geological study
that caused Christians to reexamine Scripture to see if it really taught such a recent origin
for the earth. Careful analysis of the biblical text showed that it did not teach this.
Similarly, the Bible does not teach that the sun goes around the earth, for it only uses
descriptions of phenomena as we see them from our vantage point and does not purport
to be describing the workings of the universe from some arbitrary “fixed” point some-
where out in space. Yet until the study of astronomy advanced enough to demonstrate
the rotation of the earth on its axis, people assumed that the Bible taught that the sun
goes around the earth. Then the study of scientific data prompted a reexamination of
the appropriate biblical texts. Thus, whenever confronted with some “fact” that is said
to contradict Scripture, we must not only examine the data adduced to demonstrate the
fact in question; we must also reexamine the appropriate biblical texts to see if the Bible
really teaches what we thought it to teach.
We should never fear but always welcome any new facts that may be discovered in any
legitimate area of human research or study. For example, discoveries by archaeologists
working in Syria have brought to light the Ebla Tablets. These extensive written records
from the period around 2000 B.C. will eventually throw great light on our understanding
of the world of the patriarchs and the events connected with the lives of Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob. Should Christians entertain any lingering apprehension that the publication
of such data will prove some fact in Genesis to be incorrect? Certainly not! We should
eagerly anticipate the publication of all such data with the absolute confidence that if it
is correctly understood it will all be consistent with Scripture and will all confirm the
accuracy of Scripture. No true fact will ever contradict the words of the God who knows
all facts and who never lies.
D. Written Scripture Is Our Final Authority
It is important to realize that the final form in which Scripture remains authoritative
is its written form. It was the words of God written on the tablets of stone that Moses
14 See chapter 15, pp. 289-309, for discussion of the age of the
earth, and pp. 290-91 for discussion of gaps in the genealogies.
CHAPTER 4 • THE AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE
deposited in the ark of the covenant. Later, God commanded Moses and subsequent
prophets to write their words in a book. And it was written Scripture (graphe) that Paul
said was “God-breathed” (2 Tim. 3:16). Similarly, it is Paul’s writings that are “a com-
mand of the Lord” (1 Cor. 14:37) and that could be classified with “the other scriptures”
(2 Peter 3:16).
This is important because people sometimes (intentionally or unintentionally) attempt
to substitute some other final standard than the written words of Scripture. For example,
people will sometimes refer to “what Jesus really said” and claim that when we translate
the Greek words of the Gospels back into the Aramaic language Jesus spoke, we can gain
a better understanding of Jesus’ words than was given by the writers of the Gospels. In
fact, it is sometimes said that this work of reconstructing Jesus’ words in Aramaic enables
us to correct the erroneous translations made by the gospel authors.
In other cases, people have claimed to know “what Paul really thought” even when
that is different from the meaning of the words he wrote. Or they have spoken of “what
Paul should have said if he had been consistent with the rest of his theology.” Similarly,
others have spoken of the church situation to which Matthew was writing” and have
attempted to give normative force either to that situation or to the solution they think
Matthew was attempting to bring about in that situation.
In all of these instances we must admit that asking about the words or situations that
lie “behind” the text of Scripture may at times be helpful to us in understanding what the
text means. Nevertheless, our hypothetical reconstructions of these words or situations
can never replace or compete with Scripture itself as the final authority, nor should we ever
allow them to contradict or call into question the accuracy of any of the words of Scripture.
We must continually remember that we have in the Bible God’s very words, and we must
not try to improve” on them in some way, for this cannot be done. Rather, we should seek
to understand them and then trust them and obey them with our whole heart.
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. If you want to persuade someone that the Bible is God’s Word, what do you want
that person to read more than any other piece of literature?
2. Who would try to make people want to disbelieve something in Scripture? To dis-
obey something in Scripture? Is there anything in the Bible that you do not want
to believe? To obey? If your answers to either of the preceding two questions were
positive, what is the best way to approach and to deal with the desires you have in
this area?
3. Do you know of any proven fact in all of history that has shown something in the
Bible to be false? Can the same be said about other religious writings such as the
Book of Mormon or the Qur’an ? If you have read in other books such as these, can you
describe the spiritual effect they had on you? Compare that with the spiritual effect
that reading the Bible has on you. Can you say that when you read the Bible you hear
the voice of your Creator speaking to you in a way that is true of no other book?
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
86
4. Do you ever find yourself believing something not because you have external evi-
dence for it but simply because it is written in Scripture? Is that proper faith, accord-
ing to Hebrews 11:1? If you do believe things simply because Scripture says them,
what do you think Christ will say to you about this habit when you stand before his
judgment seat? Do you think that trusting and obeying everything that Scripture
affirms will ever lead you into sin or away from God’s blessing in your life?
SPECIAL TERMS
absolute authority
authority
circular argument
dictation
God-breathed
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter 1,
pp. 38-39. Complete bibliographical data maybe found on pp. 1224-30.)
inspiration
plenary inspiration
Scripture
self-attesting
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1882-92 Litton, 18-40
1930 Thomas, 115 -20, 123 - 33, 141-45
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1875-76 Pope, 1:92-99, 156-92
1892 -94 Miley, 2:481-89
1940 Wiley, 1:166-84
1960 Purkiser, 60-80
1983 Carter, 1:287-330
3. Baptist
1767
1907
1917
1976- 83
1983-85
1987-94
4. Dispensational
1947
1949
1986
Gill, 1:15-37
Strong, 111-242
Mullins, 142-44, 150-53
Henry, 2:247-334; 3:28-47, 203-488; 4:7- 271, 470 -93
Erickson, 175-259
Lewis/Demarest, 1:93-171
Chafer, 1:21-104, 120-23
Thiessen, 43 -49, 62 - 74
Ryrie, 20- 22, 63 - 76
CHAPTER 4 • THE AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE
87
5. Lutheran
1917-24
Pieper, 1:193-317, 349-59
1934
Mueller, 90-136
Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1559
Calvin, 1:7-8, 74-93
1861
Heppe, 21-28
1871-73
Hodge, 1:153-82
1887-1921
Warfield, IAB, 3-410, 419-42; SSW, 2:537-638
1889
Shedd, 1:70- 110; 3:27-88
1937-66
Murray, CW, 3:256-62; CW, 4:30-57
1938
Berkhof, Intro., 144-65, 182-86
1962
Buswell, 1:183-93, 198-213
7. Renewal (or charismatic/Pentecostal)
1988-92 Williams, 1:22-25
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
1. Roman Catholic: Traditional
1955 Ott (no explicit treatment)
2. Roman Catholic: Post-Vatican II
1980 McBrien, 1:62-77, 201-44
Other Works
Carson, D. A., and John Woodbridge, eds. Hermeneutics , Authority ; and Canon. Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 1986.
. Scripture and Truth. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1983.
Geisler, Norman L., ed. Inerrancy. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1980.
Grudem, Wayne A. The Gift of Prophecy in 1 Corinthians . Washington, D.C.: University
Press of America, 1982, pp. 1-54.
Helm, Paul. The Divine Revelation: The Basic Issues. Westchester, 111.: Crossway, 1982.
Henry, Carl F. H. “Bible, Inspiration of” In EDT y pp. 145-49.
Kuyper, Abraham. Principles of Sacred Theology. Trans, by J. H. de Vries. Repr. ed.: Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1968, pp. 413-563 (first published as Encyclopedia of Sacred
Theology in 1898).
Montgomery, John W., ed. God's Inerrant Word. Minneapolis: Bethany Fellowship, 1974.
Nash, Ronald H. The Word of God and the Mind of Man. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982.
Packer, J. I. “ Fundamentalism ” and the Word of God. London: Inter- Varsity Press, 1958.
. “Infallibility and Inerrancy of the Bible.” In NDT y pp. 337-39.
. “Scripture.” In NDT, pp. 627-31.
Pinnock, Clark. Biblical Revelation. Chicago: Moody, 1971.
Radmacher, Earl D., and Robert D. Preus, eds. Hermeneutics , Inerrancy ; and the Bible.
Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
88
Van Til, Cornelius. In Defense of the Faith , vol. 1: The Doctrine of Scripture. Ripon, Calif.:
den Dulk Christian Foundation, 1967.
. In Defense of the Faith , vol. 5: An Introduction to Systematic Theology Phillipsburg,
N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1976, pp. 110-58.
Warfield, B. B. Limited Inspiration . Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1962.
Wells, Paul. lames Barr and the Bible: Critique of a New Liberalism. Phillipsburg, N.J.:
Presbyterian and Reformed, 1980.
Wenham, John W. Christ and the Bible. London: Tyndale Press, 1972.
Woodbridge, John. Biblical Authority: A Critique of the Rogers/McKim Proposal. Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 1982.
Westminster Seminary Faculty. The Infallible Word. 3d ed. Philadelphia: Presbyterian and
Reformed, 1967.
Young, Edward J. Thy Word Is Truth. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1957.
Works From a Noninerrancy Perspective
Baillie, John. The Idea of Revelation in Recent Thought. New York: Columbia University
Press, 1956.
Barr, James. Fundamentalism. London: SCM, 1977.
Beegle, Dewey M. Scripture , Tradition , , and Infallibility Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1973.
Berkouwer, G. C. Holy Scripture. Trans, by Jack B. Rogers. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1975.
Burtchaell, James Tunstead. Catholic Theories of Biblical Inspiration Since 1810: A Review
and Critique. Cambridge: University Press, 1969.
Davis, Stephen T. The Debate About the Bible. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1977.
McKim, Donald K., ed. The Authoritative Word: Essays on the Nature of Scripture. Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983.
Pinnock, Clark. The Scripture Principle. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1984.
Rogers, Jack, ed. Biblical Authority Waco, Tex.: Word, 1977.
Rogers, Jack, and Donald K. McKim. The Authority and Interpretation of the Bible: An
Historical Approach. San Francisco: Harper and Row: 1979.
Vawter, Bruce. Biblical Inspiration . Philadelphia: Westminster, 1972 (a recent Roman
Catholic work).
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
2 Timothy 3:16: All scripture is inspired by God and prof itable for teaching, for reproof, for
correction, and for training in righteousness.
CHAPTER 4 - THE AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE
89
HYMN
“Standing on the Promises”
This hymn speaks of the promises of God’s Word as the eternally firm and unchang-
ing foundation on which we can rest our faith. In the midst of doubt and fear these
promises “cannot fail .” By standing firm on them we will be able to sing “Glory in the
highest!” for all eternity. Yet the hymn speaks not merely of the promises of God’s Word,
but of all the contents of Scripture: the Bible is “the living Word of God” by which we
“prevail” in the midst of adversity (v. 2), and it is the “Spirit’s sword” by which we may
be “overcoming daily” (v. 3). There is no other sure foundation on which to rest our faith
than on the very words and promises of God. “I am standing on the promises of God!”
is the joyful exclamation of a heart filled with faith, and it shall be our song throughout
eternity.
Standing on the promises of Christ my King,
Through eternal ages let his praises ring!
Glory in the highest I will shout and sing
Standing on the promises of God!
Chorus:
Standing, standing, standing on the promises of God my Savior;
Standing, standing, I’m standing on the promises of God.
Standing on the promises that cannot fail
When the howling storms of doubt and fear assail;
By the living Word of God I shall prevail
Standing on the promises of God!
Standing on the promises of Christ the Lord,
Bound to him eternally by love’s strong cord,
Overcoming daily with the Spirit’s sword
Standing on the promises of God!
Standing on the promises I cannot fall,
List’ning every moment to the Spirit’s call.
Resting in my Savior as my all in all
Standing on the promises of God!
AUTHOR: R. KELSO CARTER, 1886
Chapter
THE INERRANCY OF
SCRIPTURE
Are there any errors in the Bible ?
Most books on systematic theology have not included a separate chapter on the
inerrancy of the Bible. The subject has usually been dealt with under the heading of the
authority of Scripture, and no further treatment has been considered necessary. How-
ever, this issue of inerrancy is of such concern in the evangelical world today that it war-
rants a separate chapter following our treatment of the authority of the Word of God.
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
A. The Meaning of Inerrancy
We will not at this point repeat the arguments concerning the authority of Scripture
that were given in chapter 4. There it was argued that all the words in the Bible are God’s
words, and that therefore to disbelieve or disobey any word in Scripture is to disbelieve
or disobey God. It was argued further that the Bible clearly teaches that God cannot lie
or speak falsely (2 Sam. 7:28; Titus 1:2; Heb. 6:18). Therefore, all the words in Scripture
are claimed to be completely true and without error in any part (Num. 23:19; Pss. 12:6;
119:89, 96; Prov. 30:5; Matt. 24:35). God’s words are, in fact, the ultimate standard of
truth (John 17:17).
Especially relevant at this point are those Scripture texts that indicate the total truth-
fulness and reliability of God’s words. “ The words of the Lord are words that are pure,
silver refined in a furnace on the ground, purified seven times” (Ps. 12:6, author's trans-
lation), indicates the absolute reliability and purity of Scripture. Similarly, “ Every word
of God proves true; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him” (Prov. 30:5), indicates
the truthfulness of every word that God has spoken. Though error and at least partial
falsehood may characterize the speech of every human being, it is the characteristic of
God’s speech even when spoken through sinful human beings that it is never false and
that it never affirms error: “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that
90
CHAPTER 5 ♦ THE INERRANCY OF SCRIPTURE
91
he should repent” (Num. 23:19) was spoken by sinful Balaam specifically about the
prophetic words that God had spoken through his own lips.
With evidence such as this we are now in a position to define biblical inerrancy: The
inerrancy of Scripture means that Scripture in the original manuscripts does not affirm
anything that is contrary to fact.
This definition focuses on the question of truthfulness and falsehood in the language
of Scripture. The definition in simple terms just means that the Bible always tells the truth,
and that it always tells the truth concerning everything it talks about. This definition does
not mean that the Bible tells us every fact there is to know about any one subject, but it
affirms that what it does say about any subject is true.
It is important to realize at the outset of this discussion that the focus of this controversy
is on the question of truthfulness in speech. It must be recognized that absolute truthful-
ness in speech is consistent with some other types of statements, such as the following:
1. The Bible Can Be Inerrant and Still Speak in the Ordinary Language of Everyday
Speech. This is especially true in “scientific” or “historical” descriptions of facts or
events. The Bible can speak of the sun rising and the rain falling because from the per-
spective of the speaker this is exactly what happens. From the standpoint of an observer
standing on the sun (were that possible) or on some hypothetical “fixed” point in space,
the earth rotates and brings the sun into view, and rain does not fall downward but
upward or sideways or whatever direction necessary for it to be drawn by gravity toward
the surface of the earth. But such explanations are hopelessly pedantic and would make
ordinary communication impossible. From the standpoint of the speaker, the sun
does rise and the rain does fall, and these are perfectly true descriptions of the natural
phenomena the speaker observes.
A similar consideration applies to numbers when used in measuring or in counting.
A reporter can say that 8,000 men were killed in a certain battle without thereby imply-
ing that he has counted everyone and that there are not 7,999 or 8,001 dead soldiers. If
roughly 8,000 died, it would of course be false to say that 16,000 died, but it would not be
false in most contexts for a reporter to say that 8,000 men died when in fact 7,823 or 8,242
had died: the limits of truthfulness would depend on the degree of precision implied by
the speaker and expected by his original hearers.
This is also true for measurements. Whether I say, “I don’t live far from my office,” or
“I live a little over a mile from my office,” or “I live one mile from my office,” or “I live
1.287 miles from my office,” all four statements are still approximations to some degree
of accuracy. Further degrees of accuracy might be obtained with more precise scientific
instruments, but these would still be approximations to a certain degree of accuracy. Thus,
measurements also, in order to be true, should conform to the degree of precision implied
by the speaker and expected by the hearers in the original context. It should not trouble
us, then, to affirm both that the Bible is absolutely truthful in everything it says and that it
uses ordinary language to describe natural phenomena or to give approximations or round
numbers when those are appropriate in the context.
We should also note that language can make vague or imprecise statements without
being untrue. “I live a little over a mile from my office” is a vague and imprecise statement.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
92
but it is also inerrant: there is nothing untrue about it. It does not affirm anything that is
contrary to fact. In a similar way, biblical statements can be imprecise and still be totally
true. Inerrancy has to do with truthfulness , not with the degree of precision with which
events are reported.
2. The Bible Can Be Inerrant and Still Include Loose or Free Quotations. The method
by which one person quotes the words of another person is a procedure that in large part
varies from culture to culture. In contemporary American and British culture we are
used to quoting a persons exact words when we enclose the statement in quotation marks
(this is called direct quotation). But when we use indirect quotation (with no quotation
marks) we only expect an accurate report of the substance of a statement. Consider this
sentence: “Elliot said that he would return home for supper right away.” The sentence
does not quote Elliot directly, but it is an acceptable and truthful report of Elliot’s actual
statement to his father, “I will come to the house to eat in two minutes,” even though the
indirect quotation included none of the speaker’s original words.
Written Greek at the time of the New Testament had no quotation marks or equivalent
kinds of punctuation, and an accurate citation of another person needed to include only
a correct representation of the content of what the person said (rather like our indirect
quotations): it was not expected to cite each word exactly. Thus, inerrancy is consistent
with loose or free quotations of the Old Testament or of the words of Jesus, for example,
so long as the content is not false to what was originally stated. The original writer did
not ordinarily imply that he was using the exact words of the speaker and only those, nor
did the original hearers expect verbatim quotation in such reporting.
3. It Is Consistent With Inerrancy to Have Unusual or Uncommon Grammatical
Constructions in the Bible. Some of the language of Scripture is elegant and stylistically
excellent. Other scriptural writings contain the rough-hewn language of ordinary people.
At times this includes a failure to follow the commonly accepted “rules” of grammatical
expression (such as the use of a plural verb where grammatical rules would require a sin-
gular verb, or the use of a feminine adjective where a masculine one would be expected,
or different spelling for a word than the one commonly used, etc.). These stylistically or
grammatically irregular statements (which are especially found in the book of Revela-
tion) should not trouble us, for they do not affect the truthfulness of the statements under
consideration: a statement can be ungrammatical but still be entirely true. For example,
an uneducated backwoodsman in some rural area may be the most trusted man in the
county even though his grammar is poor, because he has earned a reputation for never
telling a lie. Similarly, there are a few statements in Scripture (in the original languages)
that are ungrammatical (according to current standards of proper grammar at that time)
but still inerrant because they are completely true. The issue is truthfulness in speech.
B. Some Current Challenges to Inerrancy
In this section we examine the major objections that are commonly made against the
concept of inerrancy.
CHAPTER 5 ■ THE INERRANCY OF SCRIPTURE
1. The Bible Is Only Authoritative for "Faith and Practice.” One of the most frequent
objections is raised by those who say that the purpose of Scripture is to teach us in
areas that concern “faith and practice” only; that is, in areas that directly relate to our
religious faith or to our ethical conduct. This position would allow for the possibility
of false statements in Scripture, for example, in other areas such as in minor historical
details or scientific facts — these areas, it is said, do not concern the purpose of the
Bible, which is to instruct us in what we should believe and how we are to live. 1 Its
advocates often prefer to say that the Bible is “ infallible ,” but they hesitate to use the
word inerrant. 2
The response to this objection can be stated as follows: the Bible repeatedly affirms that
all of Scripture is profitable for us (2 Tim. 3:16) and that all of it is “God-breathed.” Thus
it is completely pure (Ps. 12:6), perfect (Ps. 119:96), and true (Prov. 30:5). The Bible itself
does not make any restriction on the kinds of subjects to which it speaks truthfully.
The New Testament contains further affirmations of the reliability of all parts of Scrip-
ture: in Acts 24:14, Paul says that he worships God, “believing everythinghdd down by the
law or written in the prophets.” In Luke 24:25, Jesus says that the disciples are “foolish
men because they are “slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.” In
Romans 15:4, Paul says that “ whatever was written” in the Old Testament was “writ-
ten for our instruction.” These texts give no indication that there is any part of Scrip-
ture that is not to be trusted or relied on completely. Similarly, in 1 Corinthians 10:11,
Paul can refer even to minor historical details in the Old Testament (sitting down to eat
and drink, rising up to dance) and can say both that they “ happened ” (thus implying
historical reliability) and “were written down for our instruction.”
If we begin to examine the way in which the New Testament authors trust the small-
est historical details of the Old Testament narrative, we see no intention to separate out
matters of “faith and practice,” or to say that this is somehow a recognizable category
of affirmations, or to imply that statements not in that category need not be trusted or
thought to be inerrant. Rather, it seems that the New Testament authors are willing to
cite and affirm as true every detail of the Old Testament.
In the following list are some examples of these historical details cited by New Testa-
ment authors. If all of these are matters of “faith and practice,” then every historical detail
of the Old Testament is a matter of “faith and practice,” and this objection ceases to be
an objection to inerrancy. On the other hand, if so many details can be affirmed, then
it seems that all of the historical details in the Old Testament can be affirmed as true,
and we should not speak of restricting the necessary truthfulness of Scripture to some
category of “faith and practice” that would exclude certain minor details. There are no
types of details left that could not be affirmed as true.
The New Testament gives us the following data: David ate the bread of the Presence
(Matt. 12:3-4); Jonah was in the whale (Matt. 12:40); the men of Nineveh repented
l A good defense of this position can be found in a collec-
tion of essays edited by Jack Rogers, Biblical Authority (Waco,
Tex.: Word, 1977); and, more extensively, in Jack B. Rogers and
Donald McKim, The Authority and Interpretation of the Bible:
An Historical Approach (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1979).
2 Until about 1960 or 1965 the word infallible was used
interchangeably with the word inerrant. But in recent years, at
least in the United States, the word infallible has been used in
a weaker sense to mean that the Bible will not lead us astray in
matters of faith and practice.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
94
(Matt. 12:41); the queen of the South came to hear Solomon (Matt. 12:42); Elijah was
sent to the widow of Zarephath (Luke 4:25-26); Naaman the Syrian was cleansed of
leprosy (Luke 4:27); on the day Lot left Sodom fire and brimstone rained from heaven
(Luke 17:29; cf. v. 32 with its reference to Lot's wife who turned to salt); Moses lifted up
the serpent in the wilderness (John 3:14); Jacob gave a field to Joseph (John 4:5); many
details of the history of Israel occurred (Acts 13:17-23); Abraham believed and received
the promise before he was circumcised (Rom. 4:10); Abraham was about one hundred
years old (Rom. 4:19); God told Rebekah before her children were born that the elder
child would serve the younger (Rom. 9:10-12); Elijah spoke with God (Rom. 11:2-4);
the people of Israel passed through the sea, ate and drank spiritual food and drink,
desired evil, sat down to drink, rose up to dance, indulged in immorality, grumbled, and
were destroyed (1 Cor. 10:11); Abraham gave a tenth of everything to Melchizedek (Heb.
7:1-2); the Old Testament tabernacle had a specific and detailed design (Heb. 9:1-5);
Moses sprinkled the people and the tabernacle vessels with blood and water, using scar-
let wool and hyssop (Heb. 9:19-21); the world was created by the Word of God (Heb.
11:3); 3 many details of the lives of Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Rahab, and
others actually happened (Heb. 11, passim); Esau sold his birthright for a single meal
and later sought it back with tears (Heb. 12:16-17); Rahab received the spies and sent
them out another way (James 2:25); eight persons were saved in the ark (1 Peter 3:20; 2
Peter 2:5); God turned Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes but saved Lot (2 Peter 2:6-7);
Balaam’s donkey spoke (2 Peter 2:16).
This list indicates that the New Testament writers were willing to rely on the truth-
fulness of any part of the historical narratives of the Old Testament. No detail was too
insignificant to be used for the instruction of New Testament Christians. There is no
indication that they thought of a certain category of scriptural statements that were
unreliable and untrustworthy (such as “historical and scientific” statements as opposed
to doctrinal and moral passages). It seems clear that the Bible itself does not support
any restriction on the kinds of subjects to which it speaks with absolute authority and
truth; indeed, many passages in Scripture actually exclude the validity of this kind of
restriction.
A second response to those who limit the necessary truthfulness of Scripture to mat-
ters of “faith and practice” is to note that this position mistakes the major purpose of
Scripture for the total purpose of Scripture. To say that the major purpose of Scripture
is to teach us in matters of “faith and practice” is to make a useful and correct summary
of God’s purpose in giving us the Bible. But as a summary it includes only the most
prominent purpose of God in giving us Scripture. It is not, however, legitimate to use
this summary to deny that it is part of the purpose of Scripture to tell us about minor
historical details or about some aspects of astronomy or geography, and so forth. A
summary cannot properly be used to deny one of the things it is summarizing! To use
it this way would simply show that the summary is not detailed enough to specify the
items in question.
3 This is not a minor detail, but it is useful as an example faith”; thus, faith here is explicitly said to involve trust in the
of a “scientific” fact that is affirmed in the Old Testament and truthfulness of a scientific and historical fact recorded in the
one about which the author says that we have knowledge “by Old Testament.
CHAPTER 5 - THE INERRANCY OF SCRIPTURE
95
It is better to say that the whole purpose of Scripture is to say everything it does say,
on whatever subject. Every one of Gods words in Scripture was deemed by him to be
important for us. Thus, God issues severe warnings to anyone who would take away
even one word from what he has said to us (Deut. 4:2; 12:32; Rev. 22:18- 19): we cannot
add to God’s words or take from them, for all are part of his larger purpose in speaking
to us. Everything stated in Scripture is there because God intended it to be there: God
does not say anything unintentionally! Thus, this first objection to inerrancy makes a
wrong use of a summary and thereby incorrectly attempts to impose artificial limits on
the kinds of things about which God can speak to us.
2. The Term Inerrancy Is a Poor Term. People who make this second objection say that
the term inerrancy is too precise and that in ordinary usage it denotes a kind of absolute
scientific precision that we do not want to claim for Scripture. Furthermore, those who
make this objection note that the term inerrancy is not used in the Bible itself. Therefore,
it is probably an inappropriate term for us to insist upon.
The response to this objection may be stated as follows: first, the scholars who have
used the term inerrancy have defined it clearly for over a hundred years, and they have
always allowed for the “limitations” that attach to speech in ordinary language. In no
case has the term been used to denote a kind of absolute scientific precision by any
responsible representative of the inerrancy position. Therefore those who raise this
objection to the term are not giving careful enough attention to the way in which it has
been used in theological discussions for more than a century.
Second, it must be noted that we often use nonbiblical terms to summarize a biblical
teaching. The word Trinity does not occur in Scripture, nor does the word incarnation.
Yet both of these terms are very helpful because they allow us to summarize in one word
a true biblical concept, and they are therefore helpful in enabling us to discuss a biblical
teaching more easily.
It should also be noted that no other single word has been proposed which says as
clearly what we want to affirm when we wish to talk about total truthfulness in lan-
guage. The word inerrancy does this quite well, and there seems no reason not to con-
tinue to use it for that purpose.
Finally, in the church today we seem to be unable to carry on the discussion around
this topic without the use of this term. People may object to this term if they wish,
but, like it or not, this is the term about which the discussion has focused and almost
certainly will continue to focus in the next several decades. When the International
Council on Biblical Inerrancy (ICBI) in 1977 began a ten-year campaign to promote and
defend the idea of biblical inerrancy, it became inevitable that this word would be the
one about which discussion would proceed. The “Chicago Statement on Biblical Iner-
rancy,” which was drafted and published in 1978 under ICBI sponsorship (see appendix
1), defined what most evangelicals mean by inerrancy, perhaps not perfectly, but quite
well, and further objections to such a widely used and well-defined term seem to be
unnecessary and unhelpful for the church.
3. We Have No Inerrant Manuscripts; Therefore, Talk About an Inerrant Bible Is
Misleading. Those who make this objection point to the fact that inerrancy has always
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
96
been claimed for the first or original copies of the biblical documents . 4 Yet none of these
survive: we have only copies of copies of what Moses or Paul or Peter wrote. What is the
use, then, of placing so great importance on a doctrine that applies only to manuscripts
that no one has?
In reply to this objection, it may first be stated that for over 99 percent of the words
of the Bible, we know what the original manuscript said. Even for many of the verses
where there are textual variants (that is, different words in different ancient copies of the
same verse), the correct decision is often quite clear, and there are really very few places
where the textual variant is both difficult to evaluate and significant in determining the
meaning. In the small percentage of cases where there is significant uncertainty about
what the original text said, the general sense of the sentence is usually quite clear from
the context. (One does not have to be a Hebrew or Greek scholar to know where these
variants are, because all modern English translations indicate them in marginal notes
with words such as “some ancient manuscripts read . . .” or “other ancient authorities
add. . . .”)
This is not to say that the study of textual variants is unimportant, but it is to say
that the study of textual variants has not left us in confusion about what the original
manuscripts said. 5 It has rather brought us extremely close to the content of those origi-
nal manuscripts. For most practical purposes, then, the current published scholarly texts
of the Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament are the same as the original
manuscripts . Thus, when we say that the original manuscripts were inerrant, we are also
implying that over 99 percent of the words in our present manuscripts are also inerrant,
for they are exact copies of the originals. Furthermore, we know where the uncertain
readings are (for where there are no textual variants we have no reason to expect faulty
copying of the original) . 6 Thus, our present manuscripts are for most purposes the same
as the original manuscripts, and the doctrine of inerrancy therefore directly concerns
our present manuscripts as well.
Furthermore, it is extremely important to affirm the inerrancy of the original docu-
ments, for the subsequent copies were made by men with no claim or guarantee by God
that these copies would be perfect. But the original manuscripts are those to which the
claims to be Gods very words apply. Thus, if we have mistakes in the copies (as we do),
then these are only the mistakes of men. But if we have mistakes in the original manu-
scripts, then we are forced to say not only that men made mistakes, but that God himself
made a mistake and spoke falsely. This we cannot do.
4 In theological terms, these original copies are called the
“autographs,” using the prefix auto-, meaning “self,” and the
root graph, meaning “writing,” to refer to a copy written by the
author himself.
5 An excellent survey of the work of studying textual vari-
ants in the extant manuscripts of the New Testament is Bruce
M. Metzger, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission,
Corruption, and Restoration, 2d ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1968).
6 Of course the theoretical possibility exists that there was
a copying error in the very first copy made of one of Paul’s
epistles, for instance, and that this error has been reproduced
in all remaining copies. But this must be thought unlikely
because (1) it would require that only one copy was made of
the original, or that only one copy was the basis for all other
extant copies, and (2) our earlier argument about the faith-
fulness of God in preserving the canon (see chapter 3, p. 65)
would seem to imply that if such a mistake did occur, it would
not be one that would materially affect our understanding of
Scripture. The existence of such a copying error cannot be
either proven or disproven, but further speculation about it
apart from hard evidence does not appear to be profitable.
CHAPTER 5 ■ THE INERRANCY OF SCRIPTURE
4. The Biblical Writers “Accommodated” Their Messages in Minor Details to the
False Ideas Current in Their Day, and Affirmed or Taught Those Ideas in an Inciden-
tal Way. This objection to inerrancy is slightly different from the one that would restrict
the inerrancy of Scripture to matters of faith and practice, but it is related to it. Those
who hold this position argue that it would have been very difficult for the biblical writ-
ers to communicate with the people of their time if they had tried to correct all the false
historical and scientific information believed by their contemporaries. Those who hold
this position would not argue that the points where the Bible affirms false information
are numerous, or even that these places are the main points of any particular section
of Scripture. Rather, they would say that when the biblical writers were attempting to
make a larger point, they sometimes incidentally affirmed some falsehood believed by
the people of their time. 7
To this objection to inerrancy it can be replied, first, that God is Lord of human
language who can use human language to communicate perfectly without having to
affirm any false ideas that may have been held by people during the time of the writing
of Scripture. This objection to inerrancy essentially denies God’s effective lordship over
human language.
Second, we must respond that such “accommodation” by God to our misunderstand-
ings would imply that God had acted contrary to his character as an “unlying God” (Num.
23:19; Titus 1:2; Heb. 6:18). It is not helpful to divert attention from this difficulty by
repeated emphasis on the gracious condescension of God to speak on our level. Yes, God
does condescend to speak our language, the language of human beings. But no passage of
Scripture teaches that he “condescends” so as to act contrary to his moral character. He is
never said to be able to condescend so as to affirm — even incidentally — something that is
false. If God were to accommodate himself in this way, he would cease to be the “unlying
God. He would cease to be the God the Bible represents him to be. Such activity would
not in any way show God’s greatness, for God does not manifest his greatness by acting in
a way that contradicts his character. This objection thus at root misunderstands the purity
and unity of God as they affect all of his words and deeds.
Furthermore, such a process of accommodation, if it actually had occurred, would
create a serious moral problem for us. We are to be imitators of God’s moral character
(Lev. 11:44; Luke 6:36; Eph. 5:1; 1 Peter 5:1, et al.). Paul says, since in our new natures
we are becoming more like God (Eph. 4:24), we should “put away falsehood” and “speak
the truth with one another (v. 25). We are to imitate God’s truthfulness in our speech.
However, if the accommodation theory is correct, then God intentionally made inciden-
tal affirmations of falsehood in order to enhance communication. Therefore, would it
not also be right for us intentionally to make incidental affirmations of falsehood when-
ever it would enhance communication? Yet this would be tantamount to saying that a
minor falsehood told for a good purpose (a “white lie”) is not wrong. Such a position,
contradicted by the Scripture passages cited above concerning God’s total truthfulness
in speech, cannot be held to be valid.
7 An explanation of this view can be found in Daniel P.
Fuller, “Benjamin B. Warfields View of Faith and History,”
BETS 11 (1968): 75-83.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
98
5. Inerrancy Overemphasizes the Divine Aspect of Scripture and Neglects the Human
Aspect. This more general objection is made by those who claim that people who advo-
cate inerrancy so emphasize the divine aspect of Scripture that they downplay its human
aspect.
It is agreed that Scripture has both a human and a divine aspect, and that we must give
adequate attention to both. However, those who make this objection almost invariably
go on to insist that the truly “human” aspects of Scripture must include the presence of
some errors in Scripture. We can respond that though the Bible is fully human in that it
was written by human beings using their own language, the activity of God in oversee-
ing the writing of Scripture and causing it to be also his words means that it is differ-
ent from much other human writing in precisely this aspect: it does not include error.
That is exactly the point made even by sinful, greedy, disobedient Balaam in Numbers
23:19: God’s speech through sinful human beings is different from the ordinary speech
of men because “God is not man that he should lie.” Moreover, it is simply not true that
all human speech and writing contains error, for we make dozens of statements each
day that are completely true. For example: “My name is Wayne Grudem ” “I have three
children.” “I ate breakfast this morning.”
6. There Are Some Clear Errors in the Bible. This final objection, that there are clear
errors in the Bible, is either stated or implied by most of those who deny inerrancy, and
for many of them the conviction that there are some actual errors in Scripture is a major
factor in persuading them to challenge the doctrine of inerrancy.
In every case, the first answer that should be made to this objection is to ask where
such errors are. In which specific verse or verses do these errors occur? It is surprising how
frequently one finds that this objection is made by people who have little or no idea where
the specific errors are, but who believe there are errors because others have told them so.
In other cases, however, people will mention one or more specific passages where, they
claim, there is a false statement in Scripture. In these cases, it is important that we look at
the biblical text itself, and look at it very closely. If we believe that the Bible is indeed inerrant,
we should be eager and certainly not afraid to inspect these texts in minute detail. In fact,
our expectation will be that close inspection will show there to be no error at all. Once again
it is surprising how often it turns out that a careful reading just of the English text of the
passage in question will bring to light one or more possible solutions to the difficulty.
In a few passages, no solution to the difficulty may be immediately apparent from
reading the English text. At that point it is helpful to consult some commentaries on the
text. Both Augustine (A.D. 354-430) and John Calvin (1509-64), along with many more
recent commentators, have taken time to deal with most of the alleged “problem texts” and
to suggest plausible solutions to them. Furthermore some writers have made collections of
all the most difficult texts and have provided suggested answers for them. 8
There are a few texts where a knowledge of Hebrew or Greek may be necessary to find a
solution, and those who do not have firsthand access to these languages may have to find
8 The interested reader may consult, for example, Gleason Zondervan, 1982); William Arndt, Does the Bible Contradict
L. Archer, Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties (Grand Rapids: Itself? (St. Louis: Concordia, 1955); idem., Bible Difficulties
CHAPTER 5 * THE INERRANCY OF SCRIPTURE
answers either from a more technical commentary or by asking someone who does have
this training. Of course, our understanding of Scripture is never perfect, and this means
that there may be cases where we will be unable to find a solution to a difficult passage
at the present time. This maybe because the linguistic, historical, or contextual evidence
we need to understand the passage correctly is presently unknown to us. This should not
trouble us in a small number of passages so long as the overall pattern of our investigation
of these passages has shown that there is, in fact, no error where one has been alleged. 9
But while we must allow the possibility of being unable to solve a particular problem,
it should also be stated that there are many evangelical Bible scholars today who will say
that they do not presently know of any problem texts for which there is no satisfactory
solution. It is possible, of course, that some such texts could be called to their attention in
the future, but during the past fifteen years or so of controversy over biblical inerrancy,
no such “unsolved” text has been brought to their attention. 10
Finally, a historical perspective on this question is helpful. There are no really “new”
problems in Scripture. The Bible in its entirety is over 1,900 years old, and the alleged
problem texts have been there all along. Yet throughout the history of the church there
has been a firm belief in the inerrancy of Scripture in the sense in which it is defined in
this chapter. Moreover, for these hundreds of years highly competent biblical scholars
have read and studied those problem texts and still have found no difficulty in holding to
inerrancy. This should give us confidence that the solutions to these problems are avail-
able and that belief in inerrancy is entirely consistent with a lifetime of detailed attention
to the text of Scripture. 11
C. Problems With Denying Inerrancy
The problems that come with a denial of biblical inerrancy are not insignificant, and
when we understand the magnitude of these problems it gives us further encouragement
not only to affirm inerrancy but also to affirm its importance for the church. Some of
the more serious problems are listed here.
1. If We Deny Inerrancy, a Serious Moral Problem Confronts Us: May We Imitate
God and Intentionally Lie in Small Matters Also? This is similar to the point made in
response to objection #4, above, but here it applies not only to those who espouse objec-
tion #4 but also more broadly to all who deny inerrancy. Ephesians 5:1 tells us to be
twenty years examined dozens of these “problem texts”
that have been brought to his attention in the context of
the inerrancy debate. In every one of those cases, upon close
inspection of the text a plausible solution has become evident.
n On the history of inerrancy in the church, see the
essays by Philip Hughes, Geoffrey W. Bromiley, W. Robert
Godfrey, and John D. Woodbridge and Randall H. Balmer
in Scripture and Truth. See also the more extensive study
by John D. Woodbridge, Biblical Authority: A Critique of
the Rogers and McKim Proposal (Grand Rapids: Zondervan,
1982).
(St. Louis: Concordia, 1932); and John W. Haley, Alleged Dis-
crepancies of the Bible (1874; reprinted Grand Rapids: Baker,
1977). Almost all of the difficult texts have also received helpful
analysis in the extensive notes to The NIV Study Bible , ed.
Kenneth Barker et al. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1985).
9 J. P. Moreland, “The Rationality of Belief in Inerrancy,” in
TrinJ 7:1 (1986): 75-86, argues convincingly that Christians
should not abandon the doctrine of inerrancy simply because
of a small number of “problem texts” for which they presently
have no clear solution.
10 The present writer, for example, has during the last
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
100
imitators of God. But a denial of inerrancy that still claims that the words of Scripture
are God-breathed words necessarily implies that God intentionally spoke falsely to us
in some of the less central affirmations of Scripture. But if this is right for God to do,
how can it be wrong for us? Such a line of reasoning would, if we believed it, exert strong
pressure on us to begin to speak untruthfully in situations where that might seem to help
us communicate better, and so forth. This position would be a slippery slope with
ever-increasing negative results in our own lives.
2. If Inerrancy Is Denied, We Begin to Wonder If We Can Really Trust God in
Anything He Says. Once we become convinced that God has spoken falsely to us in
some minor matters in Scripture, then we realize that God is capable of speaking falsely
to us. This will have a detrimental effect on our ability to take God at his word and
trust him completely or obey him fully in the rest of Scripture. We will begin to disobey
initially those sections of Scripture that we least wish to obey, and to distrust initially
those sections that we are least inclined to trust. But such a procedure will eventually
increase, to the great detriment of our spiritual lives. Of course, such a decline in trust
and obedience to Scripture may not necessarily follow in the life of every individual who
denies inerrancy, but this will certainly be the general pattern, and it will be the pattern
exhibited over the course of a generation that is taught to deny inerrancy.
3. If We Deny Inerrancy, We Essentially Make Our Own Human Minds a Higher
Standard of Truth Than God’s Word Itself. We use our minds to pass judgment on some
sections of God’s Word and pronounce them to be in error. But this is in effect to say that
we know truth more certainly and more accurately than God’s Word does (or than God
does), at least in these areas. Such a procedure, making our own minds to be a higher
standard of truth than God’s Word, is the root of all intellectual sin. 12
4. If We Deny Inerrancy, Then We Must Also Say That the Bible Is Wrong Not Only in
Minor Details but in Some of Its Doctrines as Well. A denial of inerrancy means that we
say that the Bible’s teaching about the nature of Scripture and about the truthfulness and
reliability of God’s words is also false. These are not minor details but are major doctrinal
concerns in Scripture. 13
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. Why do you think the debate about inerrancy has become such a large issue in this
century? Why do people on both sides of the question think it to be important?
12 See chapter 4, p. 83, for a discussion of the Bible as our
absolute standard of truth.
13 Although the undesirable positions listed above are
logically related to a denial of inerrancy, a word of caution
is in order: Not all who deny inerrancy will also adopt the
undesirable conclusions just listed. Some people (probably
inconsistently) will deny inerrancy but not take these next
logical steps. In debates over inerrancy, as in other theologi-
cal discussions, it is important that we criticize people on the
basis of views they actually hold, and distinguish those views
clearly from positions we think they would hold if they were
consistent with their stated views.
CHAPTERS - THE INERRANCY OF SCRIPTURE
101
2. If you thought there were some small errors affirmed by Scripture, how do you
think that would affect the way you read Scripture? Would it affect your concern
for truthfulness in everyday conversation?
3. Do you know of any Scripture texts that seem to contain errors? What are they?
Have you tried to resolve the difficulties in those texts? If you have not found a
solution to some text, what further steps might you try?
4. As Christians go through life learning to know their Bibles better and growing in
Christian maturity, do they tend to trust the Bible more or less? In heaven, do you
think you will believe the Bible is inerrant? If so, will you believe it more firmly or
less firmly than you do now?
5. If you are convinced that the Bible teaches the doctrine of inerrancy, how do you
feel about it? Are you glad that such a teaching is there, or do you feel it to be some-
thing of a burden which you would rather not have to defend?
6. Does belief in inerrancy guarantee sound doctrine and a sound Christian life? How
can Jehovah’s Witnesses say that the Bible is inerrant while they themselves have so
many false teachings?
7. If you agree with inerrancy, do you think belief in inerrancy should be a require-
ment for church membership? For teaching a Sunday school class? For holding a
church office such as elder or deacon? For being ordained as a pastor? For teaching
at a theological seminary? Why or why not?
8. When there is a doctrinal controversy in the church, what are the personal dangers
facing those whose position is more consistent with Scripture? In particular, how
could pride in correct doctrine become a problem? What is the solution? Do you
think inerrancy is an important issue for the future of the church? Why or why
not? How do you think it will be resolved?
SPECIAL TERMS
autograph inerrant
faith and practice infallible
ICBI textual variant
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter 1,
pp. 38-39. Complete bibliographical data maybe found on pp. 1224-30.)
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
(In this section, when referring to some significant older works that do not include a
specific discussion of inerrancy, I have listed instead the pages where they discuss biblical
authority generally. In those cases the pages here duplicate the listings for chapter 4 on
the authority of Scripture.)
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
102
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1882-92 Litton, 18-40
1930 Thomas, 500-501
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1875- 76 Pope, 1:36-192
1892-94 Miley, 2:41-49
1940 Wiley, 1:166-84
1960 Purkiser, 66-80
3. Baptist
1767
1907
1917
1976-83
1983-85
1987-94
4. Dispensational
1947
1949
1986
5. Lutheran
1917-24
1934
Gill, 11-18
Strong, 222-42
Mullins, 142-44, 150-53
Henry, 3:248-487; 4:129 -255, 353 -404
Erickson, 221 -40
Lewis/Demarest, 1:93-171
Chafer, 1:63-88
Thiessen, 105-15
Ryrie, 77-104
Pieper, 1:232-65, 338-49
Mueller, 101-37
6. Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1559 Calvin, 1:74-92
1871-73 Hodge, 1:163-82
1878 Dabney, DET, 1:282-313,466-81
1887- 1921 Warfield, IAB, passim
1889 Shedd, 1:93-110
1937-66 Murray, CW, 1:9- 15; CW, 4:22-29
1938 Berkhof, Intro, 144-65, 182-86
7. Renewal (or charismatic/Pentecostal)
1988-92 Williams, 1:36-43
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
1. Roman Catholic: Traditional
1955 Ott (no explicit treatment)
2. Roman Catholic: Post-Vatican II
1980 McBrien, 1:64
Other Works
CHAPTER 5 • THE INERRANCY OF SCRIPTURE
103
(See also the bibliography for chapter 4, “Authority” much of which is also relevant
here, but only part of which has been listed again.)
Archer, Gleason. Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982.
Arndt, W. Bible Difficulties. St. Louis: Concordia, 1932.
. Does the Bible Contradict Itself ? St. Louis: Concordia, 1955.
Boice, James, ed. The Foundation of Biblical Authority. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1978.
Carson, D. A., and John Woodbridge, eds. Hermeneutics , Authority and Canon. Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 1986.
. Scripture and Truth. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1983.
Feinberg, Paul. “Bible, Inerrancy and Infallibility of.” In EDT, pp. 141 -45.
Geisler, Norman, ed. Biblical Errancy: An Analysis of Its Philosophical Roots. Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 1981.
. ed. Inerrancy. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1979 (papers from the October 1978
Chicago Conference of the ICBI).
Haley, John W. Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible. Repr. ed. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1977 (first
published 1874).
Lindsell, Harold. The Battle for the Bible. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1976.
. The Bible in the Balance. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1979.
Montgomery, John W., ed. God's Inerrant Word. Minneapolis: Bethany Fellowship, 1974.
Packer, J. I. “Scripture.” In NDT y pp. 627-31.
. “Infallibility and Inerrancy of the Bible.” In NDT, 337-39.
Schaeffer, Francis. No Final Conflict: The Bible Without Error in All That It Affirms. Downers
Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press, 1975.
Warfield, B. B. Limited Inspiration. Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1962.
Woodbridge, John. Biblical Authority: A Critique of the Rogers/McKim Proposal. Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 1982.
Young, Edward J. Thy Word Is Truth . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1957.
Works From a Noninerrancy Perspective
(See also the bibliography for chapter 4.)
Barr, James. Fundamentalism. London: SCM, 1977.
Beegle, Dewey M. Scripture y Tradition , and Infallibility. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1973.
Davis, Stephen T. The Debate About the Bible. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1977.
McKim, Donald K., ed. The Authoritative Word: Essays on the Nature of Scripture. Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983.
Rogers, Jack, ed. Biblical Authority. Waco, Tex.: Word, 1977.
Rogers, Jack B., and Donald K. McKim. The Authority and Interpretation of the Bible: An
Historical Approach. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1979.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
104
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
P salm 12:6: The promises [literally, “words"] of the Lord are promises [“words”] that are
pure, silver refined in a furnace on the ground, purified seven times.
HYMN
“The Law of the Lord is Perfect”
This modern setting of Psalm 19:7-11 expresses the perfection of God’s Word in
several different ways and shows various aspects of its application to our lives.
The law of the Lord is perfect,
converting the soul.
The testimony of the Lord is sure,
making wise the simple.
Refrain:
More to be desired are they than gold,
yea than much fine gold.
Sweeter also than honey
and the honeycomb.
The statutes of the Lord are right,
rejoicing the heart.
The commandments of the Lord are pure,
enlight’ning the eyes.
The fear of the Lord is clean,
enduring forever.
The judgments of the Lord are true,
and righteous altogether.
AUTHOR: ANONYMOUS (FROM PS. 19:7-11)
Chapter
THE FOUR CHARACTERISTICS
OF SCRIPTURE: (2) CLARITY
Can only Bible scholars understand
the Bible rightly ?
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
Anyone who has begun to read the Bible seriously will realize that some parts can be
understood very easily while other parts seem puzzling. In fact, very early in the history
of the church Peter reminded his readers that some parts of Paul’s epistles were difficult
to understand: “So also our beloved brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom
given him, speaking of this as he does in all his letters. There are some things in them
hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as
they do the other scriptures” (2 Peter 3:15-16). We must admit therefore that not all
parts of Scripture are able to be understood easily.
But it would be a mistake to think that most of Scripture or Scripture in general is
difficult to understand. In fact, the Old Testament and New Testament frequently affirm
that Scripture is written in such a way that its teachings are able to be understood by
ordinary believers. Even in Peter’s statement just quoted, the context is an appeal to the
teachings of Paul’s letter, which Peter’s readers had read and understood (2 Peter 3:15).
In fact, Peter assigns some moral blame to those who twist these passages “to their own
destruction. And he does not say that there are things impossible to understand, but
only difficult to understand.
A. The Bible Frequently Affirms Its Own Clarity
The Bible s clarity and the responsibility of believers generally to read it and understand
it are often emphasized. In a very familiar passage, Moses tells the people of Israel:
And these words which I command you this day shall be upon your heart; and
you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you
105
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
106
sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and
when you rise. (Deut. 6:6-7)
All the people of Israel were expected to be able to understand the words of Scripture
well enough to be able to “teach them diligently” to their children. This teaching would
not have consisted merely of rote memorization devoid of understanding, for the people
of Israel were to discuss the words of Scripture during their activities of sitting in the
house or walking or going to bed or getting up in the morning. God expected that all
of his people would know and be able to talk about his Word, with proper application
to ordinary situations in life. Similarly, Psalm 1 tells us that the “blessed man,” whom
all the righteous in Israel were to emulate, was one who meditated on God’s law “day
and night” (Ps. 1:2). This daily meditation assumes an ability to understand Scripture
rightly on the part of those who meditate.
The character of Scripture is said to be such that even the “simple” can understand
it rightly and be made wise by it. “The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the
simple ” (Ps. 19:7). Again we read, “The unfolding of your words gives light; it imparts
understanding to the simple” (Ps. 119:130). Here the “simple” person (Heb. peti) is not
merely one who lacks intellectual ability, but one who lacks sound judgment, who is
prone to making mistakes, and who is easily led astray. 1 God’s Word is so understand-
able, so clear, that even this kind of person is made wise by it. This should be a great
encouragement to all believers: no believer should think himself or herself too foolish
to read Scripture and understand it sufficiently to be made wise by it.
There is a similar emphasis in the New Testament. lesus himself, in his teachings, his
conversations, and his disputes, never responds to any questions with a hint of blaming
the Old Testament Scriptures for being unclear. Even while speaking to first-century
people who were removed from David by 1,000 years, from Moses by about 1,500 years,
and from Abraham by about 2,000 years, lesus still assumes that such people are able to
read and rightly to understand the Old Testament Scriptures.
In a day when it is common for people to tell us how hard it is to interpret Scripture
rightly, we would do well to remember that not once in the Gospels do we ever hear
lesus saying anything like this: “I see how your problem arose — the Scriptures are not
very clear on that subject.” Instead, whether he is speaking to scholars or untrained
common people, his responses always assume that the blame for misunderstanding any
teaching of Scripture is not to be placed on the Scriptures themselves, but on those who
misunderstand or fail to accept what is written. Again and again he answers questions
with statements like, “Have you not read . . .” (Matt. 12:3, 5; 19:4; 22:31), “Have you
never read in the scriptures . . .” (Matt. 21:42), or even, “You are wrong because you
know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God” (Matt. 22:29; cf. Matt. 9:13; 12:7;
15:3; 21:13; lohn 3:10, et al.).
Similarly, most of the New Testament epistles are written not to church leaders but
to entire congregations. Paul writes, “To the church of God which is at Corinth” (1 Cor.
'Compare the use of this same word in Prov. 1:4; 7:7; 8:5;
9:6; 14:15, 18; 22:3; 27:12.
CHAPTER 6 • THE CLARITY OF SCRIPTURE
1:2), To the churches of Galatia (Gal. 1:2), “To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at
Philippi, with the bishops and deacons” (Phil. 1:1), and so forth. Paul assumes that his
hearers will understand what he writes, and he encourages the sharing of his letters with
other churches: “And when this letter has been read among you, have it read also in the
church of the Laodiceans; and see that you read also the letter from Laodicea” (Col. 4:16;
cf. John 20:30-31; 2 Cor. 1:13; Eph. 3:4; 1 Tim. 4:13; James 1:1, 22-25; 1 Peter 1:1; 2:2;
2 Peter 1:19; 1 John 5:13). 2
Second Peter 1:20 may be urged against the view of the clarity of Scripture explained
in this chapter. The verse says, “no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own inter-
pretation,” and someone may claim that this means that ordinary believers are unable
to interpret Scripture rightly for themselves. It is unlikely, however, that this implication
should be drawn from 2 Peter 1:20, for the verse is probably discussing the origin and
not the interpretation of Scripture. Thus the NIV translates it, “no prophecy of Scripture
came about by the prophet’s own interpretation.” 3 Furthermore, even if the verse were
understood as speaking of interpreting Scripture, it would be saying that the interpre-
tation of Scripture must be done within the fellowship of believers and not merely as a
personal activity. It still would not be implying that authoritative interpreters are needed
to ascertain the true meaning of Scripture, but simply that reading and understanding
Scripture should not be carried out entirely in isolation from other Christians.
Lest we think that understanding the Bible was somehow easier for first-century
Christians than for us, it is important to realize that in many instances the New Testa-
ment epistles were written to churches that had large proportions of Gentile Christians.
They were relatively new Christians who had no previous background in any kind of
Christian society, and who had little or no prior understanding of the history and cul-
ture of Israel. Nevertheless, the New Testament authors show no hesitancy in expecting
even these Gentile Christians to be able to read a translation of the Old Testament in
their own language and to understand it rightly (cf. Rom. 4:1 -25; 15:4; 1 Cor. 10:1-11;
2 Tim. 3:16- 17, et al.).
B. The Moral and Spiritual Qualities Needed
for Right Understanding
The New Testament writers frequently state that the ability to understand Scripture
rightly is more a moral and spiritual than intellectual ability: “The unspiritual man does
not receive the gifts (literally “things”) of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and
he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14;
cf. 1:18-3:4; 2 Cor. 3:14-16; 4:3-4, 6; Heb. 5:14; James 1:5-6; 2 Peter 3:5; cf. Mark
2 Paul tells the Corinthians, “We write you nothing but what
you can read and understand,” and then he adds, “I hope you
will understand fully, as you have understood in part” (2 Cor.
1: 13- 14). The addition to his first statement does not negate his
affirmation of the clarity of what he has written to them, but
does encourage the Corinthians to be diligent in listening care-
fully to Paul’s words, in order that their partial understanding
may be deepened and enriched. Indeed, the very expression of
such a hope shows that Paul assumes his writings are able to be
understood ( elpizo , “I hope,” in the New Testament expresses a
much more confident expectation of a future event than does
the English word hope).
3 This interpretation is well defended by Michael Green,
The Second Epistle of Peter and the Epistle of Jude , TNTC
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), pp. 100- 102.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
4:11-12; John 7:17; 8:43). Thus, although the New Testament authors affirm that the
Bible in itself is written clearly, they also affirm that it will not be understood rightly by
those who are unwilling to receive its teachings. Scripture is able to be understood by
all unbelievers who will read it sincerely seeking salvation, and by all believers who will
read it while seeking God’s help in understanding it. This is because in both cases the
Holy Spirit is at work overcoming the effects of sin, which otherwise will make the truth
appear to be foolish (1 Cor. 2:14; 1:18-25; James 1:5-6, 22-25).
C. Definition of the Clarity of Scripture
In order to summarize this biblical material, we can affirm that the Bible is written
in such a way that all things necessary for our salvation and for our Christian life and
growth are very clearly set forth in Scripture. Although theologians have sometimes
defined the clarity of Scripture more narrowly (by saying, for example, only that Scrip-
ture is clear in teaching the way of salvation), the many texts cited above apply to many
different aspects of biblical teaching and do not seem to support any such limitation
on the areas to which Scripture can be said to speak clearly. It seems more faithful to
those biblical texts to define the clarity 4 of Scripture as follows: The clarity of Scripture
means that the Bible is written in such a way that its teachings are able to be understood by
all who will read it seeking God’s help and being willing to follow it. Once we have stated
this, however, we must also recognize that many people, even God’s people, do in fact
misunderstand Scripture.
D. Why Do People Misunderstand Scripture?
During Jesus’ lifetime, his own disciples at times failed to understand the Old Testa-
ment and Jesus’ own teachings (see Matt. 15:16; Mark 4:10-13; 6:52; 8:14-21; 9:32;
Luke 18:34; John 8:27; 10:6). Although sometimes this was due to the fact that they
simply needed to wait for further events in the history of redemption, and especially in
the life of Christ himself (see John 12:16; 13:7; cf. John 2:22), there were also times when
this was due to their own lack of faith or hardness of heart (Luke 24:25). Furthermore,
there were times in the early church when Christians did not understand or agree on
the teachings of the Old Testament or about the letters written by the apostles: note the
process of growth in understanding concerning the implications of Gentile inclusion
in the church (culminating in “much debate” [Acts 15:7] in the Jerusalem Council of
Acts 15), or Peter’s misunderstanding of this issue in Galatians 2:11 - 15, or the frequent
doctrinal and ethical issues that had to be corrected by the New Testament epistles. In
fact, throughout the history of the church, doctrinal disagreements have been many, and
progress in resolving doctrinal differences has often been slow.
In order to help people to avoid making mistakes in interpreting Scripture, many
Bible teachers have developed “principles of interpretation,” or guidelines to encourage
4 The old term for the clarity of Scripture was perspi- is not very clear to people today, and I have not used it in
cuity, a term that simply means “clarity.” That term itself this book.
CHAPTER 6 • THE CLARITY OF SCRIPTURE
growth in the skill of proper interpretation. The word hermeneutics (from the Greek
word hermeneuo, “to interpret”) is the more technical term for this field of study:
hermeneutics is the study of correct methods of interpretation (especially interpretation
of Scripture).
Another technical term often used in discussions of biblical interpretation is “exe-
gesis, a term that refers more to the actual practice of interpreting Scripture, not to
theories and principles about how it should be done: exegesis is the process of interpreting
a text of Scripture. Consequently, when one studies principles of interpretation, that is
“hermeneutics,” but when one applies those principles and begins actually explaining a
biblical text, he or she is doing “exegesis.”
The existence of many disagreements about the meaning of Scripture throughout
history reminds us that the doctrine of the clarity of Scripture does not imply or sug-
gest that all believers will agree on all the teachings of Scripture. Nevertheless, it does
tell us something very important— that the problem always lies not with Scripture but
with ourselves. The situation is in fact similar to that of the authority of Scripture.
Whereas we affirm that the words of Scripture have all the authority of God himself, we
also realize that many people do not acknowledge that authority or submit themselves
to it. Similarly, we affirm that all the teachings of Scripture are clear and able to be
understood, but we also recognize that people often (through their own shortcomings)
misunderstand what is clearly written in Scripture.
E. Practical Encouragement From This Doctrine
The doctrine of the clarity of Scripture therefore has a very important, and ultimately
very encouraging, practical implication. It tells us that where there are areas of doctrinal
or ethical disagreement (for example, over baptism or predestination or church govern-
ment), there are only two possible causes for these disagreements: (1) On the one hand,
it may be that we are seeking to make affirmations where Scripture itself is silent. In such
cases we should be more ready to admit that God has not given us the answer to our
quest, and to allow for differences of viewpoint within the church. (This will often be
the case with very practical questions, such as methods of evangelism or styles of Bible
teaching or appropriate church size.) (2) On the other hand, it is possible that we have
made mistakes in our interpretation of Scripture. This could have happened because
the data we used to decide a question of interpretation were inaccurate or incomplete.
Or it could be because there is some personal inadequacy on our part, whether it be,
for example, personal pride, or greed, or lack of faith, or selfishness, or even failure to
devote enough time to prayerfully reading and studying Scripture.
But in no case are we free to say that the teaching of the Bible on any subject is confus-
ing or incapable of being understood correctly. In no case should we think that persis-
tent disagreements on some subject through the history of the church mean that we will
be unable to come to a correct conclusion on that subject ourselves. Rather, if a genuine
concern about some such subject arises in our lives, we should sincerely ask God’s help
and then go to Scripture, searching it with all our ability, believing that God will enable
us to understand rightly.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
110
This truth should give great encouragement to all Christians to read their Bibles daily
and with great eagerness. We should never assume, for example, that only those who
know Greek and Hebrew, or only pastors or Bible scholars, are able to understand the
Bible rightly — remember that the Old Testament was written in Hebrew and that many
of the Christians to whom the New Testament letters were written had no knowledge of
Hebrew at all: they had to read the Old Testament in a Greek translation. Yet the New
Testament authors assume that these people can read it and understand it rightly even
without scholarly ability in the original language. Christians must never give up to the
scholarly “experts” the task of interpreting Scripture: they must keep doing it every day
for themselves. 5
Furthermore, even though we admit that there have been many doctrinal disagree-
ments in the history of the church, we must not forget that there has been an amazing
amount of doctrinal agreement on the most central truths of Scripture throughout
the history of the church. Indeed, those who have had opportunities for fellowship
with Christians in other parts of the world have discovered the remarkable fact that
wherever we find a group of vital Christians, almost immediately a vast amount of
agreement on all the central doctrines of the Christian faith becomes apparent. Why
is this true, no matter what the society, or culture, or denominational affiliation? It is
because they all have been reading and believing the same Bible, and its primary teach-
ings have been clear.
F. The Role of Scholars
Is there any role then for Bible scholars or for those with specialized knowledge of
Hebrew (for the Old Testament) and Greek (for the New Testament)? Certainly there is
a role for them in at least four areas:
1. They can teach Scripture clearly, communicating its content to others and thus
fulfilling the office of “teacher” mentioned in the New Testament (1 Cor. 12:28;
Eph. 4:11).
2. They can explore new areas of understanding the teachings of Scripture. This
exploration will seldom (if ever) involve denial of the main teachings the church has
held throughout its centuries, but it will often involve the application of Scripture to new
areas of life, the answering of difficult questions that have been raised by both believers
and unbelievers at each new period in history, and the continual activity of refining and
making more precise the church’s understanding of detailed points of interpretation of
individual verses or matters of doctrine or ethics. Though the Bible may not seem large
in comparison with the vast amount of literature in the world, it is a rich treasure-house
of wisdom from God that surpasses in value all the other books that have ever been
written. The process of relating its various teachings to one another, synthesizing them,
and applying them to each new generation, is a greatly rewarding task that will never be
5 I do not mean to suggest that the activity of interpreting that by whatever means, and primarily through the means of
Scripture should be an individualistic one: God will often reading Scripture for themselves, Christians should expect that
use the writings of others or the personal advice of others to they will be enabled by God to understand the teachings of
enable us to understand his Word rightly. The main point is Scripture rightly.
CHAPTER 6 ■ THE CLARITY OF SCRIPTURE
completed in this age. Every scholar who deeply loves God’s Word will soon realize that
there is much more in Scripture than can be learned in any one lifetime!
3. They can defend the teachings of the Bible against attacks by other scholars or
those with specialized technical training. The role of teaching God’s Word also at times
involves correcting false teachings. One must be able not only "To give instruction in
sound doctrine” but also “to confute those who contradict it” (Titus 1:9; cf. 2 Tim. 2:25,
“correcting his opponents with gentleness”; and Titus 2:7-8). Sometimes those who
attack biblical teachings have specialized training and technical knowledge in historical,
linguistic, or philosophical study, and they use that training to mount rather sophis-
ticated attacks against the teaching of Scripture. In such cases, believers with similar
specialized skills can use their training to understand and respond to such attacks. Such
training is also very useful in responding to the false teachings of cults and sects. This is
not to say that believers without specialized training are incapable of responding to false
teaching (for most false teaching can be clearly refuted by a believer who prays and has a
good knowledge of the English Bible), but rather that technical points in arguments can
only be answered by those with skills in the technical areas appealed to.
4. They can supplement the study of Scripture for the benefit of the church. Bible
scholars often have training that will enable them to relate the teachings of Scripture to
the rich history of the church, and to make the interpretation of Scripture more precise
and its meaning more vivid with a greater knowledge of the languages and cultures in
which the Bible was written.
These four functions benefit the church as a whole, and all believers should be thank-
ful for those who perform them. However, these functions do not include the right to
decide for the church as a whole what is true and false doctrine or what is proper conduct
in a difficult situation. If such a right were the preserve of formally trained Bible schol-
ars, then they would become a governing elite in the church, and the ordinary function-
ing of the government of the church as described in the New Testament would cease.
The process of decision-making for the church must be left to the officers of the church,
whether they are scholars or not (and, in a congregational form of church government,
not only to the officers but also to the people of the church as a whole). 6
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. If the doctrine of the clarity of Scripture is true, why does there seem to be so
much disagreement among Christians about the teaching of the Bible? Observing
the diversity of interpretations of Scripture, some conclude, “People can make
the Bible say anything they want.” How do you think Jesus would respond to this
statement?
2. What would happen to the church if most believers gave up reading the Bible for
themselves and only listened to Bible teachers or read books about the Bible? If you
6 See the discussion of various forms of church government
in chapter 47, pp. 923-37.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
112
thought that only expert scholars could understand the Bible rightly, what would
happen to your personal reading of Scripture? Has this already happened to some
extent in your life or in the lives of those you know?
3. Do you think that there are right and wrong interpretations of most or all passages
of Scripture? If you thought the Bible was generally unclear, how would your answer
change? Will a conviction about the clarity of Scripture affect the care you use when
studying a text of Scripture? Will it affect the way you approach Scripture when
trying to gain a biblical answer to some difficult doctrinal or moral problem?
4. If even seminary professors disagree about some Bible teaching, can other Chris-
tians ever hope to come to a correct decision on that teaching? (Give reasons for
your answer.) Do you think ordinary people among the Jews at the time of Jesus
had a hard time deciding whether to believe Jesus or the scholarly experts who
disagreed with him? Did Jesus expect them to be able to decide?
5. How can a pastor preach biblically based sermons each Sunday without giving
the impression that only people with seminary training (like himself) are able to
interpret Scripture rightly? Do you think it should ever be necessary, in a doctrinal
or ethical controversy, for a Bible scholar to speak in a church and base his main
arguments on special meanings of Greek or Hebrew words that the church mem-
bers themselves are unable to evaluate or take issue with personally? Is there an
appropriate way for a scholar to use such technical knowledge in popular writing
or speaking?
6. Church leaders at the time of Martin Luther said they wanted to keep the Bible in
Latin to prevent the common people from reading it and then misinterpreting it.
Evaluate this argument. Why do you think Martin Luther was so anxious to trans-
late the Bible into German? Why do you think church leaders in previous centuries
have persecuted and even killed men — like William Tyndale in England — who
were translating the Bible into the language of the people? Why is the task of Bible
translation into other languages so important a part of the work of missions?
7. Does the doctrine of the clarity of Scripture mean that the New Testament can be
fully understood by people who do not have access to an Old Testament?
SPECIAL TERMS
clarity of Scripture
exegesis
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter 1,
pp. 38-39. Complete bibliographical data may be found on pp. 1224-30.)
hermeneutics
perspicuity
CHAPTER 6 • THE CLARITY OF SCRIPTURE
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1882-92 Litton (no explicit treatment)
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1875- 76 Pope, 1:223-30
1983 Carter, 2:747-67
3. Baptist
1767 Gill, 30-32
1976- 83 Henry, 4:272-367
1983-85 Erickson, 253-56
4. Dispensational
1947 Chafer, 1:105-19
1986 Ryrie, 110-18
5. Lutheran
1917-24 Pieper, 1:319-30,359-70
1934 Mueller, 138-41
6. Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1861 Heppe, 33-41
1871-73 Hodge, 1:183-90
1938 Berkhof, Intro., 167
113
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
(no explicit treatment)
Other Works
In this section I have listed several works on developing greater skill in biblical inter-
pretation, including three helpful works by nonevangelical authors (one by Barr and two
by Hirsch).
Barr, James. The Semantics of Biblical Language. London: Oxford University Press, 1961.
Berkhof, Louis. Principles of Biblical Interpretation. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1950.
Carson, D. A. Exegetical Fallacies. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1984.
Dockery, David S. Biblical Interpretation Then and Now: Contemporary Hermeneutics in the
Light of the Early Church. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992.
Fee, Gordon D., and Douglas Stuart. How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth. Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 1982.
Hirsch, E. D., Jr. The Aims of Interpretation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976.
. Validity in Interpretation. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1967.
Hubbard, Robert L., William W. Klein, and Craig L. Blomberg. Introduction to Biblical
Interpretation. Waco, Tex.: Word Books, 1993.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
114
Inch, Morris A., and C. Hassell Bullock, eds. The Literature and Meaning of Scripture .
Grand Rapids: Baker, 1981.
Kaiser, Walter C., Jr. Toward an Exegetical Theology. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1982.
Marshall, I. Howard, ed. New Testament Interpretation: Essays on Principles and Methods.
Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977.
McCown, Wayne, and James Earl Massey, eds. Interpreting God's Word for Today: An Inquiry
Into Hermeneutics From a Biblical Theological Perspective. Wesleyan Theological
Perspectives , vol. 2. Anderson, Ind.: Warner Press, 1982.
McKnight, Scot, ed. Introducing New Testament Interpretation . Grand Rapids: Baker,
1990.
. Interpreting the Synoptic Gospels. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1988.
Mickelsen, A. Berkeley. Interpreting the Bible. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1963.
Osborne, Grant R. The Hermeneutical Spiral: A Comprehensive Introduction to Biblical
Interpretation. Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press, 1992.
Packer, J. I. “Infallible Scripture and the Role of Hermeneutics.” In Scripture and Truth.
Ed. by D. A. Carson and John Woodbridge. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1983, pp.
325-56.
. “Scripture.” In NDT, pp. 627-31.
Ramm, Bernard. Protestant Biblical Interpretation. 3d ed. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1970.
Schultz, Samuel J., and Morris A. Inch, eds. Interpreting the Word of God. Festschrift in
Honor of Steven Barabas. Chicago: Moody, 1976.
Silva, Moises. Biblical Words and Their Meanings. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1983.
. Has the Church Misread the Bible ? The History of Interpretation in the Light of
Contemporary Issues. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1987.
Sire, James. Scripture Twisting: Twenty Ways the Cults Misread the Bible. Downers Grove,
111.: InterVarsity Press, 1980.
Sproul, R. C. Knowing Scripture. Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press, 1977.
Thiselton, Anthony C. New Horizons in Hermeneutics: The Theory and Practice of
Transforming Biblical Reading. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992.
. The Two Horizons: New Testament Hermeneutics and Philosophical Description.
Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980.
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
Deuteronomy 6:6-7: And these words which I command you this day shall be upon your
heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your children , and shall talk of them when you
sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you
rise.
HYMN
CHAPTER 6 • THE CLARITY OF SCRIPTURE
115
"Jehovah’s Perfect Law”
This section of Psalm 19 set to music reminds us of many excellent qualities of Scrip-
ture, among them the fact that it is written clearly: “The testimony of the Lord is sure,
making wise the simple” (v. 7).
(Use the tune of “We Come, O Christ, to You.”)
Jehovah’s perfect law restores the soul again;
His testimony sure gives wisdom unto men;
The precepts of the Lord are right,
And fill the heart with great delight.
The Lord’s commands are pure; they light and joy restore;
Jehovah’s fear is clean, enduring evermore;
His statutes, let the world confess,
Are wholly truth and righteousness.
They are to be desired above the finest gold;
Than honey from the comb more sweetness far they hold;
With warnings they your servant guard,
In keeping them is great reward.
His errors who can know? Cleanse me from hidden stain;
Keep me from willful sins, nor let them o’er me reign;
And then I upright shall appear
And be from great transgressions clear.
Whene’er you search my life, may all my thoughts within
And all the words I speak your full approval win.
O Lord, you are a rock to me,
And my Redeemer you shall be.
FROM: THE PSALTER, 1912 (TAKEN FROM PS. 19:7-14)
Chapter
THE FOUR CHARACTERISTICS
OF SCRIPTURE: (3) NECESSITY
For what purposes are the Bible necessary ?
How much can people know about God
without the Bible?
Do we need to have a Bible or to have someone tell us what the Bible says in order to
know that God exists? Or that we are sinners needing to be saved? Or to know how to find
salvation? Or to know God’s will for our lives? These are the kinds of questions which an
investigation of the necessity of Scripture is intended to answer.
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
The necessity of Scripture maybe defined as follows: The necessity of Scripture means
that the Bible is necessary for knowing the gospel , for maintaining spiritual life , and for
knowing God's will but is not necessary for knowing that God exists or for knowing some-
thing about God's character and moral laws .
That definition may now be explained in its various parts. 1
A. The Bible Is Necessary for Knowledge of the Gospel
In Romans 10:13-17 Paul says:
For, “everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.” But how
are men to call upon him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to
believe in him of whom they have never heard ? And how are they to hear without
1 As the subsequent sections indicate, when this definition aloud or hear others tell them some of the contents of the Bible,
says that the Bible is necessary for certain things, I do not mean But even these oral communications of the contents of the Bible
to imply that an actual printed copy of the Bible is necessary are based on the existence of written copies of the Bible to which
for every person, because sometimes people hear the Bible read other people have access.
116
CHAPTER 7 • THE NECESSITY OF SCRIPTURE
a preacher? ... So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes by
the preaching of Christ.
This statement indicates the following line of reasoning: (1) It first assumes that one
must call upon the name of the Lord to be saved. (In Pauline usage generally as well as in
this specific context [see v. 9], “the Lord” refers to the Lord Jesus Christ.) (2) People can
only call upon the name of Christ if they believe in him (that is, that he is a Savior wor-
thy of calling upon and one who will answer those who call). (3) People cannot believe
in Christ unless they have heard of him. (4) They cannot hear of Christ unless there is
someone to tell them about Christ (a “preacher”). (5) The conclusion is that saving faith
comes by hearing (that is, by hearing the gospel message), and this hearing of the gospel
message comes about through the preaching of Christ. The implication seems to be that
without hearing the preaching of the gospel of Christ, no one can be saved. 2
This passage is one of several that show that eternal salvation comes only through
belief in Jesus Christ and no other way. Speaking of Christ, John 3:18 says, “He who
believes in him is not condemned; he who does not believe is condemned already, because
he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” Similarly, in John 14:6 Jesus says,
I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.”
Peter, on trial before the Sanhedrin, says, “ there is salvation in no one else, for there is
no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
Of course, the exclusiveness of salvation through Christ is because Jesus is the only one
who ever died for our sins or whoever could have done so. Paul says, “For there is one
God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave
himself as a ransom for all ...” (I Tim. 2:5—6). There is no other way to be reconciled to
God than through Christ, for there is no other way of dealing with the guilt of our sin
before a holy God. 3
But if people can be saved only through faith in Christ, someone might ask how
believers under the old covenant could have been saved. The answer must be that those
who were saved under the old covenant were also saved through trusting in Christ, even
though their faith was a forward-looking faith based on God’s word of promise that a
Messiah or a Redeemer would come. Speaking of Old Testament believers such as Abel,
Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and Sarah, the author of Hebrews says, “ These all died in faith,
not having received what was promised, but having seen it and greeted it from afar . . .”
(Heb. 11:13). The same chapter goes on to say that Moses “considered abuse suffered for
the Christ (or the Messiah) greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he looked to
the reward” (Heb. 1 1 :26) . And Jesus can say of Abraham, “Your father Abraham rejoiced
that he was to see my day; he saw it and was glad” (John 8:56). This again apparently
refers to Abraham’s joy in looking forward to the day of the promised Messiah. Thus,
2 Someone might object that the following verse, Rom. 10:18,
in its quotation of Ps. 19:4, “Their voice has gone out to all the
earth, and their words to the ends of the world,” implies that all
people everywhere have already heard the gospel message or the
message of Christ. But in the context of Psalm 19, verse 4 only
speaks of the fact that the natural creation, especially the heav-
ens above, proclaim God’s glory and the greatness of his creative
activity. There is no thought here of the proclamation of salva-
tion through Christ. The idea that all people everywhere have
heard the gospel of Christ through natural revelation would also
be contrary to Paul’s missionary activities.
3 On the question of whether it is fair of God to condemn
people who have never heard of Christ, see the discussion in
chapter 19, pp. 402 — 3, and chapter 32, pp. 681-83.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
118
even Old Testament believers had saving faith in Christ, to whom they looked forward,
not with exact knowledge of the historical details of Christ’s life, but with great faith in
the absolute reliability of Gods word of promise.
The Bible is necessary for salvation, then, in this sense: one must either read the gos-
pel message in the Bible for oneself, or hear it from another person. Even those believers
who came to salvation in the old covenant did so by trusting in the words of God that
promised a Savior to come.
In fact, these repeated instances of people trusting in God’s words of promise, together
with the verses above that affirm the necessity of hearing about and believing in Christ,
seem to indicate that sinful people need more on which to rest their faith than just an
intuitive guess that God might provide a means of salvation. It seems that the only foun-
dation firm enough to rest one’s faith on is the word of God itself (whether spoken or
written) . This in the earliest times came in very brief form, but from the very beginning
we have evidence of words of God promising a salvation yet to come, words that were
trusted by those people whom God called to himself.
For example, even in the lifetime of Adam and Eve there are some words of God that
point toward a future salvation: in Genesis 3:15 the curse on the serpent includes a prom-
ise that the seed of the woman (one of her descendants) would bruise the head of the ser-
pent but would himself be hurt in the process — a promise ultimately fulfilled in Christ.
The fact that the first two children of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, offered sacrifices
to the Lord (Gen. 4:3-4) indicates their consciousness of a need to make some kind of
payment for the guilt of their sin, and of God’s promise of acceptance of sacrifices offered
in the right way. Genesis 4:7, “If you do well, will you not be accepted?” indicates again in
the very briefest form a word from God that offered the provision of some kind of salva-
tion through trusting in the promise of God offered in that word. As the history of the
Old Testament progressed, God’s words of promise became more and more specific, and
the forward-looking faith of God’s people accordingly became more and more definite.
Yet it seems always to have been a faith resting specifically on the words of God himself.
Thus, although it will be argued below that people can know that God exists and can
know something of his laws apart from Scripture, it seems that there is no possibility of
coming to saving faith apart from specific knowledge of God’s words of promise. (See
page 500 regarding salvation of infants who die.)
B. The Bible Is Necessary for Maintaining Spiritual Life
Jesus says in Matthew 4:4 (quoting Deut. 8:3), “Man shall not live on bread alone,
but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God” (NASB) . Here Jesus indicates
that our spiritual life is maintained by daily nourishment with the Word of God, just as
our physical lives are maintained by daily nourishment with physical food. To neglect
regular reading of God’s Word is as detrimental to the health of our souls as the neglect
of physical food is detrimental to the health of our bodies.
Similarly, Moses tells the people of Israel of the importance of God’s words for their
lives: “For it is no trifle for you, but it is your life , and thereby you shall live long in the
land which you are going over the Jordan to possess” (Deut. 32:47). And Peter encour-
ages the Christians to whom he writes, “Like newborn babes, long for the pure spiritual
CHAPTER 7 * THE NECESSITY OF SCRIPTURE
milk, that by it you may grow up to salvation” (1 Peter 2:2). The “pure spiritual milk”
in this context must refer to the Word of God about which Peter has been speaking (see
1 Peter 1:23—25). The Bible, then, is necessary for maintaining spiritual life and for
growth in the Christian life.
C. The Bible Is Necessary for Certain Knowledge of God’s Will
It will be argued below that all people ever born have some knowledge of God’s will
through their consciences. But this knowledge is often indistinct and cannot give cer-
tainty. In fact, if there were no written Word of God, we could not gain certainty about
God’s will through other means such as conscience, advice from others, an internal
witness of the Holy Spirit, changed circumstances, and the use of sanctified reasoning
and common sense. These all might give an approximation of God’s will in more or less
reliable ways, but from these means alone no certainty about God’s will could ever be
attained, at least in a fallen world where sin distorts our perception of right and wrong,
brings faulty reasoning into our thinking processes, and causes us to suppress from
time to time the testimony of our consciences (cf. Jer. 17:9; Rom. 2:14-15; 1 Cor. 8:10;
Heb. 5:14; 10:22; also 1 Tim. 4:2; Titus 1:15).
In the Bible, however, we have clear and definite statements about God’s will. God has
not revealed all things to us, but he has revealed enough for us to know his will: “The
secret things belong to the Lord our God; but the things that are revealed belong to us
and to our children for ever ; that we may do all the words of this law” (Deut. 29:29). As
it was in the time of Moses, so it is now with us: God has revealed his words to us that
we might obey his laws and thereby do his will. To be “blameless” in God’s sight is to
walk in the law of the Lord” (Ps. 119:1). The “blessed” man is one who does not follow
the will of wicked people (Ps. 1:1), but delights “m the law of the Lord” and meditates
on God s law day and night” (Ps. 1:2). To love God (and thereby to act in a way that is
pleasing to him) is to “keep his commandments” (1 John 5:3). If we are to have a certain
knowledge of God’s will, then, we must attain it through the study of Scripture.
In fact, in one sense it can be argued that the Bible is necessary for certain knowledge
about anything. A philosopher might argue as follows: The fact that we do not know
everything requires us to be uncertain about everything we do claim to know. This is
because some fact unknown to us may yet turn out to prove that what we thought to
be true was actually false. For example, we think we know our date of birth, our name,
our age, and so forth. But we must admit that it is possible that some day we could find
that our parents had given us false information and our “certain” knowledge would
then turn out to be incorrect. Regarding events that we personally have experienced, we
all realize how it is possible for us to “remember” words or events incorrectly and find
ourselves later corrected by more accurate information. We can usually be more certain
about the events of our present experience, so long as it remains present (but even that,
someone might argue, could be a dream, and we will only discover this fact when we
wake up!). At any rate, it is difficult to answer the philosopher’s question: If we do not
know all the facts in the universe, past, present, and future, how can we ever attain cer-
tainty that we have correct information about any one fact?
Ultimately, there are only two possible solutions to this problem: (1) We must learn
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
120
all the facts of the universe in order to be sure that no subsequently discovered fact will
prove our present ideas to be false; or (2) someone who does know all the facts in the
universe, and who never lies, could tell us some true facts that we can then be sure will
never be contradicted.
This second solution is in fact what we have when we have God’s words in Scripture.
God knows all facts that ever have been or ever will be. And this God who is omniscient
(all-knowing) has absolutely certain knowledge: there can never be any fact that he does
not already know; thus, there can never be any fact that would prove that something God
thinks is actually false. Now it is from this infinite storehouse of certain knowledge that
God, who never lies, has spoken to us in Scripture, in which he has told us many true
things about himself, about ourselves, and about the universe that he has made. No fact
can ever turn up to contradict the truth spoken by this one who is omniscient.
Thus, it is appropriate for us to be more certain about the truths we read in Scripture
than about any other knowledge we have. If we are to talk about degrees of certainty of
knowledge we have, then the knowledge we attain from Scripture would have the highest
degree of certainty: if the word “certain” can be applied to any kind of human knowledge,
it can be applied to this knowledge. 4
This concept of the certainty of knowledge that we attain from Scripture then gives
us a reasonable basis for affirming the correctness of much of the other knowledge that
we have. We read Scripture and find that its view of the world around us, of human
nature, and of ourselves corresponds closely to the information we have gained from
our own sense- experiences of the world around us. Thus we are encouraged to trust our
sense-experiences of the world around us: our observations correspond with the absolute
truth of Scripture; therefore, our observations are also true and, by and large, reliable.
Such confidence in the general reliability of observations made with our eyes and ears
is further confirmed by the fact that it is God who has made these faculties and who in
Scripture frequently encourages us to use them (compare also Prov. 20:12: “The hearing
ear and the seeing eye, the Lord has made them both”).
In this way the Christian who takes the Bible as God’s Word escapes from philosophi-
cal skepticism about the possibility of attaining certain knowledge with our finite minds.
'‘This statement assumes that we have become convinced
that Scripture is indeed the very words of God, and that we have
understood at least some portions of Scripture correctly. Yet at
this point the doctrine of the clarity of Scripture discussed in the
previous chapter assures us that we will be able to understand
the teachings of Scripture correctly, and the overwhelming testi-
mony of Scripture to its own divine authorship (discussed in the
chapters above concerning different forms of the Word of God
and concerning the authority of Scripture), made persuasive to
us by the work of the Holy Spirit, convinces us of the divine
authorship of Scripture. In this sense the argument becomes not
so much circular as something like a spiral where each section of
the doctrine of Scripture reinforces the other and deepens our
persuasion of the truthfulness of other sections of the doctrine
of Scripture. By this process, our persuasion that Scripture is
God’s Word, that it is truth, that it is clear, and that knowledge
which we attain from it is certain, becomes stronger and
stronger the more we study and reflect on it.
We can of course speak of degrees of certainty that we
might have concerning the fact that the Bible is God’s Word,
and degrees of certainty that our interpretation of any one
teaching in Scripture is correct. Then from the standpoint of
individual personal experience, we could say that our certainty
of the correctness of knowledge that we have from Scripture
becomes greater in proportion to our certainty about the
God-breathed character and clarity of Scripture.
Yet from a theological standpoint, if we begin with an
agreement that Scripture is God-breathed and that we do
understand its teachings (at least its major teachings) cor-
rectly, then it is appropriate to say that the knowledge we
attain from Scripture is more certain than any other knowl-
edge we have.
CHAPTER 7 • THE NECESSITY OF SCRIPTURE
121
In this sense, then, it is correct to say that for people who are not omniscient, the Bible is
necessary for certain knowledge about anything.
This fact is important for the following discussion, where we affirm that unbelievers
can know something about God from the general revelation that is seen in the world
around them. Although this is true, we must recognize that in a fallen world knowl-
edge gained by observation of the world is always imperfect and always liable to error or
misinterpretation. Therefore the knowledge of God and creation gained from Scripture
must be used to interpret correctly the creation around us. Using the theological terms
that we will define below, we can say that we need special revelation to interpret general
revelation rightly. 5
D. But the Bible Is Not Necessary for Knowing That God Exists
What about people who do not read the Bible? Can they obtain any knowledge of
God? Can they know anything about his laws? Yes, without the Bible some knowledge of
God is possible, even if it is not absolutely certain knowledge.
People can obtain a knowledge that God exists, and a knowledge of some of his attri-
butes, simply from observation of themselves and the world around them. David says,
“The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork”
(Ps. 19:1). To look at the sky is to see evidence of the infinite power, wisdom, and even
beauty of God; it is to observe a majestic witness to the glory of God. Similarly, Barn-
abas and Paul tell the Greek inhabitants of Lystra about the living God who made the
heavens and the earth: “In past generations he allowed all the nations to walk in their
own ways; yet he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good and gave you from
heaven rains and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness” (Acts
14:16-17). Rains and fruitful seasons, food produced from the earth, and gladness in
people’s hearts, all bear witness to the fact that their Creator is a God of mercy, of love,
and even of joy. These evidences of God are all around us in creation to be seen by those
who are willing to see them.
Even those who by their wickedness suppress the truth cannot avoid the evidences of
God’s existence and nature in the created order:
For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to
them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal
power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So
they are without excuse; for although they knew God they did not honor him as
God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their
senseless minds were darkened. (Rom. 1:19-21)
Here Paul says not only that creation gives evidence of God’s existence and character,
but also that even wicked men recognize that evidence. What can be known about God
is “plain to them” and in fact “they knew God” (apparently, they knew who he was), but
they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him.” This passage allows us to say
that all persons, even the most wicked, have some internal knowledge or perception that
5 See pp. 122-23 for definitions of general revelation and
special revelation.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
122
God exists and that he is a powerful Creator. This knowledge is seen “in the things that
have been made,” a phrase that refers to all creation. Yet it is probably in seeing mankind
created in the image of God — that is, in seeing both themselves and other people — that
even wicked persons see the greatest evidence of God’s existence and nature. 6
Thus, even without the Bible, all persons who have ever lived have had evidence in
creation that God exists, that he is the Creator and they are creatures, and have also
had some evidence of his character. As a result, they themselves have known something
about God from this evidence (even though this is never said to be a knowledge that is
able to bring them to salvation).
E. Furthermore, the Bible Is Not Necessary for Knowing
Something About God’s Character and Moral Laws
Paul goes on in Romans 1 to show that even unbelievers who have no written record of
God’s laws still have in their consciences some understanding of God’s moral demands.
Speaking of a long list of sins (“envy, murder, strife, deceit ...”), Paul says of wicked
people who practice them, “Though they know God's decree that those who do such things
deserve to die, they not only do them but approve those who practice them” (Rom. 1:32).
Wicked people know that their sin is wrong, at least in large measure.
Paul then talks about the activity of conscience in Gentiles who d 6 not have the
written law:
When Gentiles who have not the law do by nature what the law requires, they are a
law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that what the
law requires is written on their hearts , while their conscience also bears witness and
their conflicting thoughts accuse or perhaps excuse them ” (Rom. 2:14- 15)
The consciences of unbelievers bear witness to God’s moral standards, but at times
this evidence of God’s law on the hearts of unbelievers is distorted or suppressed. 7
Sometimes their thoughts “accuse” them and sometimes their thoughts “excuse” them,
Paul says. The knowledge of God’s laws derived from such sources is never perfect, but
it is enough to give an awareness of God’s moral demands to all mankind. (And it is on
this basis that Paul argues that all humanity is held guilty before God for sin, even those
who do not have the written laws of God in Scripture.)
The knowledge of God’s existence, character, and moral law, which comes through
creation to all humanity, is often called “ general revelation ’ (because it comes to all
6 The Swiss theologian Karl Barth (1886-1968) denied that sciences are hardened and insensitive with regard to the evil of
natural man can know anything of God through the general murder, while modern American society, for example, exhib-
revelation found in nature, but insisted that knowledge of God its very little sensitivity of conscience with regard to the evil
can only come through a knowledge of God’s grace in Christ. of falsehood in speech, or disrespect for parental authority,
His radical rejection of natural revelation has not gained wide or sexual immorality. Moreover, individuals who repeatedly
acceptance; it rests upon the unlikely view that Rom. 1:21 refers commit a certain sin will often find the pangs of conscience
to a knowledge of God in theory but not in fact. diminishing after time: a thief may feel very guilty after his
7 The consciences of unbelievers will be suppressed or first or second robbery but feel little guilt after his twentieth,
hardened in various areas of morality, depending on cul- The witness of conscience is still there in each case, but it is
tural influences and personal circumstances. A cannibalistic suppressed through repeated wickedness,
society, for example, will have many members whose con-
CHAPTER 7 • THE NECESSITY OF SCRIPTURE
people generally). 8 General revelation comes through observing nature, through see-
ing Gods directing influence in history, and through an inner sense of God’s existence
and his laws that he has placed inside every person. General revelation is distinct from
“ special revelation which refers to God’s words addressed to specific people, such as
the words of the Bible, the words of the Old Testament prophets and New Testament
apostles, and the words of God spoken in personal address, such as at Mount Sinai or
at the baptism of Jesus. 9
Special revelation includes all the words of Scripture but is not limited to the words of
Scripture, for it also includes, for example, many words of Jesus that were not recorded
in Scripture, and probably there were many words spoken by Old Testament prophets
and New Testament apostles that were not recorded in Scripture either.
The fact that all people know something of God’s moral laws is a great blessing for
society, for unless they did there would be no societal restraint on the evil that people
would do and no restraint from their consciences. Because there is some common
knowledge of right and wrong, Christians can often find much consensus with non-
Christians in matters of civil law, community standards, basic ethics for business and
professional activity, and acceptable patterns of conduct in ordinary life. Moreover, we
can appeal to the sense of rightness within people’s hearts (Rom. 2:14) when attempting
to enact better laws or overturn bad laws, or to right some other injustices in society
around us. The knowledge of God’s existence and character also provides a basis of
information that enables the gospel to make sense to a non- Christian’s heart and mind:
unbelievers know that God exists and that they have broken his standards, so the news
that Christ died to pay for their sins should truly come as good news to them.
However, it must be emphasized that Scripture nowhere indicates that people can know
the gospel, or know the way of salvation, through such general revelation. They may know
that God exists, that he is their Creator, that they owe him obedience, and that they have
sinned against him. The existence of systems of sacrifice in primitive religions through-
out history attests to the fact that these things can be clearly known by people apart from
the Bible. The repeated occurrences of the “rain and fruitful seasons” mentioned in Acts
14:17 may even lead some people to reason that God is not only holy and righteous but
also loving and forgiving. But how the holiness and justice of God can ever be reconciled
with his willingness to forgive sins is a mystery that has never been solved by any religion
apart from the Bible. Nor does the Bible give us any hope that it ever can be discovered
apart from specific revelation from God. It is the great wonder of our redemption that
God himself has provided the way of salvation by sending his own Son, who is both God
and man, to be our representative and bear the penalty for our sins, thus combining the
justice and love of God in one infinitely wise and amazingly gracious act. This fact, which
seems commonplace to the Christian ear, should not lose its wonder for us: it could never
have been conceived by man alone apart from God’s special, verbal revelation.
8 For an extensive discussion of the history of the doctrine of
general revelation and its basis in Scripture, see Bruce Demar-
est, General Revelation (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982); see
also the excellent treatment of this doctrine in Gordon R. Lewis
and Bruce A. Demarest, Integrative Theology, 1:59-91.
9 See chapter 2, pp. 48-50, for a discussion of God’s words
of personal address, Gods words spoken through the lips of
human beings, and God’s words in Scripture, all of which fall
in the category of special revelation.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
124
Furthermore, even if an adherent of a primitive religion could think that God some-
how must have himself paid the penalty for our sins, such a thought would only be
an extraordinary speculation. It could never be held with enough certainty to be the
ground on which to rest saving faith unless God himself confirmed such speculation
with his own words, namely, the words of the gospel proclaiming either that this indeed
was going to happen (if the revelation came in the time before Christ) or that it indeed
has happened (if the revelation came in the time after Christ). The Bible never views
human speculation apart from the Word of God as a sufficient basis on which to rest
saving faith: such saving faith, according to Scripture, is always confidence or trust in
God that rests on the truthfulness of God’s own words. 10
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. When you are witnessing to an unbeliever, what is the one thing above all others
that you should want him or her to read? Do you know of anyone who ever became
a Christian without either reading the Bible or hearing someone tell him or her
what the Bible said? What then is the primary task of an evangelistic missionary?
How should the necessity of Scripture affect our missionary orientation?
2. Do you nourish your soul on the spiritual food of the Word as carefully and dili-
gently as you nourish your body on physical food? What makes us so spiritually
insensitive that we feel physical hunger much more acutely than spiritual hunger?
What is the remedy?
3. When we are actively seeking to know Gods will, where should we spend most of our
time and effort? In practice, where do you spend most of your time and effort when
seeking to find God’s will? Do God’s principles in Scripture and the apparent guid-
ance we receive from feelings, conscience, advice, circumstances, human reasoning,
or society ever seem to conflict? How should we seek to resolve the conflict?
4. Is it a hopeless task to work for civil legislation based on standards that accord with
God’s moral principles in Scripture? Why is there good reason to hope that we will
finally be able to persuade a great majority of our society to adopt laws consistent
with scriptural norms? What would hinder this effort?
SPECIAL TERMS
general revelation necessity of Scripture
natural revelation special revelation
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter
1, pp. 38-39. Complete bibliographical data may be found on pp. 1224-30.)
10 In the New Testament, we should also note that it is God uses in giving people spiritual life (James 1:18; 1 Peter
specifically the Word of God that is said to be the agent that 1:23).
CHAPTER 7 • THE NECESSITY OF SCRIPTURE
125
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1882 - 92 Litton (no explicit treatment)
1930 Thomas, 258-60
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1983 Carter, 1:288-89
3. Baptist
1767 Gill, 1:32-36
1976-83 Henry, 1:17-29; 2:91 - 123; 4:494-522; 6:360-69
1983-85 Erickson, 153-74
1987- 94 Lewis/Demarest, 1:59-92
4. Dispensational
1947 Chafer, 1:48-60
5. Lutheran
1934 Mueller, 90-98
6. Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1559 Calvin, 1:69-74, 838-49 (1.6; 3.19.6-16)
1724-58 Edwards, 2:479-85
1861 Heppe, 31-33
1871-73 Hodge, 1:18-60, 364-65
1878 Dabney, 64-78
1938 Berkhof, Intro., 128-33; 165-66
7. Renewal (or charismatic/Pentecostal)
1988- 92 Williams, 33-36, 239-41
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
1. Roman Catholic: Traditional
1955 Ott (no explicit treatment)
2. Roman Catholic: Post-Vatican II
1980 McBrien, 1:151 -61; 245-81
Other Works
Berkouwer, G. C. General Revelation. (No translator named.) Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1955.
Demarest, Bruce A. General Revelation. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982.
. “Revelation, General.” In EDT, pp. 944-45.
Henry, Carl F. H. “Revelation, Special.” In EDT, pp. 945-48.
Kuyper, Abraham. Principles of Sacred Theology. Trans, by J. H. de Vries. Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1968, pp. 341-405 (originally published as Encyclopedia of Sacred
Theology in 1898).
Packer, J. I. “Scripture.” In NDT, pp. 627-31.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
126
Van Til, Cornelius. Common Grace and the Gospel. Nutley, N .J.: Presbyterian and Reformed,
1973.
. In Defense of the Faith , vol. 1: The Doctrine of Scripture. Ripon, Calif.: den Dulk
Christian Foundation, 1967, pp. 1 - 15.
. In Defense of the Faith , vol. 5: An Introduction to Systematic Theology. Phillipsburg,
N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1976, pp. 62-109.
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
Matthew 4:4: But he answered , “It is written , ‘ Man shall not live by bread alone , but by
every word that proceeds from the mouth ofGod. y ”
HYMN
“Teach Me, O Lord, Your Way of Truth”
(Use the familiar tune of “Jesus Shall Reign”)
Teach me, O Lord, your way of truth,
And from it I will not depart;
That I may steadfastly obey,
Give me an understanding heart.
In your commandments make me walk,
For in your law my joy shall be;
Give me a heart that loves your will,
From discontent and envy free.
Turn now my eyes from vanity,
And cause me in your ways to tread;
O let your servant prove your Word
and thus to godly fear be led.
Turn away my reproach and fear;
Your righteous judgments I confess;
To know your precepts I desire;
Revive me in your righteousness.
FROM: THE PSALTER, 1912 (TAKEN FROM PS. 119:33-40)
An alternative hymn for this chapter is a modern Scripture song, “Seek Ye First the
Kingdom of God.” The second verse of this song (“Man shall not live on bread alone. . .”)
is a quotation of Matthew 4:4 and expresses the necessity of Scripture for maintaining
our spiritual life: we live on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. The other
verses of the song do not speak directly of the doctrine of the necessity of Scripture but
do contain the words of gospel invitation (vv. 1, 4, 5). All verses in the song are direct
quotations of Scripture, and, as such, will be spiritually nourishing for us to sing and
meditate on.
Chapter
THE FOUR CHARACTERISTICS
OF SCRIPTURE: (4)
SUFFICIENCY
Is the Bible enough for knowing what God
wants us to think or do?
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
Are we to look for other words from God in addition to those we have in Scripture?
The doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture addresses this question.
A. Definiton of the Sufficiency of Scripture
We can define the sufficiency of Scripture as follows : The sufficiency of Scripture means
that Scripture contained all the words of God he intended his people to have at each stage of
redemptive history, and that it now contains all the words of God we need for salvation, for
trusting him perfectly, and for obeying him perfectly.
This definition emphasizes that it is in Scripture alone that we are to search for God’s
words to us. It also reminds us that God considers what he has told us in the Bible to be
enough for us, and that we should rejoice in the great revelation that he has given us and
be content with it.
Significant scriptural support and explanation of this doctrine is found in Paul’s
words to Timothy, “from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings
which are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 3:15).
The context shows that “sacred writings” here means the written words of Scripture (2
Tim. 3:16) . This is an indication that the words of God which we have in Scripture are all
the words of God we need in order to be saved: these words are able to make us wise “for
salvation.” This is confirmed by other passages that talk about the words of Scripture as
the means God uses to bring us to salvation (James 1:18; 1 Peter 1:23).
127
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
128
Other passages indicate that the Bible is sufficient to equip us for living the Christian
life. Once again Paul writes to Timothy, “All scripture is inspired by God and profitable
for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man
of God may be complete y equipped for every good work ” (2 Tim. 3:16- 17).
Here Paul indicates that one purpose for which God caused Scripture to be written is
to train us that we might be “equipped for every good work .” If there is any “good work”
that God wants a Christian to do, this passage indicates that God has made provision in
his Word for training the Christian in it. Thus, there is no “good work” that God wants
us to do other than those that are taught somewhere in Scripture: it can equip us for
every good work.
A similar teaching is found in Psalm 119: “Blessed are those whose way is blameless
who walk in the law of the Lord!” (v. 1). This verse shows an equivalence between being
“blameless” and “walking in the law of the Lord”: those who are blameless are those
who walk in the law of the Lord. Here again is an indication that all that God requires of
us is recorded in his written Word: simply to do all that the Bible commands us is to be
blameless in Gods sight.
To be morally perfect in God’s sight, then, what must we do in addition to what
God commands us in Scripture? Nothing! Nothing at all! If we simply keep the words
of Scripture we will be “blameless” and we will be doing “every good work” that God
expects of us.
B. We Can Find All That God Has Said on Particular Topics,
and We Can Find Answers to Our Questions
Of course, we realize that we will never perfectly obey all of Scripture in this life (see
James 3:2; 1 John 1:8-10; and chapter 24, below) . Thus, it may not at first seem very sig-
nificant to say that all we have to do is what God commands us in the Bible, since we will
never be able to obey it all in this life anyway. But the truth of the sufficiency of Scrip-
ture is of great significance for our Christian lives, for it enables us to focus our search
for God’s words to us on the Bible alone and saves us from the endless task of searching
through all the writings of Christians throughout history, or through all the teachings of
the church, or through all the subjective feelings and impressions that come to our minds
from day to day, 1 in order to find what God requires of us. In a very practical sense, it
means that we are able to come to clear conclusions on many teachings of Scripture. For
This is not meant to imply that subjective impressions of Scripture, or bring to mind facts that we (in theory at least)
God’s will are useless or that they should be ignored. That would could have known or did know otherwise; they can never add
suggest almost a deistic view of God’s (non-)involvement in the to the commands of Scripture, or replace Scripture in defining
lives of his children and a rather mechanical, impersonal view of what God’s will is, or equal Scripture in authority in our lives,
guidance. God can and indeed does use subjective impressions Because people from all kinds of Christian traditions have
of his will to remind and encourage us and often to prompt our made serious mistakes when they felt confident that God was
thoughts in the right direction in many rapid decisions that we “leading them” to make a particular decision, it is important
make throughout the day — and it is Scripture itself that tells to remember that, except where an explicit text of Scripture
us about these subjective factors in guidance (see Acts 16:6-7; applies directly to a situation, we can never have 100 percent
Rom. 8:9, 14, 16; Gal. 5:16- 18, 25). Yet these verses on the suf- certainty in this life that we know what God’s will is in a situ-
ficiency of Scripture teach us that such subjective impressions ation. We can only have varying degrees of confidence in dif-
can only remind us of moral commands that are already in ferent situations. Though our ability to discern God’s will
CHAPTER 8 * THE SUFFICIENCY OF SCRIPTURE
example, though it requires some work, it is possible to find all the biblical passages that
are directly relevant to the matters of marriage and divorce, or the responsibilities of
parents to children, or the relationship between a Christian and civil government.
This doctrine means, moreover, that it is possible to collect all the passages that directly
relate to doctrinal issues such as the atonement, or the person of Christ, or the work of the
Holy Spirit in the believer’s life today. In these and hundreds of other moral and doctrinal
questions, the biblical teaching about the sufficiency of Scripture gives us confidence
that we will be able to find what God requires us to think or to do in these areas. In many
of these areas we can attain confidence that we, together with the vast majority of the
church throughout history, have found and correctly formulated what God wants us to
think or to do. Simply stated, the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture tells us that it is
possible to study systematic theology and ethics and find answers to our questions.
At this point we differ from Roman Catholic theologians, who would say that we have
not found all that God says to us about any particular subject until we have also listened
to the official teaching of the church throughout its history. We would respond that
although the history of the church may help us to understand what God says to us in the
Bible, never in church history has God added to the teachings or commands of Scripture:
Nowhere in church history outside of Scripture has God added anything that he requires
us to believe or to do. Scripture is sufficient to equip us for “every good work,” and to
walk in its ways is to be “blameless” in God’s sight.
At this point we also differ from nonevangelical theologians who are not convinced
that the Bible is God’s Word in any unique or absolutely authoritative sense, and who
would therefore search not only the Bible but also many other early Christian writings
in an attempt to find not so much what God said to mankind but rather what many early
Christians experienced in their relationship with God. They would not expect to arrive
at a single, unified conclusion about what God wants us to think or do with regard to
any particular question, but to discover a variety of opinions and viewpoints collected
around some major unifying ideas. All of the viewpoints held by early Christians in any
of the early churches would then be potentially valid viewpoints for Christians to hold
today as well. To this we would reply that our search for answers to theological and ethi-
cal questions is not a search to find what various believers have thought in the history of
the church, but is a quest to find and understand what God himself says to us in his own
words, which are found in Scripture and only in Scripture.
C. The Amount of Scripture Given Was Sufficient at Each Stage
of Redemptive History
The doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture does not imply that God cannot add any
more words to those he has already spoken to his people. It rather implies that man cannot
add on his own initiative any words to those that God has already spoken. Furthermore,
should increase as we grow in Christian maturity, we will inevi- proportional to the degree of clarity we have as to how the Word
tably make some mistakes. In this regard, I have found helpful of God applies to the situation” (from a personal conversation,
a sentence from Edmund Clowney: “The degree of certainty November 1992).
we have with regard to God’s will in a situation is directly
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
130
it implies that in fact God has not spoken to mankind any more words which he requires
us to believe or obey other than those which we have now in the Bible.
This point is important, for it helps us to understand how God could tell his people
that his words to them were sufficient at many different points in the history of redemp-
tion, and how he could nevertheless add to those words later. For example, in Deuter-
onomy 29:29 Moses says, “The secret things belong to the Lord our God; but the things
that are revealed belong to us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words
of this law.”
This verse reminds us that God has always taken the initiative in revealing things to
us. He has decided what to reveal and what not to reveal. At each stage in redemptive his-
tory, the things that God had revealed were for his people for that time, and they were to
study, believe, and obey those things. With further progress in the history of redemption,
more of Gods words were added, recording and interpreting that history (see chapter 3
above regarding the development of the canon).
Thus, at the time of the death of Moses, the first five books of our Old Testament were
sufficient for God’s people at that time. But God directed later authors to add more so
that Scripture would be sufficient for believers in subsequent times. For Christians today,
the words from God that we have in the Old and New Testaments together are sufficient
for us during the church age. After the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, and
the founding of the early church as recorded in the New Testament, and the assembling
of the books of the New Testament canon, no further central redemptive acts of God in
history (acts that have direct relevance for all God’s people for all subsequent time) have
occurred, and thus no further words of God have been given to record and interpret
those acts for us.
This means that we can cite Scripture texts from throughout the canon to show that
the principle of the sufficiency of God’s revelation to his people at each particular time
has remained the same. In this sense, these verses that talk about the sufficiency of Scrip-
ture in earlier periods are directly applicable to us as well, even though the extent of the
Bible to which they refer in our situation is greater than the extent of the Scripture to
which they referred in their original setting. The following texts from Scripture thus
apply to us also in that sense:
You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it; that you
may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.
(Deut. 4:2)
Everything that I command you you shall be careful to do; you shall not add to
it or take from it. (Deut. 12:32)
Every word of God proves true; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.
Do not add to his words, lest he rebuke you, and you be found a liar. (Prov.
30:5-6)
I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone
adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if
anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take
CHAPTER 8 * THE SUFFICIENCY OF SCRIPTURE
away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this
book. (Rev. 22:18- 19) 2
D. Practical Applications of the Sufficiency of Scripture
The doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture has several practical applications to our
Christian lives. The following list is intended to be helpful but not exhaustive.
1. The sufficiency of Scripture should encourage us as we try to discover what God
would have us to think (about a particular doctrinal issue) or to do (in a particular situa-
tion). We should be encouraged that everything God wants to tell us about that question
is to be found in Scripture. This does not mean that the Bible answers all the questions
that we might think up, for “The secret things belong to the Lord our God” (Deut.
29:29). But it does mean that when we are facing a problem of genuine importance to
our Christian life, we can approach Scripture with the confidence that from it God will
provide us with guidance for that problem.
There will of course be some times when the answer we find is that Scripture does
not speak directly to our question. (This would be the case, for example, if we tried to
find from Scripture what “order of worship” to follow on Sunday mornings, or whether
it is better to kneel or perhaps to stand when we pray, or at what time we should eat our
meals during the day, etc.) In those cases, we may conclude that God has not required
us to think or to act in any certain way with regard to that question (except, perhaps, in
terms of more general principles regarding our attitudes and goals). But in many other
cases we will find direct and clear guidance from the Lord to equip us for “every good
work” (2 Tim. 3:17).
As we go through life, frequent practice in searching Scripture for guidance will result
in an increasing ability to find accurate, carefully formulated answers to our problems
and questions. Lifelong growth in understanding Scripture will thus include growth in
the skill of rightly understanding the Bible’s teachings and applying them to specific
questions.
2. The sufficiency of Scripture reminds us that we are to add nothing to Scripture,
and that we are to consider no other writings of equal value to Scripture. This principle
is violated by almost all cults and sects. Mormons, for example, claim to believe the
Bible, but they also claim divine authority for the Book of Mormon. Christian Scientists
similarly claim to believe the Bible, but in practice they hold the book Science and Health
With a Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, on a par with Scripture or above it in
authority. Since these claims violate God’s commands not to add to his words, we should
not think that any additional words from God to us would be found in these writings.
Even in Christian churches a similar error is sometimes made when people go beyond
what Scripture says and assert with great confidence new ideas about God or heaven,
basing their teachings not on Scripture but on their own speculation or even on claimed
experiences of dying and coming back to life.
The primary reference of this verse is of course to the book can hardly be accidental. Thus, a secondary application of this
of Revelation itself, but its placement here at the very end of the verse to the entire canon does not seem inappropriate (see the
only book that could come last in the New Testament canon discussion in chapter 3, pp. 64-65).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
132
3. The sufficiency of Scripture also tells us that God does not require us to believe any-
thing about himself or his redemptive work that is not found in Scripture. Among writings
from the time of the early church are some collections of alleged sayings of Jesus that
were not preserved in the Gospels. It is likely that at least some of the “sayings of Jesus”
found in these writings are rather accurate records of things Jesus actually said (though
it is now impossible for us to determine with any high degree of probability which say-
ings those are). But it does not really matter at all for our Christian lives if we never read
any of those sayings, for God has caused to be recorded in Scripture everything that we
need to know about Jesus’ words and deeds in order to trust and obey him perfectly.
Though these collections of sayings do have some limited value in linguistic research
and perhaps in the study of the history of the church, they are of no direct value what-
ever for us in learning what we should believe about the life and teachings of Christ, or
in formulating our doctrinal or ethical convictions.
4. The sufficiency of Scripture shows us that no modern revelations from God are
to be placed on a level equal to Scripture in authority. At various times throughout the
history of the church, and particularly in the modern charismatic movement, people
have claimed that God has given revelations through them for the benefit of the church.
However we may evaluate such claims, 3 we must be careful never to allow (in theory or
in practice) the placing of such revelations on a level equal to Scripture. 4 We must insist
that God does not require us to believe anything about himself or his work in the world
that is contained in these revelations but not in Scripture. And we must insist that God
does not require us to obey any moral directives that come to us through such means
but that are not confirmed by Scripture. The Bible contains all the words of God we
need for trusting and obeying him perfectly. 5
It should also be noted at this point that whenever challenges to the sufficiency of
Scripture have come in the form of other documents to be placed alongside Scripture
(whether from extrabiblical Christian literature of the first century or from the accumu-
lated teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, or from the books of various cults such
as the Book of Mormon) y the result has always been (1) to deemphasize the teachings of
the Bible itself and (2) to begin to teach some things that are contrary to Scripture. This
is a danger of which the church must constantly be aware.
5. With regard to living the Christian life, the sufficiency of Scripture reminds us that
nothing is sin that is not forbidden by Scripture either explicitly or by implication. To walk in
the law of the Lord is to be “blameless” (Ps. 119:1). Therefore we are not to add prohibitions
to those already stated in Scripture. From time to time there may be situations in which it
3 See chapter 52, pp. 1039-42, on the possibility of some “cessationist” view of spiritual gifts (that is, a view that holds
kinds of revelation from God continuing today when the canon that certain gifts, such as prophecy and speaking in tongues,
is closed, and especially chapter 53, pp. 1049-61, on the gift of ceased when the apostles died). I only wish at this point to
prophecy. state that there is a danger in explicitly or even implicitly giv-
4 In fact, the more responsible spokesmen for the modern ing these gifts a status that effectively challenges the author-
charismatic movement seem generally to agree with this ity or the sufficiency of Scripture in Christians’ lives. More
caution: see Wayne Grudem, The Gift of Prophecy in the New detailed discussion of these gifts is given in chapter 53 below,
Testament and Today (Eastbourne, England: Kingsway, and and in Wayne Grudem, The Gift of Prophecy in the New Testa-
Westchester, 111.: Crossway, 1988), pp. 110- 12; 245-50. mentand Today (see n. 4 above).
5 I do not wish to imply at this point that I am adopting a
CHAPTER 8 • THE SUFFICIENCY OF SCRIPTURE
would be wrong, for example, for an individual Christian to drink coffee or Coca-Cola, or
to attend movie theaters, or to eat meat offered to idols (see 1 Cor. 8- 10), but unless some
specific teaching or some general principle of Scripture can be shown to prohibit these (or
any other activities) for all believers for all time, we must insist that these activities are not
in themselves sinful and they are not in all situations prohibited by God for his people. 6
This also is an important principle because there is always the tendency among
believers to begin to neglect the regular daily searching of Scripture for guidance and
to begin to live by a set of written or unwritten rules (or denominational traditions)
concerning what one does or does not do in the Christian life.
Furthermore, whenever we add to the list of sins that are prohibited by Scripture
itself, there will be harm to the church and to the lives of individual believers. The
Holy Spirit will not empower obedience to rules that do not have God’s approval from
Scripture, nor will believers generally find delight in obedience to commands that do
not accord with the laws of God written on their hearts. In some cases, Christians may
repeatedly and earnestly plead with God for “victory” over supposed sins that are in
fact no sins at all, yet no “victory” will be given, for the attitude or action in question
is in fact not a sin and is not displeasing to God. Great discouragement in prayer and
frustration in the Christian life generally may be the outcome.
In other cases, continued or even increasing disobedience to these new “sins” will
result, together with a false sense of guilt and a resulting alienation from God. Often
there arises an increasingly uncompromising and legalistic insistence on these new
rules on the part of those who do follow them, and genuine fellowship among believers
in the church will fade away. Evangelism will often be stifled, for the silent proclama-
tion of the gospel that comes from the lives of believers will at least seem (to outsiders)
to include the additional requirement that one must fit this uniform pattern of life in
order to become a member of the body of Christ.
One clear example of such an addition to the commands of Scripture is found in the
opposition of the Roman Catholic Church to “artificial” methods of birth control, a
policy that finds no valid support in Scripture. Widespread disobedience, alienation,
and false guilt have been the result. Yet such is the propensity of human nature to make
such rules that other examples can probably be found in the written or unwritten tradi-
tions of almost every denomination.
6. The sufficiency of Scripture also tells us that nothing is required of us by God that is not
commanded in Scripture either explicitly or by implication. This reminds us that the focus of
6 Of course, human societies such as nations, churches, fam-
ilies, etc. can make rules for the conduct of their own affairs
(such as “Children in this family may not watch television on
weeknights”). No such rule can be found in Scripture, nor is
it likely that such a rule could be demonstrated by implication
from the principles of Scripture. Yet obedience to these rules
is required by God because Scripture tells us to be subject to
governing authorities (Rom. 13:1-7; 1 Peter 2:13-3:6, et al.). A
denial of the sufficiency of Scripture would occur only if some-
one attempted to give the rule a generalized application outside
of the situation in which it should appropriately function (“No
member of our church should watch TV on weeknights” or “No
Christian should watch TV on weeknights”). In such a case it
has become not a rule for conduct in one specific situation but a
moral command apparently intended to apply to all Christians
no matter what their situation. We are not free to add such rules
to Scripture and to attempt to impose them on all the believers
over whom we have influence, nor can the church as a whole
attempt to do this. (Here again, Roman Catholics would dif-
fer and would say that God gives to the church the authority to
impose moral rules in addition to Scripture on all the members
of the church.)
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
134
our search for God’s will ought to be on Scripture, rather than on seeking guidance through
prayer for changed circumstances or altered feelings or direct guidance from the Holy Spirit
apart from Scripture. It also means that if someone claims to have a message from God tell-
ing us what we ought to do, we need never assume that it is sin to disobey such a message
unless it can be confirmed by the application of Scripture itself to our situation.
The discovery of this great truth could bring tremendous joy and peace to the lives
of thousands of Christians who, spending countless hours seeking Gods will outside
of Scripture, are often uncertain about whether they have found it. In fact, many Chris-
tians today have very little confidence in their ability to discover God’s will with any
degree of certainty. Thus, there is little striving to do God’s will (for who can know it?)
and little growth in holiness before God.
The opposite ought to be true. Christians who are convinced of the sufficiency of
Scripture should begin eagerly to seek and find God’s will in Scripture. They should be
eagerly and regularly growing in obedience to God, knowing great freedom and peace
in the Christian life. Then they would be able to say with the psalmist:
I will keep your law continually,
for ever and ever;
and I shall walk at liberty ;
for I have sought your precepts. . . .
Great peace have those who love your law;
nothing can make them stumble. (Ps. 119:44-45, 165)
7. The sufficiency of Scripture reminds us that in our doctrinal and ethical teaching
we should emphasize what Scripture emphasizes and be content with what God has told
us in Scripture. There are some subjects about which God has told us little or nothing
in the Bible. We must remember that “The secret things belong to the Lord our God”
(Deut. 29:29) and that God has revealed to us in Scripture exactly what he deemed right
for us. We must accept this and not think that Scripture is something less than it should
be, or begin to wish that God had given us much more information about subjects on
which there are very few scriptural references. Of course, there will be some situations
where we are confronted with a particular problem that requires a great deal of atten-
tion, far greater than the emphasis that it receives in the teaching of Scripture. But those
situations should be relatively infrequent and should not be representative of the general
course of our lives or ministries.
It is characteristic of many cults that they emphasize obscure portions or teachings of
Scripture (one thinks of the Mormon emphasis on baptism for the dead, a subject that is
mentioned in only one verse in the Bible [1 Cor. 15:29] , in a phrase whose exact meaning
is apparently impossible now to determine with certainty). But a similar error was made
by an entire generation of liberal New Testament scholars in the earlier part of this cen-
tury, who devoted most of their scholarly lives to a futile search for the sources “behind”
our present gospel narratives or to a search for the “authentic” sayings of Jesus.
Unfortunately, a similar pattern has too often occurred among evangelicals within
various denominations. The doctrinal matters that have divided evangelical Protestant
CHAPTER 8 • THE SUFFICIENCY OF SCRIPTURE
denominations from one another have almost uniformly been matters on which the
Bible places relatively little emphasis, and matters in which our conclusions must be
drawn from skillful inference much more than from direct biblical statements. For
example, abiding denominational differences have occurred or have been maintained
over the “proper” form of church government, the exact nature of Christs presence in
the Lord’s Supper, the exact sequence of the events surrounding Christ’s return, the cat-
egories of persons who should be admitted to the Lord’s Supper, the way in which God
planned that the merits of Christ’s death would be applied to believers and not applied to
unbelievers, the proper subjects for baptism, the correct understanding of the “baptism
in the Holy Spirit,” and so forth.
We should not say that these issues are all unimportant, nor should we say that Scrip-
ture gives no solution to any of them (indeed, with respect to many of them a specific
solution will be defended in subsequent chapters of this book). However, since all of
these topics receive relatively little direct emphasis in Scripture , it is ironic and tragic that
denominational leaders will so often give much of their lives to defending precisely the
minor doctrinal points that make their denominations different from others. Is such
effort really motivated by a desire to bring unity of understanding to the church, or
might it stem in some measure from human pride, a desire to retain power over others,
and an attempt at self-justification, which is displeasing to God and ultimately unedify-
ing to the church?
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1 . In the process of growing in the Christian life and deepening your relationship with
God, approximately how much emphasis have you placed on reading the Bible itself
and how much on reading other Christian books? In seeking to know God’s will for
your daily life, what is the relative emphasis you have put on reading Scripture itself
and on reading other Christian books? Do you think the doctrine of the sufficiency
of Scripture will cause you to place more emphasis on reading Scripture itself?
2. What are some of the doctrinal or moral questions you are wondering about? Has
this chapter increased your confidence in the ability of Scripture to provide a clear
answer for some of those questions?
3. Have you ever wished that the Bible would say more than it does about a certain
subject? Or less? What do you think motivated that wish? After reading this chap-
ter, how would you approach someone who expressed such a wish today? How is
God’s wisdom shown in the fact that he chose not to make the Bible a great deal
longer or a great deal shorter than it actually is?
4. If the Bible contains everything we need God to tell us for obeying him perfectly,
what is the role of the following in helping us to find God’s will for ourselves:
advice from others; sermons or Bible classes; our consciences; our feelings; the
leading of the Holy Spirit as we sense him prompting our inward desires and sub-
jective impressions; changes in circumstances; the gift of prophecy (if you think it
can function today)?
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
136
5. In the light of this chapter, how would you find God’s “perfect” will for your life?
Is it possible that there would be more than one “perfect” choice in many decisions
we make? (Consider Ps. 1:3 and 1 Cor. 7:39 in seeking an answer.)
6. Have there been times when you have understood the principles of Scripture well
enough with regard to a specific situation but have not known the facts of the situ-
ation well enough to know how to apply those scriptural principles correctly? In
seeking to know God’s will, can there be any other things we need to know except
(a) the teaching of Scripture and (b) the facts of the situation in question, together
with (c) skill in applying (a) to (b) correctly? What then is the role of prayer in
seeking guidance? What should we pray for?
SPECIAL TERMS
blameless
sufficiency of Scripture
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter 1,
p. 38-39. Complete bibliographical data maybe found on pp. 1224-30.)
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1930 Thomas, 120-23
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1875-76 Pope, 1:206-9
1983 Carter, 1:290-91
3. Baptist
1767 Gill, 1:25-30
1983-85 Erickson, 256-59
4. Dispensational
1947 Chafer, 1:60
5. Lutheran
1917-24 Pieper, 1:317-19
1934 Mueller, 137-38
6. Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1559 Calvin, 1:93-96 (1.9)
1861 Heppe, 28-31
1871-73 Hodge, 1:182-83
1937-66 Murray, CW, 1:16-22; PC, 11-26
1938 Berkhof, Intro . ., 167-69
CHAPTER 8 • THE SUFFICIENCY OF SCRIPTURE
137
7. Renewal (or charismatic/Pentecostal)
1988-92 Williams, 1:43-44
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
1. Roman Catholic: Traditional
1955 Ott (no explicit treatment)
2. Roman Catholic: Post-Vatican II
1980 McBrien, 1:62-77
Other Works
Friesen, Garry, and J. Robin Maxson. Decision Making and the Will of God. Pordand, Ore.:
Multnomah, 1981.
Packer, J. I. “Scripture.” In NDT, pp. 627-31.
Weeks, Noel. The Sufficiency of Scripture. Edinburgh and Carlisle, Pa.: Banner of Truth,
1988.
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
Psalm 119:1: Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord!
HYMN
“How Firm a Foundation”
Few if any hymns deal specifically with the sufficiency of Scripture, perhaps because
Christians have failed to realize the great comfort and peace that this doctrine brings
to the Christian life. But the first verse of the following hymn contains a statement of
this doctrine. It begins by telling us that God has laid a firm foundation for our faith in
his Word. Then it says, “What more can he say than to you he hath said . . . ?” The rich
and full promises of God throughout Scripture are sufficient for our every need in every
circumstance. This should be great cause for rejoicing! The subsequent verses contain
quotations, paraphrases, and allusions to promises of God that are scattered throughout
Scripture, many of them from Isaiah. Verses 2— 6 are all written as sentences that are spo-
ken by God to us, and when we sing them we should think of ourselves singing the words
of God’s promises to others in the congregation for their comfort and encouragement.
How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in his excellent Word!
What more can he say than to you he hath said,
You who unto Jesus for refuge have fled?
You who unto Jesus for refuge have fled?
“Fear not, I am with thee, O be not dismayed;
I, I am thy God, and will still give thee aid;
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
138
I’ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,
Upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand,
Upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand.
“When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
The rivers of woe shall not thee overflow;
For I will be with thee thy troubles to bless,
And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress,
And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.
“When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,
My grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply;
The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design
Thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine,
Thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.
“E'en down to old age all my people shall prove
My sovereign, eternal, unchangeable love;
And when hoary hairs shall their temples adorn,
Like lambs they shall still in my bosom be borne,
Like lambs they shall still in my bosom be borne.
“The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose,
I will not, I will not desert to his foes;
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I’ll never, no, never, no, never forsake,
I’ll never, no, never, no, never forsake.”
FROM: RIPPON’S SELECTION OF HYMNS, 1787
Part
THE DOCTRINE
OF GOD
Chapter
THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
How do we know that God exists ?
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
How do we know that God exists? The answer can be given in two parts: First, all
people have an inner sense of God. Second, we believe the evidence that is found in
Scripture and in nature.
A. Humanity’s Inner Sense of God
All persons everywhere have a deep, inner sense that God exists, that they are his
creatures, and that he is their Creator. Paul says that even Gentile unbelievers “knew
God” but did not honor him as God or give thanks to him (Rom. 1:21). He says that
wicked unbelievers have “exchanged the truth about God for a lie” (Rom. 1:25), imply-
ing that they actively or willfully rejected some truth about God’s existence and char-
acter that they knew. Paul says that “what can be known about God is plain to them,”
and adds that this is “because God has shown it to them” (Rom. 1:19).
Yet Scripture also recognizes that some people deny this inner sense of God and even
deny that God exists. It is “the fool” who says in his heart, “There is no God” (Ps. 14:1;
53:1). It is the wicked person who first “curses and renounces the Lord” and then in
pride repeatedly thinks there is no God (Ps. 10:3— 4). These passages indicate both that
sin leads people to think irrationally and to deny God’s existence, and that it is someone
who is thinking irrationally or who has been deceived who will say, “There is no God.”
Paul also recognizes that sin will cause people to deny their knowledge of God: he speaks
of those who “by their wickedness suppress the truth ” (Rom. 1:18) and says that those who
do this are without excuse for this denial of God (Rom. 1:20). A series of active verbs
indicates that this is a willful suppression of the truth (Rom. 1:23, 25, 28, 32). 1
Some people deny that they have an inner sense of God. heart show themselves in outward words and deeds. Several
But their awareness of God will often make itself evident in a years ago I was a passenger in a car with several friends, includ-
time of personal crisis, when deep-seated convictions of the ing a young woman who in conversation was firmly denying
141
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
142
In the life of a Christian this inner awareness of God becomes stronger and more
distinct. We begin to know God as our loving Father in heaven (Rom. 8:15), the Holy
Spirit bears witness with our spirits that we are children of God (Rom. 8:16), and we
come to know Jesus Christ living within our hearts (Eph. 3:17; Phil. 3:8, 10; Col. 1:27;
John 14:23). The intensity of this awareness for a Christian is such that though we have
not seen our Lord Jesus Christ, we indeed love him (1 Peter 1:8).
B. Believing the Evidence in Scripture and Nature
In addition to people’s inner awareness of God that bears clear witness to the fact that
God exists, clear evidence of his existence is to be seen in Scripture and in nature.
The evidence that God exists is of course found throughout the Bible. In fact, the
Bible everywhere assumes that God exists. The first verse of Genesis does not present
evidence for the existence of God but begins immediately to tell us what he has done:
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” If we are convinced that the
Bible is true, then we know from the Bible not only that God exists but also very much
about his nature and his acts.
The world also gives abundant evidence of God’s existence. Paul says that God’s
eternal nature and deity have been “clearly perceived in the things that have been made”
(Rom. 1:20). This broad reference to “the things that have been made” suggests that in
some sense every created thing gives evidence of God’s character. Nevertheless, it is man
himself, created in the image of God, who most abundantly bears witness to the existence
of God: whenever we meet another human being, we should (if our minds are thinking
correctly) realize that such an incredibly intricate, skillful, communicative living
creature could only have been created by an infinite, all-wise Creator.
In addition to the evidence seen in the existence of living human beings, there is fur-
ther excellent evidence in nature. The “rains and fruitful seasons” as well as the “food
and gladness” that all people experience and benefit from are also said by Barnabas and
Paul to be witnesses to God (Acts 14:17). David tells us of the witness of the heavens:
“The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge” (Ps. 19:1-2).
To look upward into the sky by day or by night is to see sun, moon, and stars, sky and
clouds, all continually declaring by their existence and beauty and greatness that a pow-
erful and wise Creator has made them and sustains them in their order.
This wide variety of testimonies to God’s existence from various parts of the cre-
ated world suggests to us that in one sense everything that exists gives evidence of God’s
existence. For those who have eyes to see and evaluate the evidence correctly, every leaf
on every tree, every blade of grass, every star in the sky, and every other part of creation
all cry out continuously, “God made me! God made me! God made me!” If our hearts
and minds were not so blinded by sin, it would be impossible for us to look closely at
that she had any inner awareness of God’s existence. Shortly be heard distinctly calling out, “Lord Jesus, please help us!” The
thereafter the car hit a patch of ice and spun around in a com- rest of us looked at her in amazement when we realized that
plete circle at high speed. Before the car came to rest in a large her agnosticism had been disproved by words from her own
snow bank (with no serious damage) this same woman could mouth.
CHAPTER 9 • THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
a leaf from any tree and say, No one created this: it just happened.” The beauty of a
snowflake, the majestic power of a thunderstorm, the skill of a honeybee, the refreshing
taste of cold water, the incredible abilities of the human hand— all these and thousands
of other aspects of creation simply could not have come into existence apart from the
activity of an all-powerful and all-wise Creator.
Thus, for those who are correctly evaluating the evidence, everything in Scripture
and everything in nature proves clearly that God exists and that he is the powerful and
wise Creator that Scripture describes him to be. Therefore, when we believe that God
exists, we are basing our belief not on some blind hope apart from any evidence, but on
an overwhelming amount of reliable evidence from God's words and God's works. It is a
characteristic of true faith that it is a confidence based on reliable evidence, and faith in
the existence of God shares this characteristic.
Furthermore, these evidences can all be seen as valid proofs for the existence of God,
even though some people reject them. This does not mean that the evidence is invalid
in itself, only that those who reject the evidence are evaluating it wrongly.
C. Traditional “Proofs” for the Existence of God
The traditional proofs for the existence of God that have been constructed by
Christian (and some non-Christian) philosophers at various points in history are
in fact attempts to analyze the evidence, especially the evidence from nature, in
extremely careful and logically precise ways, in order to persuade people that it is
not rational to reject the idea of God s existence. If it is true that sin causes people to
think irrationally, then these proofs are attempts to cause people to think rationally or
correctly about the evidence for God’s existence, in spite of the irrational tendencies
caused by sin.
Most of the traditional proofs for the existence of God can be classified in four major
types of argument:
1. The cosmological argument considers the fact that every known thing in the uni-
verse has a cause. Therefore, it reasons, the universe itself must also have a cause, and
the cause of such a great universe can only be God.
2. The teleological argument is really a subcategory of the cosmological argument. It
focuses on the evidence of harmony, order, and design in the universe, and argues that
its design gives evidence of an intelligent purpose (the Greek word telos means “end” or
“goal” or “purpose”). Since the universe appears to be designed with a purpose, there
must be an intelligent and purposeful God who created it to function this way.
3. The ontological argument begins with the idea of God, who is defined as a being
greater than which nothing can be imagined.” It then argues that the characteristic of
existence must belong to such a being, since it is greater to exist than not to exist. 2
4. The moral argument begins from man’s sense of right and wrong, and of the need
for justice to be done, and argues that there must be a God who is the source of right and
wrong and who will someday mete out justice to all people.
2 The stem ont- in “ontological” is derived from a Greek
word that means “being ”
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
Because all of these arguments are based on facts about the creation that are indeed
true facts, we may say that all of these proofs (when carefully constructed) are, in an
objective sense, valid proofs. They are valid in that they correctly evaluate the evidence
and correctly reason to a true conclusion — in fact, the universe does have God as its
cause, and it does show evidence of purposeful design, and God does exist as a being
greater than which nothing can be imagined, and God has given us a sense of right and
wrong and a sense that his judgment is coming someday. The actual facts referred to in
these proofs, therefore, are true , and in that sense the proofs are valid, even though not
all people are persuaded by them.
But in another sense, if “valid” means “able to compel agreement even from those
who begin with false assumptions,” then of course none of the proofs is valid because
not one of them is able to compel agreement from everyone who considers them . Yet this is
because many unbelievers either begin with invalid assumptions or do not reason cor-
rectly from the evidence. It is not because the proofs are invalid in themselves.
The value of these proofs, then, lies chiefly in overcoming some of the intellectual
objections of unbelievers. They cannot bring unbelievers to saving faith, for that comes
about through belief in the testimony of Scripture. But they can help overcome objec-
tions from unbelievers, and, for believers, they can provide further intellectual evidence
for something they have already been persuaded of from their own inner sense of God
and from the testimony of Scripture.
D. Only God Can Overcome Our Sin and Enable Us
to Be Persuaded of His Existence
Finally, it must be remembered that in this sinful world God must enable us to be per-
suaded or we would never believe in him. We read that “the god of this world has blinded
the minds of the unbelievers , to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory
of Christ” (2 Cor. 4:4). Furthermore, Paul says that “since, in the wisdom of God, the
world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we
preach to save those who believe” (1 Cor. 1:21). In this sinful world, human wisdom is
inadequate for coming to know God. Thus, Paul’s preaching came “in demonstration
of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the
power of God n (1 Cor. 2:5). We are dependent upon God to remove the blindness and
irrationality caused by sin and to enable us to evaluate the evidence rightly, believe what
Scripture says, and come to saving faith in Christ.
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. When the seraphim around God’s throne cry out, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of
hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory ” (Isa. 6:3), do you think they are seeing the
earth from a somewhat different perspective than ours? In what ways? How can
we begin to see the world more from this perspective?
CHAPTER 9 • THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
145
2. When is your inner sense of God’s existence strongest? Weakest? Why? In which of
these situations are you in a condition more like the one you will have in heaven?
In which of these types of situations are your judgments more reliable?
3. Look at your hand. Is it more or less complex than a wristwatch? Is it logical to
think that either one of them just came about by an accidental combination of
elements?
4. Do most people today believe in the existence of God? Has this been true through-
out history? If they believe that God exists, why have they not worshiped him
rightly?
5. Why do some people deny the existence of God? Does Romans 1:18 suggest there
is often a moral factor influencing their intellectual denial of God’s existence (cf.
Ps. 14:1-3)? What is the best way to approach someone who denies the existence
of God?
SPECIAL TERMS
cosmological argument ontological argument
inner sense of God teleological argument
moral argument
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter
1, pp. 38-39. Complete bibliographical data maybe found on pp. 1224-30.)
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1882 - 92 Litton, 42 - 58
1930 Thomas, 3-14
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1875- 76 Pope, 1:233-48
1892-94 Miley, 1:57-136
1940 Wiley, 1:217-40
1960 Purkiser, 39-59
1983 Carter, 1:107-11
1983- Cottrell, 1:419-42
1987-90 Oden, 1:131-80
3. Baptist
1767 Gill, 1:1-15
1887 Boyce, 8-46
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
146
1907 Strong, 52-110
1917 Mullins, 35-48
1983-85 Erickson, 156-74
4. Dispensational
1947 Chafer, 1:129-78
1949 Thiessen, 21-42
1986 Ryrie, 25-34
5. Lutheran
1917-24 Pieper, 1:371-74
1934 Mueller, 143-47
6. Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1559 Calvin, 1:43-69 (1.3-5)
1861 Heppe, 47-56
1871-73 Hodge, 1:191-334
1878 Dabney, 5-26
1887-1921 Warfield, SSW, 1:34-40
1889 Shedd, 1:195-248
1909 Bavinck, DG, 41-80
1938 Berkhof, 19-28
1962 Buswell, 1:72-161
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
1. Roman Catholic: Traditional
1955 Ott, 13-17
2. Roman Catholic: Post-Vatican II
1980 McBrien (no explicit treatment)
Other Works
Brown, Colin. Philosophy and the Christian Faith. Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press,
1968.
Charnock, Stephen. The Existence and Attributes of God. Repr. ed. Evansville, Ind.:
Sovereign Grace Book Club, n.d., pp. 1 1—67 (first published 1655—80).
Clark, Gordon H. Religion, Reason, and Revelation. Nutley, N.J.: Craig Press, 1961.
France, R. T. The Living God. Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press, 1970.
Geisler, Norman. Christian Apologetics. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1976.
, and Paul Feinberg. Introduction to Philosophy: A Christian Perspective. Grand
Rapids: Baker, 1980.
Hackett, Stuart. The Resurrection of Theism. Chicago: Moody, 1957.
Hoover, A. J. “God, Arguments for the Existence of.” In EDT, pp. 447 - 5 1 .
Jastrow, Roberto. God and the Astronomers. 2nd ed. New York: Norton, 1992.
Lewis, Gordon R. Testing Christianity’s Truth Claims. Chicago: Moody, 1976.
Mavrodes, George I. Belief in God. New York: Random House, 1970.
CHAPTER 9 • THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
McDowell, Josh. Evidence That Demands a Verdict San Bernardino, Calif.: Here’s Life,
1972, 1979.
Packer, J. I. “God.” In NDT, pp. 274-77.
Sire, James. The Universe Next Door: A Basic World View Catalog. Downers Grove, 111.:
InterVarsity Press, 1976.
Van Til, Cornelius. The Defense of the Faith. Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed,
1955.
Yandell, Keith. Christianity and Philosophy. Studies in a Christian World View. Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, and Leicester: Inter- Varsity Press, 1984.
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
Romans 1:18-20: For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness
and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth. For what can be known
about God is plain to them , because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the
world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived
in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
HYMN
“The Spacious Firmament on High”
This hymn, based on Psalm 19:1-4, speaks of the testimony of the sun, moon, and
stars to their Creator. The word firmament in the first verse refers to the expanse or
open space that is visible to us as we look upward from earth; it is the place in which the
sun, moon, and stars exist, and might be translated “sky” or “heavens.” The third verse
reminds us that though these heavenly bodies make no sounds that can be heard by our
physical ears, they nonetheless proclaim, to all who think rightly about them, “The hand
that made us is divine.”
The spacious firmament on high,
With all the blue ethereal sky,
And spangled heav’ns, a shining frame,
Their great original proclaim.
Th’ unwearied sun, from day to day,
Does his Creator’s pow’r display,
And publishes to every land
The work of an Almighty hand.
Soon as the evening shades prevail,
The moon takes up the wondrous tale,
And nightly to the list’ning earth
Repeats the story of her birth;
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
148
Whilst all the stars that round her burn,
And all the planets in their turn.
Confirm the tidings as they roll,
And spread the truth from pole to pole.
What though in solemn silence all
Move round this dark terrestrial ball?
What though nor real voice nor sound
Amidst their radiant orbs be found?
In reason’s ear they all rejoice.
And utter forth a glorious voice;
For ever singing, as they shine,
“The hand that made us is divine.”
AUTHOR: JOSEPH ADDISON, 1712
Alternative hymns: “I Sing th’ Almighty Power of God”; “This Is My Father’s World”;
or “Day Is Dying in the West”
Chapter
THE KNOWABILITY OF GOD
Can we really know God ? How much
of God can we know?
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
A. The Necessity for God to Reveal Himself to Us
If we are to know God at all, it is necessary that he reveal himself to us. Even when
discussing the revelation of God that comes through nature, Paul says that what can be
known about God is plain to people “because God has shown it to them ” (Rom. 1:19). The
natural creation reveals God because he chose to have himself revealed in this way.
With regard to the personal knowledge of God that comes in salvation, this idea is
even more explicit. Jesus says, “No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one
knows the Father except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him”
(Matt. 11:27). This kind of knowledge of God is not found through human effort or wis-
dom: “in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom” (1 Cor. 1:21;
cf. 1 Cor. 2:14; 2 Cor. 4:3-4; John 1:18).
The necessity for God to reveal himself to us also is seen in the fact that sinful people
misinterpret the revelation about God found in nature. Those who “by their wickedness
suppress the truth are those who “became futile in their thinking and their senseless
minds were darkened . . . they exchanged the truth about God for a lie” (Rom. 1:18, 21,
25). Therefore, we need Scripture if we are to interpret natural revelation rightly. Hun-
dreds of false religions in the world are evidence of the way sinful people, without guid-
ance from Scripture, will always misunderstand and distort the revelation about God
found in nature. But the Bible alone tells us how to understand the testimony about God
from nature. Therefore we depend on God’s active communication to us in Scripture for
our true knowledge of God.
B. We Can Never Fully Understand God
Because God is infinite and we are finite or limited, we can never fully understand
God. In this sense God is said to be incomprehensible, where the term incomprehensible is
149
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
150
used with an older and less common sense, “unable to be fully understood.” This sense
must be clearly distinguished from the more common meaning, “unable to be under-
stood.” It is not true to say that God is unable to be understood, but it is true to say that
he cannot be understood fully or exhaustively.
Psalm 145 says, “Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is
unsearchable ” (Ps. 145:3). God’s greatness is beyond searching out or discovering: it is too
great ever to be fully known. Regarding Gods understanding, Psalm 147 says, “Great is
our Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure ” (Ps. 147:5). We
will never be able to measure or fully know the understanding of God: it is far too great
for us to equal or to understand. Similarly, when thinking of God’s knowledge of all his
ways, David says, “ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain it”
(Ps. 139:6; cf. v. 17).
Paul implies this incomprehensibility of God when he says that “the Spirit searches
everything, even the depths of God,” and then goes on to say that “no one comprehends
the things 1 of God except the Spirit of God” (1 Cor. 2:10-12). At the end of a long discus-
sion on the history of God’s great plan of redemption, Paul breaks forth into praise: “O
the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his
judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” (Rom. 11:33).
These verses allow us to take our understanding of the incomprehensibility of God
one step further. It is not only true that we can never fully understand God; it is also true
that we can never fully understand any single thing about God. His greatness (Ps. 145:3),
his understanding (Ps. 147:5), his knowledge (Ps. 139:6), his riches, wisdom, judgments,
and ways (Rom. 11:33) are all beyond our ability to understand fully. Other verses also
support this idea: as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are God’s ways higher than
our ways and his thoughts than our thoughts (Isa. 55:9). Job says that God’s great acts in
creating and sustaining the earth are “but the outskirts of his ways,” and exclaims, “how
small a whisper do we hear of him! But the thunder of his power who can understand?”
(Job 26:14; cf. 11:7-9; 37:5).
Thus, we may know something about God’s love, power, wisdom, and so forth. But
we can never know his love completely or exhaustively. We can never know his power
exhaustively. We can never know his wisdom exhaustively, and so forth. In order to know
any single thing about God exhaustively we would have to know it as he himself knows
it. That is, we would have to know it in its relationship to everything else about God and
in its relationship to everything else about creation throughout all eternity! We can only
exclaim with David, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain
it” (Ps. 139:6).
This doctrine of God’s incomprehensibility has much positive application for our
own lives. It means that we will never be able to know “too much” about God, for we will
never run out of things to learn about him, and we will thus never tire in delighting in the
discovery of more and more of his excellence and of the greatness of his works.
l So KJV, quite literally translating the Greek phrase ta thoughts as necessary to the context. But Paul’s mention of
tou theou. RSV, NIV, and NASB all supply the word thoughts y “the depths of God” in v. 10 suggests that not only God’s
because the parallel expression in v. 11, ta tou anthropou (“the thoughts but all of God’s being is referred to in both v. 10
things of the man”), seems to require that we supply the word and v. 12.
CHAPTER 10 • THE KNOWABILITY OF GOD
Even in the age to come, when we are freed from the presence of sin, we will never be
able fully to understand God or any one thing about him. This is seen from the fact that
the passages cited above attribute God’s incomprehensibility not to our sinfulness but to
his infinite greatness. It is because we are finite and God is infinite that we will never be
able to understand him fully. 2 For all eternity we will be able to go on increasing in our
knowledge of God and delighting ourselves more and more in him, saying with David as
we learn more and more of God’s own thoughts, “How precious to me are your thoughts,
O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I would count them, they are more than the
sand” (Ps. 139:17-18).
But if this is so in eternity future, then it certainly must be so in this life. In fact, Paul
tells us that if we are to lead a life “worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him,” it must
be one in which we are continually “increasing in the knowledge of God” (Col. 1:10). We
should be growing in our knowledge of God through our entire lives.
If we ever wished to make ourselves equal to God in knowledge, or if we wished to derive
satisfaction from the sin of intellectual pride, the fact that we will never stop growing in
knowledge of God would be a discouraging thing for us — we might become frustrated
that God is a subject of study that we will never master! But if we rather delight in the
fact that God alone is God, that he is always infinitely greater than we are, that we are his
creatures who owe him worship and adoration, then this will be a very encouraging idea.
Even though we spend time in Bible study and fellowship with God every day of our lives,
there will always be more to learn about God and his relationships to us and the world,
and thus there will always be more that we can be thankful for and for which we can give
him praise. When we realize this, the prospect of a lifelong habit of regular Bible study, and
even the prospect of a lifetime of study of theology (if it is theology that is solidly grounded
in God’s Word), should be a very exciting prospect to us. To study and to teach God’s Word
in both formal and informal ways will always be a great privilege and joy.
C. Yet We Can Know God Truly
Even though we cannot know God exhaustively, we can know true thing s about God.
In fact, all that Scripture tells us about God is true. It is true to say that God is love
(1 John 4:8), that God is light (1 John 1:5), that God is spirit (John 4:24), that God is just
or righteous (Rom. 3:26), and so forth. To say this, does not imply or require that we
know everything about God or about his love or his righteousness or any other attribute.
When I say that I have three sons, that statement is entirely true, even though I do not
know everything about my sons, nor even about myself. So it is in our knowledge of God:
we have true knowledge of God from Scripture, even though we do not have exhaustive
knowledge. We can know some of God’s thoughts— even many of them— from Scrip-
ture, and when we know them, we, like David, find them to be “precious” (Ps. 139:17).
2 This is not contradicted by 1 Cor. 13:12, “Now I know
in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been
fully understood.” The phrase “know fully” is simply an
attempt to translate the word epigindskd , which suggests
deeper or more accurate knowledge (or perhaps, in contrast
with present partial knowledge, knowledge free from error or
falsehood). Paul never says anything like, “Then I shall know
all things,” which would have been very easy to say in Greek
(tote epignosomai ta panta) if he had wished to do so.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
152
Even more significantly, it is God himself whom we know, not simply facts about
him or actions he does. We make a distinction between knowing facts and knowing
persons in our ordinary use of English. It would be true for me to say that I know many
facts about the president of the United States, but it would not be true for me to say
that I know him . To say that I know him would imply that I had met him and talked
with him, and that I had developed at least to some degree a personal relationship
with him.
Now some people say that we cannot know God himself, but that we can only know
facts about him or know what he does. Others have said that we cannot know God as he is
in himself, but we can only know him as he relates to us (and there is an implication that
these two are somehow different). But Scripture does not speak that way. Several passages
speak of our knowing God himself We read God’s words in Jeremiah:
Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his
might, let not the rich man glory in his riches; but let him who glories glory in
this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices stead-
fast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth; for in these things I delight,
says the Lord. (Jer. 9:23-24)
Here God says that the source of our joy and sense of importance ought to come not
from our own abilities or possessions, but from the fact that we know him. Similarly, in
praying to his Father, Jesus could say, “And this is eternal life, that they know you the only
true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3). The promise of the new
covenant is that all shall know God, “from the least of them to the greatest” (Heb. 8:11),
and John’s first epistle tells us that the Son of God has come and given us understanding
“to know him who is true” (1 John 5:20; see also Gal. 4:9; Phil. 3:10; 1 John 2:3; 4:8).
John can say, “I write to you, children, because you know the Father ” (1 John 2:13).
The fact that we do know God himself is further demonstrated by the realization that
the richness of the Christian life includes a personal relationship with God. As these pas-
sages imply, we have a far greater privilege than mere knowledge of facts about God. We
speak to God in prayer, and he speaks to us through his Word. We commune with him
in his presence, we sing his praise, and we are aware that he personally dwells among us
and within us to bless us (John 14:23). Indeed, this personal relationship with God the
Father, with God the Son, and with God the Holy Spirit may be said to be the greatest of
all the blessings of the Christian life.
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. Sometimes people say that heaven sounds boring. How does the fact that God is
incomprehensible yet knowable help to answer that objection?
2. How can we be sure that when we reach heaven God will not tell us that most of
what we had learned about him was wrong, and that we would have to forget what
we had learned and begin to learn different things about him?
CHAPTER 10 • THE KNOWABILITY OF GOD
153
3. Do you want to go on knowing God more and more deeply for all eternity? Why or
why not? Would you like sometime to be able to know God exhaustively? Why or
why not?
4. Why do you think God decided to reveal himself to us? Do you learn more about
God from his revelation in nature or his revelation in Scripture? Why do you
think it is that God’s thoughts are “precious” to us (Ps. 139:17)? Would you call
your present relationship to God a personal relationship? How is it similar to your
relationships with other people, and how is it different? What would make
your relationship with God better?
SPECIAL TERMS
incomprehensible
knowable
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter 1,
pp. 38-39. Complete bibliographical data may be found on pp. 1224-30.)
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1882 - 92 Litton (no explicit treatment)
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1875- 76 Pope, 1:242-48
1892-94 Miley, 1:137-58
1983- Cottrell, 1:1-47, 306-87
1987-90 Oden, 1:317-74
3. Baptist
1767 Gill, 2:352-64
1887 Boyce, 8-54
1917 Mullins, 35-48
1976-83 Henry, 2:17-167, 247-334; 5:375-409
1983-85 Erickson, 137-40, 177-81, 268-71
4. Dispensational
1947 Chafer, 1:179-86
1986 Ryrie, 25-34
5. Lutheran
1917-24 Pieper, 1:375-81
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
154
6. Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1559 Calvin, 1:33-43 (1.1-2)
1871-73 Hodge, 1:191-202,335-65
1909 Bavinck, DG, 13-110
1938 Berkhof, 29-40
1962 Buswell, 1:29-30
7. Renewal (or charismatic/Pentecostal)
1988-92 Williams, 1:29-46
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
1. Roman Catholic: Traditional
1955 Ott, 17-24
2. Roman Catholic: Post-Vatican II
1980 McBrien (no explicit treatment)
Other Works
Bray, Gerald L. The Doctrine of God. Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press, 1993.
Charnock, Stephen. The Knowledge of God. The Complete Works of Stephen Charnock . Vol.
4. Edinburgh: James Nichol, 1865. Repr. ed.: Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1985, esp.
pp. 3-164.
Frame, John M. The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God. Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and
Reformed, 1987.
France, R. T. The Living God. Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press, 1970.
Packer, J. I. “God.” In NDT, pp. 274-77.
. Knowing God. London: Inter- Varsity Press, 1973, pp. 13-37.
Piper, John. Desiring God. Portland, Ore.: Multnomah, 1986.
Tozer, A. W. The Knowledge of the Holy. New York: Harper and Row, 1961.
Van Til, Cornelius. In Defense of the Faith , vol. 5: An Introduction to Systematic Theology.
N.p.: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1976, pp. 159-99.
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
(Verse 3 of this passage tells us that God can never be fully known, but the fact that
David is praising God and speaking to him shows also that he does know true things
about God and does have a personal relationship to him.)
Psalm 145:1-3:
I will extol you, my God and King ,
and bless your name for ever and ever.
Every day I will bless you,
and praise your name for ever and ever.
Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised,
and his greatness is unsearchable.
HYMN
CHAPTER 10 ■ THE KNOWABILITY OF GOD
155
“I WiU Thee Praise, My God, O King”
Throughout the history of the church Christians have enjoyed rearranging the words
of the psalms to fit some poetic meter and then setting these psalms to music for personal
or group worship. This is an old metrical arrangement of the words to Psalm 145, set to
the familiar melody of the hymn, “Jesus Shall Reign Where’er the Sun.” Stanza 2 speaks
of God’s incomprehensibility (“The Lord is great; he praise exceeds; his greatness fully
search can none”), and many of the other stanzas speak of various attributes of God that
we know from Scripture. It should give us joy to sing this song, knowing both that we are
singing absolutely true things about God, and that his greatness far exceeds any praise
we will ever be able to sing to him.
I will thee praise, my God, O King,
And I will ever bless thy name;
I will extol thee every day
And evermore thy praise proclaim.
The Lord is great; he praise exceeds;
His greatness fully search can none;
Race shall to race extol thy deeds
And tell thy mighty acts each one.
Upon thy glorious majesty
And wondrous works my mind shall dwell;
Men shall recount thy dreadful acts,
And of thy greatness I will tell.
They utter shall abundantly
The mem’ry of thy goodness great,
And shall sing praises cheerfully
While they thy righteousness relate.
Jehovah very gracious is;
In him compassions also flow;
In lovingkindness he is great,
And unto anger he is slow.
O’er all his works his mercies are;
The Lord is good to all that live.
Praise, Lord, to thee thy works afford;
Thy saints to thee shall praises give.
FROM: THE BOOK OF PSALMS WITH MUSIC
(PITTSBURGH: REFORMED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF NORTH AMERICA, 1973),
PSALM 145 (PP. 350-51)
Alternative hymn: “O Worship the King” (see this hymn at the end of chapter 12)
Chapter
THE CHARACTER OF GOD:
"INCOMMUNICABLE”
ATTRIBUTES
How is God different from us?
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
A. Introduction to the Study of God’s Character
1. Classifying God’s Attributes. When we come to talk about the character of God,
we realize that we cannot say everything the Bible teaches us about God’s character
at once. We need some way to decide which aspect of God’s character to discuss first,
which aspect to discuss second, and so forth. In other words, we need some way to cate-
gorize the attributes of God. This question is not as unimportant as it may seem. There
is the possibility that we would adopt a misleading order of attributes or that we would
emphasize some attributes so much that others would not be presented properly.
Several different methods of classifying God’s attributes have been used. In this chapter
we will adopt probably the most commonly used classification: the incommunicable attri-
butes of God (that is, those attributes that God does not share or “communicate” to others)
and the communicable attributes of God (those God shares or “communicates” with us).
Examples of the incommunicable attributes would be God’s eternity (God has existed
for all eternity, but we have not), unchangeableness (God does not change, but we do),
or omnipresence (God is everywhere present, but we are present only in one place at one
time). Examples of the communicable attributes would be love (God is love, and we are
able to love as well), knowledge (God has knowledge, and we are able to have knowledge
as well), mercy (God is merciful, and we are able to be merciful too), or justice (God is
just and we, too, are able to be just). This classification of God’s attributes into two major
categories is helpful, and most people have an initial sense of which specific attributes
should be called incommunicable and which should be called communicable. Thus it
makes sense to say that God’s love is communicable but his omnipresence is not.
156
CHAPTER 11 • INCOMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD
However, upon further reflection we realize that this distinction, although helpful, is
not perfect. That is because there is no attribute of God that is completely communicable,
and there is no attribute of God that is completely incommunicable! This will be evident
if we think for a moment about some things we already know about God.
For example, God’s wisdom would usually be called a communicable attribute, because
we also can be wise. But we will never be infinitely wise as God is. His wisdom is to some
extent shared with us, but it is never fully shared with us. Similarly, we can share God’s
knowledge in part, yet we shall never share it fully, for God’s thoughts are higher than
ours “as the heavens are higher than the earth” (Isa. 55:9). We can imitate God’s love and
share in that attribute to some degree, but we will never be infinitely loving as God is.
So it is with all the attributes that are normally called “communicable attributes”: God
does indeed share them with us to some degree , but none of these attributes is completely
communicable. It is better to say that those attributes we call “communicable” are those
that are more shared with us.
Those attributes we call “incommunicable” are better defined by saying that they are
attributes of God that are less shared by us. Not one of the incommunicable attributes of
God is completely without some likeness in the character of human beings. For example,
God is unchangeable, while we change. But we do not change completely, for there are
some aspects of our characters that remain largely unchanged: our individual identities,
many of our personality traits, and some of our long-term purposes remain substantially
unchanged over many years (and will remain largely unchanged once we are set free from
sin and begin to live in God’s presence forever).
Similarly, God is eternal, and we are subject to the limitations of time. However, we
see some reflection of God’s eternity in the fact that we will live with him forever and
enjoy eternal life, as well as in the fact that we have the ability to remember the past and
to have a strong sense of awareness of the future (unlike much of God’s creation; cf.
Eccl. 3:11). God’s attributes of independence and omnipresence are perhaps those that
are least easy to see reflected in our own natures, but even these can be seen to be faintly
reflected in us when we compare ourselves with much of the rest of God’s creation: as we
grow to adulthood we attain some degree of independence from others for our existence;
and, though we cannot be at more than one place at one time, we have the ability to act
in ways that have effects in many different places at once (this again sets us apart from
most of the rest of creation).
We will use the two categories of “incommunicable” and “communicable” attributes
then, while realizing that they are not entirely precise classifications, and that there is in
reality much overlap between the categories.
2. The Names of God in Scripture. In the Bible a person’s name is a description of his
or her character. Likewise, the names of God in Scripture are various descriptions of
his character. In a broad sense, then, God’s “name” is equal to all that the Bible and
creation tell us about God. When we pray, “Hallowed be your name ” as part of the
Lord’s Prayer (Matt. 6:9), we are praying that people would speak about God in a way
that is honoring to him and that accurately reflects his character. This honoring of
God’s name can be done with actions as well as words, for our actions reflect the char-
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
158
acter of the Creator whom we serve (Matt. 5:16). To honor God’s name is therefore
to honor him. The command, “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in
vain” (Ex. 20:7) is a command that we not dishonor Gods reputation either by words
that speak of him in a foolish or misleading way, or by actions that do not reflect his
true character.
Now the Bible does give many individual names to God, all of which reflect some
true aspect of his character. Many of these names are taken from human experience
or emotions in order to describe parts of God’s character, while many other names are
taken from the rest of the natural creation. In a sense, all of these expressions of God’s
character in terms of things found in the universe are “names” of God because they tell
us something true about him.
Herman Bavinck, in The Doctrine of God, 1 gives a long list of such descriptions of God
taken from creation: God is compared to a lion (Isa. 31:4), an eagle (Deut. 32:11), a lamb
(Isa. 53:7), a hen (Matt. 23:37), the sun (Ps. 84:11), the morning star (Rev. 22:16), a light
(Ps. 27:1), a torch (Rev. 21:23), a fire (Heb. 12:29), a fountain (Ps. 36:9), a rock (Deut.
32:4), a hiding place (Ps. 119:114), a tower (Prov. 18:10), a moth (Ps. 39:11), a shadow
(Ps. 91:1), a shield (Ps. 84:11), a temple (Rev. 21:22), and so forth.
Taken from human experience, Bavinck finds an even more extensive list, which
is reproduced here only in part: God is called bridegroom (Isa. 61:10), husband (Isa.
54:5), father (Deut. 32:6), judge and king (Isa. 33:22), man of war (Ex. 15:3), builder
and maker (Heb. 11:10), shepherd (Ps. 23:1), physician (Ex. 15:26), and so forth. Fur-
thermore, God is spoken of in terms of human actions such as knowing (Gen. 18:21),
remembering (Gen. 8:1; Ex. 2:24), seeing (Gen. 1:10), hearing (Ex. 2:24), smelling (Gen.
8:21), tasting (Ps. 11:5), sitting (Ps. 9:7), rising (Ps. 68:1), walking (Lev. 26:12), wiping
away tears (Isa. 25:8), and so forth. Human emotions are attributed to God, such as joy
(Isa. 62:5), grief (Ps. 78:40; Isa. 63:10), anger (Jer. 7:18-19), love (John 3:16), hatred
(Deut. 16:22), wrath (Ps. 2:5), and so forth.
Even though God does not have a physical body, 2 Scripture uses various parts of the
human body to describe God’s activities in a metaphorical way. Scripture can speak of
God’s face or countenance (Ex. 33:20, 23; Isa. 63:9; Ps. 16:11; Rev. 22:4), eyes (Ps. 11:4;
Heb. 4:13), eyelids (Ps. 11:4), ears (Ps. 55:1; Isa. 59:1), nose (Deut. 33:10), mouth (Deut.
8:3), lips (Job 11:5), tongue (Isa. 30:27), neck (Jer. 18:17), arms (Ex. 15:16), hand (Num.
11:23), finger (Ex. 8:19), heart (Gen. 6:6), foot (Isa. 66:1), and so forth. Even terms
describing personal characteristics such as good, merciful, gracious, righteous, holy,
just, and many more, are terms whose meaning is familiar to us through an experience
of these qualities in other human beings. And even those terms that seem least related to
creation, such as eternity or unchangeableness, are understood by us not intuitively but
by negating concepts that we know from our experience (eternity is not being limited
by time and unchangeableness is not changing).
^erm^n Bavinck, The Doctrine of God, trans. and ed. by he was conceived in Mary’s womb. (In the Old Testament
William Hendriksen (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1951), pp. 86-89. “theophanies,” where God appeared in human form, these
2 Although Jesus Christ now has a physical body as God- human bodies were only temporary appearances and did not
man, the Father and Holy Spirit do not, nor did the Son before belong to the person of God.)
CHAPTER 11 • INCOMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD
The point of collecting all these passages is to show, first, that in one sense or another
all of creation reveals something about God to us, and that the higher creation, especially
man who is made in God’s image, reveals him more fully.
The second reason for mentioning this long list is to show that all that we know about
God from Scripture comes to us in terms that we understand because they describe
events or things common to human experience. Using a more technical term, we can say
that all that Scripture says about God uses anthropomorphic language — that is, language
that speaks of God in human terms. 3 Sometimes people have been troubled by the fact
that there is anthropomorphic language in Scripture. But this should not be troubling
to us, for, if God is going to teach us about things we do not know by direct experience
(such as his attributes), he has to teach us in terms of what we do know. This is why
all that Scripture says about God is “anthropomorphic” in a broad sense (speaking of
God either in human terms or in terms of the creation we know). This fact does not
mean that Scripture gives us wrong or misleading ideas about God, for this is the way
that God has chosen to reveal himself to us, and to reveal himself truly and accurately.
Nonetheless, it should caution us not to take any one of these descriptions by itself and
isolate it from its immediate context or from the rest of what Scripture says about God. 4
If we did that, we would run the risk of misunderstanding or of having an imbalanced
or inadequate picture of who God is. Each description of one of God’s attributes must
be understood in the light of everything else that Scripture tells us about God. If we fail
to remember this, we will inevitably understand God’s character wrongly.
For example, we have an idea of love from human experience. That helps us to under-
stand what Scripture means when it says that God is love, but our understanding of the
meaning of “love” when applied to God is not identical with our experience of love in
human relationships. So we must learn from observing how God acts in all of Scripture
and from the other attributes of God that are given in Scripture, as well as from our own
real-life experiences of God s love, if we are to refine our idea of God’s love in an appro-
priate way and avoid misunderstanding. Thus, anthropomorphic language about God
is true when it occurs in Scripture, but it can be understood rightly only by continual
reading of Scripture throughout our lives in order that we may understand this language
in the context of all of Scripture.
There is yet a third reason for pointing out the great diversity of descriptions about
God taken from human experience and from the natural world. This language should
remind us that God made the universe so that it would show forth the excellence of his char-
acter, that is, that it would show forth his glory. God is worthy to receive glory because
he created all things (Rev. 4:11); therefore, all things should honor him
Psalm 148 is an example of all creation being summoned to give praise to God:
3 “Anthropomorphic” comes from two Greek words, anthro-
pos, “man,” and morphe, “form ” An anthropomorphic descrip-
tion of God describes God in human forms or human terms.
4 This mistake would be made, for example, by people
who argue that God has a human body, because Scripture
talks about his eyes, ears, mouth, etc. By the same reasoning
they should say that God also looks like a lion, a lamb, an
eagle, a fire, a rock, a hen, a fountain, the sun, a shield, a
shadow, and a temple — all at once! The mistake is to fail to
recognize that these are all metaphors that tell us about God s
character, but that God himself is “spirit” (John 4:24) and has
no material body.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
160
Praise him, sun and moon,
praise him, all you shining stars! . . .
Praise the Lord from the earth,
you sea monsters and all deeps,
fire and hail, snow and frost,
stormy wind fulfilling his command!
Mountains and all hills,
fruit trees and all cedars! . . .
Kings of the earth and all peoples . . .
Let them praise the name of the Lord,
for his name alone is exalted;
his glory is above earth and heaven. (Ps. 148:3, 7-11, 13)
As we learn about God’s character from Scripture, it should open our eyes and enable
us to interpret creation rightly. As a result, we will be able to see reflections of the excel-
lence of God’s character everywhere in creation: “the whole earth is full of his glory”
(Isa. 6:3).
It must be remembered that though all that Scripture tells us about God is true, it is
not exhaustive. Scripture does not tell us everything about God’s character. Thus, we
will never know God’s full or complete “ name ” in the sense that we will never understand
God’s character exhaustively. We will never know all there is to know about God. For
this reason theologians have sometimes said, “God has many names, yet God has no
name.” God has many names in that we know many true descriptions of his character
from Scripture, but God has no name in that we will never be able to describe or under-
stand all of his character.
3. Balanced Definitions of God’s Incommunicable Attributes. The incommunicable
attributes of God are perhaps the most easily misunderstood, probably because they
represent aspects of God’s character that are least familiar to our experience. In this
chapter, therefore, each of the incommunicable attributes of God is defined with a two-
part sentence. The first part defines the attribute under discussion, and the second part
guards against misunderstanding the attribute by stating a balancing or opposite aspect
that relates to that attribute. For example, God’s unchangeableness is defined as fol-
lows: “God is unchanging in his being, perfections, purposes, and promises, yet God
does act, and he acts differently in response to different situations.” The second half of
the sentence guards against the idea that unchangeableness means inability to act at all.
Some people do understand unchangeableness in this way, but such an understanding
is inconsistent with the biblical presentation of God’s unchangeableness.
B. The Incommunicable Attributes of God
1. Independence. God’s independence is defined as follows: God does not need us or the
rest of creation for anything, yet we and the rest of creation can glorify him and bring him
CHAPTER 11 ♦ INCOMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD
joy. This attribute of God is sometimes called his self- existence or his aseity (from the
Latin words a se, which mean “from himself”).
Scripture in several places teaches that God does not need any part of creation in
order to exist or for any other reason. God is absolutely independent and self-sufficient.
Paul proclaims to the men of Athens, “The God who made the world and everything in
it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by man, nor is he served
by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all men life and
breath and everything” (Acts 17:24-25). The implication is that God does not need
anything from mankind.
God asks Job, “Who has given to me, that I should repay him? Whatever is under the
whole heaven is mine ” (Job 41:11). No one has ever contributed to God anything that did
not first come from God who created all things. Similarly, we read God’s word in Psalm
50, “every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds
of the air, and all that moves in the field is mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you;
for the world and all that is in it is mine ” (Ps. 50:10- 12).
People have sometimes thought that God created human beings because he was lonely
and needed fellowship with other persons. If this were true, it would certainly mean that
God is not completely independent of creation. It would mean that God would need to
create persons in order to be completely happy or completely fulfilled in his personal
existence.
Yet there are some specific indications in Jesus’ words that show this idea to be in-
accurate. In John 17:5, Jesus prays, “Father, glorify me in your own presence with the
glory which I had with you before the world was made” Here is an indication that there
was a sharing of glory between the Father and the Son before creation. Then in John
17:24, Jesus speaks to the Father of “my glory which you have given me in your love for
me before the foundation of the world” There was love and communication between the
Father and the Son before creation.
These passages indicate explicitly what we can learn elsewhere from the doctrine of
the Trinity, namely, that among the persons of the Trinity there has been perfect love
and fellowship and communication for all eternity. The fact that God is three persons
yet one God means that there was no loneliness or lack of personal fellowship on God’s
part before creation. In fact, the love and interpersonal fellowship, and the sharing of
glory, have always been and will always be far more perfect than any communion we
as finite human beings will ever have with God. And as the second verse quoted above
speaks of the glory the Father gave to the Son, we should also realize that there is a giving
of glory by the members of the Trinity to one another that far surpasses any bestowal of
glory that could ever be given to God by all creation.
With regard to God’s existence, this doctrine also reminds us that only God exists by
virtue of his very nature, and that he was never created and never came into being. He
always was. This is seen from the fact that all things that exist were made by him (“For you
created all things, and by your will they existed and were created” [Rev. 4:11]; this is also
affirmed in John 1:3; Rom. 11:35-36; 1 Cor. 8:6). Moses tells us that God existed before
there was any creation: Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed
the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God” (Ps. 90:2). God’s
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
162
independence is also seen in his self-designation in Exodus 3:14: “God said to Moses, TAM
WHO I AM ” It is also possible to translate this statement “I will be what I will be,” but in
both cases the implication is that God’s existence and character are determined by himself
alone and are not dependent on anyone or anything else. This means that God’s being has
always been and will always be exactly what it is. God is not dependent upon any part of
creation for his existence or his nature. Without creation, God would still be infinitely lov-
ing, infinitely just, eternal, omniscient, trinitarian, and so forth.
God’s being is also something totally unique. It is not just that God does not need
the creation for anything; God could not need the creation for anything. The differ-
ence between the creature and the Creator is an immensely vast difference, for God
exists in a fundamentally different order of being. It is not just that we exist and God
has always existed; it is also that God necessarily exists in an infinitely better, stronger,
more excellent way. The difference between God’s being and ours is more than the dif-
ference between the sun and a candle, more than the difference between the ocean and
a raindrop, more than the difference between the arctic ice cap and a snowflake, more
than the difference between the universe and the room we are sitting in: God’s being
is qualitatively different. No limitation or imperfection in creation should be projected
onto our thought of God. He is the Creator; all else is creaturely. All else can pass away
in an instant; he necessarily exists forever.
The balancing consideration with respect to this doctrine is the fact that we and the rest
of creation can glorify God and bring him joy. This must be stated in order to guard against
any idea that God’s independence makes us meaningless. Someone might wonder, if God
does not need us for anything, then are we important at all? Is there any significance to
our existence or to the existence of the rest of creation? In response it must be said that
we are in fact very meaningful because God has created us and he has determined that we
would be meaningful to him. That is the final definition of genuine significance.
God speaks of his sons and daughters from the ends of the earth as “every one who is
called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made” (Isa. 43:7).
Although God did not have to create us, he chose to do so in a totally free choice. He
decided that he would create us to glorify him (cf. Eph. 1:11 - 12; Rev. 4:11).
It is also true that we are able to bring real joy and delight to God. It is one of the most
amazing facts in Scripture that God actually delights in his people and rejoices over
them. Isaiah prophesies about the restoration of God’s people:
You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord,
and a royal diadem in the hand of your God.
You shall no more be termed Forsaken
and your land shall no more be termed Desolate;
but you shall be called My delight is in her,
and your land Married;
for the Lord delights in you
and your land shall be married. . . .
as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride,
so shall your God rejoice over you. (Isa. 62:3-5)
CHAPTER 11 • INCOMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD
Similarly, Zephaniah prophesies that the Lord “will rejoice over you with gladness,
he will renew you in his love; he will exult over you with loud singing as on a day of fes-
tival (Zeph. 3:17—18). God does not need us for anything, yet it is the amazing fact of
our existence that he chooses to delight in us and to allow us to bring joy to his heart.
This is the basis for personal significance in the lives of all God’s people: to be significant
to God is to be significant in the most ultimate sense. No greater personal significance
can be imagined.
2. Unchangeableness. We can define the unchangeableness of God as follows: God is
unchanging in his being, perfections, purposes, and promises, yet God does act and feel emo-
tions, and he acts and feels differently in response to different situations. 5 This attribute of
God is also called God’s immutability.
a. Evidence in Scripture: In Psalm 102 we find a contrast between things that we may
think to be permanent such as the earth or the heavens, on the one hand, and God, on
the other hand. The psalmist says:
Of old you laid the foundation of the earth,
and the heavens are the work of your hands.
They will perish, but you endure;
they will all wear out like a garment.
You change them like raiment, and they pass away;
but you are the same, and your years have no end.
(Ps. 102:25-27) 6
God existed before the heavens and earth were made, and he will exist long after they
have been destroyed. God causes the universe to change, but in contrast to this change
he is “the same.”
Referring to his own qualities of patience, long-suffering, and mercy, God says, “For
I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed” (Mai. 3:6).
Here God uses a general statement of his unchangeableness to refer to some specific ways
in which he does not change.
James reminds his readers that all good gifts come ultimately from God “with whom
there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17). His argument is that since
good gifts have always come from God, we can be confident that only good gifts will
come from him in the future, because his character never changes in the slightest
degree.
The definition given above specifies that God is unchanging — not in everyway that
we might imagine, but only in ways that Scripture itself affirms. The Scripture pas-
sages already cited refer either to God’s own being or to some attribute of his character.
5 The four key words (being, perfections, purposes, promises)
used as a summary of the ways in which God is unchanging are
taken from Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1939, 1941), p. 58.
6 It is significant that this passage is quoted in Heb. 1:11-12
and applied to Jesus Christ. Heb. 13:8 also applies the attribute
of unchangeableness to Christ: “Jesus Christ is the same yes-
terday and today and for ever.” Thus, God the Son shares fully
in this divine attribute.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
164
From these we can conclude that God is unchanging, at least with respect to his “being,”
and with respect to his “perfections” (that is, his attributes or the various aspects of his
character).
The great Dutch theologian Herman Bavinck notes that the fact that God is unchang-
ing in his being is of the utmost importance for maintaining the Creator/creature
distinction, and for our worship of God:
The doctrine of God’s immutability is of the highest significance for religion.
The contrast between being and becoming marks the difference between the
Creator and the creature. Every creature is continually becoming. It is change-
able, constantly striving, seeks rest and satisfaction, and finds this rest in God,
in him alone, for only he is pure being and no becoming. Hence, in Scripture
God is often called the Rock. . . ?
The definition given above also affirms God’s unchangeableness or immutability
with respect to his purposes . “The counsel of the Lord stands for ever, the thoughts of
his heart to all generations” (Ps. 33:11). This general statement about God’s counsel is
supported by several specific verses that talk about individual plans or purposes of God
that he has had for all eternity (Matt. 13:35; 25:34; Eph. 1:4, 11; 3:9, 11; 2 Tim. 2:19; 1
Peter 1:20; Rev. 13:8). Once God has determined that he will assuredly bring something
about, his purpose is unchanging, and it will be achieved. In fact, God claims through
Isaiah that no one else is like him in this regard:
I am God, and there is none like me,
declaring the end from the beginning
and from ancient times things not yet done,
saying, “My counsel shall stand,
and I will accomplish all my purpose” . . .
I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass;
I have purposed, and I will do it (Isa. 46:9-11)
Furthermore, God is unchanging in his promises. Once he has promised something,
he will not be unfaithful to that promise: “God is not a man, that he should lie, or a son
of man, that he should repent. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and
will he not fulfil it?” (Num. 23:19; cf. 1 Sam. 15:29).
b. Does God Sometimes Change His Mind? Yet when we talk about God being unchang-
ing in his purposes, we may wonder about places in Scripture where God said he would
judge his people and then because of prayer or the people’s repentance (or both) God
relented and did not bring judgment as he had said he would. Examples of such with-
drawing from threatened judgment include the successful intervention of Moses in
prayer to prevent the destruction of the people of Israel (Ex. 32:9-14), the adding of
another fifteen years to the life of Hezekiah (Isa. 38:1 -6), or the failure to bring prom-
7 Herman Bavinck, The Doctrine of God, trans. by William
Hendriksen (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1977, reprint of
1951 ed.),p. 149.
CHAPTER 11 • INCOMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD
ised judgment upon Nineveh when the people repented (Jonah 3:4, 10). Are these not
cases where God’s purposes in fact did change? Then there are other passages where God
is said to be sorry that he had carried out some previous action. One thinks of God being
sorry that he had made man upon the earth (Gen. 6:6), or sorry that he had made Saul
king (1 Sam. 15:10). Did not God’s purposes change in these cases?
These instances should all be understood as true expressions of God’s present attitude
or intention with respect to the situation as it exists at that moment. If the situation changes,
then of course God’s attitude or expression of intention will also change. This is just
saying that God responds differently to different situations. The example of Jonah preach-
ing to Nineveh is helpful here. God sees the wickedness of Nineveh and sends Jonah to
proclaim, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” (Jonah 3:4). The possibility
that God would withhold judgment if the people repented is not explicitly mentioned in
Jonah’s proclamation as recorded in Scripture, but it is of course implicit in that warn-
ing: the purpose for proclaiming a warning is to bring about repentance. Once the people
repented, the situation was different, and God responded differently to that changed situ-
ation: “When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God repented of
the evil which he had said he would do to them; and he did not do it” (Jonah 3:10).
The situations with Hezekiah and with the intercession of Moses are similar: God
had said that he would send judgment, and that was a true declaration, provided that the
situation remained the same. But then the situation changed: someone started to pray
earnestly (Moses in one case and Hezekiah in the other). Here prayer itself was part of
the new situation and was in fact what changed the situation. God responded to that
changed situation by answering the prayer and withholding judgment.
In the cases of God being sorry that he had made man, or that he had made Saul
king, these too can be understood as expressions of God’s present displeasure toward the
sinfulness of man. In neither case is the language strong enough to require us to think
that if God could start again and act differently, he would in fact not create man or not
make Saul king. It can instead imply that God’s previous action led to events that, in the
short term, caused him sorrow, but that nonetheless in the long term would ultimately
achieve his good purposes. This is somewhat analogous to a human father who allows
his child to embark on a course he knows will bring much sorrow, both to the parent
and to the child, but who allows it nonetheless, because he knows that greater long-term
good will come from it.
c. The Question of God’s Impassibility: Sometimes in a discussion of God’s attributes
theologians have spoken of another attribute, namely, the impassibility of God. This
attribute, if true, would mean that God does not have passions or emotions, but is
“impassible,” not subject to passions. In fact, chapter 2 of the Westminster Confession
of Faith says that God is “without . . . passions.” This statement goes beyond what we
have affirmed in our definition above about God’s unchangeableness, and affirms more
than that God does not change in his being, perfections, purposes, or promises — it also
affirms that God does not even feel emotions or “passions.”
The Scripture proof given by the Westminster Confession of Faith is Acts 14:15, which
in the King James Version reports Barnabas and Paul as rejecting worship from the people
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
166
at Lystra, protesting that they are not gods but “men of like passions with you .” The impli-
cation of the KJV translation might be that someone who is truly God would not have
“like passions” as men do, or it might simply show that the apostles were responding to
the false view of passionless gods assumed by the men of Lystra (see vv. 10-11). But if
the verse is rightly translated, it certainly does not prove that God has no passions or
emotions at all, for the Greek term here ( homoiopathes ) can simply mean having similar
circumstances or experiences, or being of a similar nature to someone else. 8 Of course,
God does not have sinful passions or emotions. But the idea that God has no passions or
emotions at all clearly conflicts with much of the rest of Scripture, and for that reason
I have not affirmed Gods impassibility in this book. Instead, quite the opposite is true,
for God, who is the origin of our emotions and who created our emotions, certainly does
feel emotions: God rejoices (Isa. 62:5). He is grieved (Ps. 78:40; Eph. 4:30). His wrath
burns hot against his enemies (Ex. 32:10). He pities his children (Ps. 103:13). He loves
with everlasting love (Isa. 54:8; Ps. 103:17). He is a God whose passions we are to imitate
for all eternity as we like our Creator hate sin and delight in righteousness.
d. The Challenge From Process Theology: Gods unchangeableness has been denied
frequently in recent years by the advocates of process theology , a theological position that
says that process and change are essential aspects of genuine existence, and that therefore
God must be changing over time also, just like everything else that exists. In fact, Charles
Hartshorne, the father of process theology, would say that God is continually adding
to himself all the experiences that happen anywhere in the universe, and thus God is
continually changing. 9 The real appeal of process theology comes from the fact that all
people have a deep longing to mean something, to feel significant in the universe. Process
theologians dislike the doctrine of God’s immutability because they think it implies that
nothing we do can really matter to God. If God is really unchangeable, process theolo-
gians will say, then nothing we do — in fact, nothing that happens in the universe — has
any real effect on God, because God can never change. So what difference do we make?
How can we have any ultimate meaning? In response to this question process theologians
reject the doctrine of God’s immutability and tell us that our actions are so significant
that they have an influence on the very being of God himself! As we act, and as the uni-
verse changes, God is truly affected by these actions and the being of God changes — God
becomes something other than what he was. 10
8 See BAGD, p. 566.
9 Charles Hartshorne (born 1897) taught at the Uni-
versity of Chicago, Emory University, and the University
of Texas. An introduction to process theology by two of its
advocates is Process Theology: An Introductory Exposition
by John B. Cobb, Jr., and David R. Griffin (Philadelphia:
Westminster, 1976). Detailed evangelical analyses may be
found in Carl F. H. Henry, “The Resurgence of Process Phi-
losophy,” in God , Revelation, and Authority , 6:52-75, and
Royce Gruenler, The Inexhaustible God: Biblical Faith and
the Challenge of Process Theism (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1983).
Two excellent recent articles from an evangelical perspec-
tive have been written by Bruce A. Ware: “An Exposition
and Critique of the Process Doctrines of Divine Mutability
and Immutability,” WTJ 47 (1985): 175-96 (a critique of
process theology), and “An Evangelical Reformulation of
the Doctrine of the Immutability of God,” JETS 29 (1986):
431 -46 (a positive restatement of an orthodox view of God’s
immutability).
10 See Ware’s revealing discussion of Hartshorne’s idea
that we contribute value to God that he would otherwise lack:
“Exposition and Critique,” pp. 183-85.
CHAPTER 11 - INCOMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD
167
Advocates of process theology often mistakenly accuse evangelical Christians (or the
biblical writers themselves) of believing in a God who does not act in the world, or who
cannot respond differently to different situations (errors we have discussed above). With
regard to the idea that we must be able to influence the very being of God in order to be
significant, we must respond that this is an incorrect assumption imported into the dis-
cussion, and that it is not consistent with Scripture. Scripture is clear that our ultimate
significance comes not from being able to change the being of God, but from the fact that
God has created us for his glory and that he counts us as significant. 11 God alone gives
the ultimate definition of what is significant and what is not significant in the universe,
and if he counts us significant, then we are!
The other fundamental error in process theology is in assuming that God must be
changeable like the universe he created. This is what Scripture explicitly denies: “You,
Lord, did found the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the work of your hands;
they will perish, but you remain; they will all grow old like a garment . . . they will be
changed . But you are the same, and your years will never end” (Heb. 1:10- 12, quoting
Ps. 102:25-27).
e. God Is Both Infinite and Personal: Our discussion of process theology illustrates a
common difference between biblical Christianity and all other systems of theology. In
the teaching of the Bible, God is both infinite and personal: he is infinite in that he is not
subject to any of the limitations of humanity, or of creation in general. He is far greater
than everything he has made, far greater than anything else that exists. But he is also
personal: he interacts with us as a person, and we can relate to him as persons. We can
pray to him, worship him, obey him, and love him, and he can speak to us, rejoice in us,
and love us.
Apart from the true religion found in the Bible, no system of religion has a God who is
both infinite and personal. 12 For example, the gods of ancient Greek and Roman mythol-
ogy were personal (they interacted frequently with people), but they were not infinite:
they had weaknesses and frequent moral failures, even petty rivalries. On the other hand,
deism portrays a God who is infinite but far too removed from the world to be personally
involved in it. Similarly, pantheism holds that God is infinite (since the whole universe
is thought to be God), but such a God can certainly not be personal or relate to us as
persons.
The error of process theology fits this general pattern. Its advocates are convinced
that a God who is unchanging in his being is so different from the rest of creation — so
infinite, so unlimited by the change that characterizes all of our existence — that he
cannot also be personal in a way that we make a difference to him. So in order to gain
a God who is personal, they think they have to give up a God who is infinite for a God
who is continually in process of change. This kind of reasoning is typical of many
has a view of God that shows him to be both infinite and per-
sonal, although Judaism has never recognized the indications
of God’s trinitarian nature that are present even in the Old
Testament (see chapter 14, pp. 226-30).
n See chapter 21, pp. 537-39, on the reasons for the creation
of man.
12 Technically speaking we must recognize that Judaism,
so far as it is based on what we call the Old Testament, also
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
168
(perhaps all) objections to the kind of God presented in the Bible. People say that if
God is infinite, he cannot be personal, or they say that if God is personal, he cannot be
infinite. The Bible teaches that God is both infinite and personal. We must affirm both
that God is infinite (or unlimited) with respect to change that occurs in the universe
(nothing will change God’s being, perfections, purposes, or promises), that God is also
personal, and that he relates to us personally and counts us valuable.
f. The Importance of God’s Unchangeableness: At first it may not seem very important
to us to affirm Gods unchangeableness. The idea is so abstract that we may not immedi-
ately realize its significance. But if we stop for a moment to imagine what it would be like
if God could change, the importance of this doctrine becomes more clear. For example,
if God could change (in his being, perfections, purposes, or promises), then any change
would be either for the better or for the worse. But if God changed for the better, then
he was not the best possible being when we first trusted him. And how could we be sure
that he is the best possible being now? But if God could change for the worse (in his very
being) , then what kind of God might he become? Might he become, for instance, a little
bit evil rather than wholly good? And if he could become a little bit evil, then how do
we know he could not change to become largely evil — or wholly evil? And there would
be not one thing we could do about it, for he is so much more powerful than we are.
Thus, the idea that God could change leads to the horrible possibility that thousands of
years from now we might come to live forever in a universe dominated by a wholly evil,
omnipotent God. It is hard to imagine any thought more terrifying. How could we ever
trust such a God who could change? How could we ever commit our lives to him?
Moreover, if God could change with regard to his purposes , then even though when
the Bible was written he promised that Jesus would come back to rule over a new heaven
and new earth, he has perhaps abandoned that plan now, and thus our hope in Jesus’
return is in vain. Or, if God could change in regard to his promises , then how could we
trust him completely for eternal life? Or for anything else the Bible says? Maybe when
the Bible was written he promised forgiveness of sins and eternal life to those who trust
in Christ, but (if God can change) perhaps he has changed his mind on those promises
now — how could we be sure? Or perhaps his omnipotence will change someday, so that
even though he wants to keep his promises, he will no longer be able to do so.
A little reflection like this shows how absolutely important the doctrine of God’s
unchangeableness is. If God is not unchanging, then the whole basis of our faith begins
to fall apart, and our understanding of the universe begins to unravel. This is because
our faith and hope and knowledge all ultimately depend on a person who is infinitely
worthy of trust — because he is absolutely and eternally unchanging in his being, perfec-
tions, purposes, and promises.
3. Eternity. God’s eternity may be defined as follows: God has no beginning , end, or suc-
cession of moments in his own being , and he sees all time equally vividly, yet God sees events
in time and acts in time .
Sometimes this doctrine is called the doctrine of God’s infinity with respect to
time. To be “infinite” is to be unlimited, and this doctrine teaches that time does not
limit God.
CHAPTER 11 • INCOMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD
This doctrine is also related to Gods unchangeableness. If it is true that God does not
change, then we must say that time does not change God: it has no effect on his being,
perfections, purposes, or promises. But that means that time has no effect on God’s
knowledge, for instance. God never learns new things or forgets things, for that would
mean a change in his perfect knowledge. This implies also that the passing of time does
not add to or detract from God s knowledge: he knows all things past, present, and
future, and knows them all equally vividly.
a. God Is Timeless in His Own Being: The fact that God has no beginning or end is seen
in Psalm 90:2: “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the
earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God . ” Similarly, in Job 36:26,
Elihu says of God, “the number of his years is unsearchable.”
God’s eternity is also suggested by passages that talk about the fact that God always is
or always exists. I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, who is and who
was and who is to come, the Almighty” (Rev. 1:8; cf. 4:8). 13
It is also indicated in Jesus bold use of a present tense verb that implies continuing
present existence when he replied to his Jewish adversaries, “Before Abraham was, I
am ” (John 8:58). This statement is itself an explicit claiming of the name of God, “I AM
WHO I AM, from Exodus 3:14, a name that also suggests a continual present existence:
God is the eternal “I AM,” the one who eternally exists.
The fact that God never began to exist can also be concluded from the fact that God
created all things, and that he himself is an immaterial spirit. Before God made the uni-
verse, there was no matter, but then he created all things (Gen. 1:1; John 1:3; 1 Cor. 8:6;
Col. 1:16; Heb. 1:2). The study of physics tells us that matter and time and space must all
occur together: if there is no matter, there can be no space or time either. Thus, before
God created the universe, there was no “time,” at least not in the sense of a succession
of moments one after another. Therefore, when God created the universe, he also cre-
ated time. When God began to create the universe, time began, and there began to be a
succession of moments and events one after another. 14 But before there was a universe,
and before there was time, God always existed, without beginning, and without being
influenced by time. And time, therefore, does not have existence in itself, but, like the
rest of creation, depends on God’s eternal being and power to keep it existing.
The foregoing Scripture passages and the fact that God always existed before there
was any time combine to indicate to us that God’s own being does not have a succession
of moments or any progress from one state of existence to another. To God himself, all of
his existence is always somehow “present,” 15 though admittedly that idea is difficult for
us to understand, for it is a kind of existence different from that which we experience.
13 Alpha and omega are the first and last letters of the Greek
alphabet, so when God says that he is the Alpha and the Omega
he implies that he is before everything else and he is after
everything else; he is the beginning of everything and will
always be the end (or goal) of everything.
14 In fact, the alternative to saying that time began when God
created the universe is to say that time never began, but there
has always been a succession of moments one after another,
extending infinitely far back into the past, but never having a
starting point. But to have time without a beginning seems to
many people to be absurd and is probably impossible. Bavinck
says, “Eternal time in the sense of time without beginning is
inconceivable” (The Doctrine of God, p. 157 ).
15 As we shall see below, this does not mean that all events
of history look to God as if they were present, for God sees
events in time and acts in time.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
170
b. God Sees All Time Equally Vividly: It is somewhat easier for us to understand that
God sees all time equally vividly. We read in Psalm 90:4, “For a thousand years in your
sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night.” It is sometimes dif-
ficult for us to remember events that occurred several weeks ago, or several months ago,
or several years ago. We remember recent events more vividly, and the clarity of our
memory fades with the passing of time. Even if it were possible for us to live “a thou-
sand years,” we would remember very few events from hundreds of years earlier, and
the clarity of that memory would be very low. But here Scripture tells us that God views
a thousand years “as yesterday ” He can remember all the detailed events of a thousand
years at least as clearly as we can remember the events of “yesterday.” In fact, to him a
thousand years is “as a watch in the night,” a three- or four-hour period during which
a guard would stand watch. Such a short period of time would pass quickly and all the
events would be easily recalled. Yet this is how a thousand years seems to God.
When we realize that the phrase “a thousand years” does not imply that God forgets
things after 1,100 or 1,200 years, but rather expresses as long a time as one might imagine,
it becomes evident that all of past history is viewed by God with great clarity and vividness:
all of time since the creation is to God as if it just happened. And it will always remain just
that clear in his consciousness, throughout millions of years of eternity future.
In the New Testament, Peter tells us, “with the Lord one day is as a thousand years,
and a thousand years as one day” (2 Peter 3:8). The second half of this statement had
already been made in Psalm 90, but the first half introduces an additional consideration,
“One day is as a thousand years”; that is, any one day from God’s perspective seems to
last for “a thousand years”: it is as if that day never ends, but is always being experienced.
Again, since “a thousand years” is a figurative expression for “as long a time as we can
imagine,” or “all history,” we can say from this verse that any one day seems to God to
be present to his consciousness forever.
Taking these two considerations together, we can say the following: in God’s perspec-
tive, any extremely long period of time is as if it just happened. And any very short period
of time (such as one day) seems to God to last forever: it never ceases to be “present” in his
consciousness. Thus, God sees and knows all events past, present, and future with equal
vividness. This should never cause us to think that God does not see events in time and
act in time (see below), but just the opposite: God is the eternal Lord and Sovereign over
history, and he sees it more clearly and acts in it more decisively than any other. But, once
we have said that, we still must affirm that these verses speak of God’s relationship to
time in a way that we do not and cannot experience: God’s experience of time is not just
a patient endurance through eons of endless duration, but he has a qualitatively different
experience of time than we do. This is consistent with the idea that in his own being, God
is timeless; he does not experience a succession of moments. This has been the dominant
view of Christian orthodoxy throughout the history of the church, though it has been
frequently challenged, and even today many theologians deny it. 16
16 Carl F. H. Henry argues for God’s timeless eternity as nonevangelical and evangelical theologians. A thorough
the historic position of Christian orthodoxy in God , Rev- recent philosophical defense of God’s timeless eternity is Paul
elation and Authority (Waco, Tex.: Word, 1982), 5:235-67, Helm, Eternal God: A Study of God Without Time (Oxford:
and gives a detailed analysis of current challenges from both Clarendon, 1988).
CHAPTER 11 • INCOMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD
We can picture God’s relationship to time as in figure 11.1. This diagram is meant
to show that God created time and is Lord over time. Therefore he can see all events in
time equally vividly, yet he also can see events in time and act in time.
The diagram also anticipates the following discussion, since it indicates that God
knows events in the future, even the infinitely long eternal future. With regard to the
future, God frequently claims through the Old Testament prophets that he alone is the
one who knows and can declare future events. “Who told this long ago? Who declared it of
old? Was it not I, the Lord? And there is no other god besides me, a righteous God and
a Savior; there is none besides me” (Isa. 45:21). Similarly, we read:
For I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is none like me,
declaring the end from the beginning
and from ancient times things not yet done,
saying, “My counsel shall stand,
and I will accomplish all my purpose.” (Isa. 46:9-10)
Thus God somehow stands above time and is able to see it all as present in his con-
sciousness. Although the analogy is not perfect, we might think of the moment we finish
reading a long novel. Before putting it back on the shelf we might flip quickly through
the pages once more, calling to mind the many events that had occurred in that novel.
For a brief moment, things that transpired over a long period of time all seem to be
present to our minds. Perhaps this is faintly analogous to God’s experience of seeing
all of history as equally present in his consciousness.
THE RELATIONSHIP OF GOD TO TIME
Figure 11.1
c. God Sees Events in Time and Acts in Time: Yet once all this has been said it is neces-
sary to guard against misunderstanding by completing the definition of God’s eternity:
“yet God sees events in time and acts in time.” Paul writes, “when the time had fully come,
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
172
God sent forth his Son , born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were
under the law” (Gal. 4:4-5). God observed dearly and knew exactly what was hap-
pening with events in his creation as they occurred over time. We might say that God
watched the progress of time as various events occurred within his creation. Then at the
right time, “when the time had fully come,” God sent forth his Son into the world.
It is evident throughout Scripture that God acts within time and acts differently at
different points in time. For example, Paul tells the men of Athens, “The times of igno-
rance God overlooked, but now he commands all men everywhere to repent, because
he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he
has appointed . . .” (Acts 17:30-31). This statement includes a description of a previous
way in which God acted, God’s present way of acting, and a future activity that he will
carry out, all in time.
Indeed, the repeated emphasis on God’s ability to predict the future in the Old Testa-
ment prophets requires us to realize that God predicts his actions at one point in time
and then carries out his actions at a later point in time. And on a larger scale, the entire
Bible from Genesis to Revelation is God’s own record of the way he has acted over time
to bring redemption to his people.
We must therefore affirm both that God has no succession of moments in his own
being and sees all history equally vividly, and that in his creation he sees the progress
of events over time and acts differently at different points in time; in short, he is the
Lord who created time and who rules over it and uses it for his own purposes. God can
act in time because he is Lord of time. 17 He uses it to display his glory. In fact, it is often
God’s good pleasure to fulfill his promises and carry out his works of redemption over
a period of time so that we might more readily see and appreciate his great wisdom, his
patience, his faithfulness, his lordship over all events, and even his unchangeableness
and eternity.
17 Sometimes theologians have objected that God cannot be
“timelessly eternal” in the sense described above, because the
moment he creates something, he is acting in time and there-
fore he must exist in time. (See, e.g., Stephen T. Davis, Logic
and the Nature of God [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983], pp.
11-24.) But this objection fails to distinguish what God is in
his own being (he exists without beginning, end, or succes-
sion of moments) from what God does outside of himself (he
creates in time and acts in time in other ways). Davis says that
we have no coherent notion of “causation in which an eternal
cause produces a temporal effect” (p. 21), but that is simply to
admit that we do not understand how a timelessly eternal God
can act in time; it does not prove that God cannot be timeless
and still act in time. Surely here, when talking about the rela-
tionship between God and time, it would be folly to say that
what we cannot understand must be impossible!
Davis also falls into another form of the “if God is infinite
he cannot be personal” mistake mentioned above (see note
12). He says, “A timeless being cannot be the personal, caring,
involved God we read about in the Bible” (p. 14). But to prove
this he just talks about God’s actions in time, without ever show-
ing why God cannot both act in time (be personally involved)
and be timeless in his own being (be infinite or unlimited
with respect to time). Finally, while he mentions the possibil-
ity that time was created but will sometime cease to exist (p.
23), he fails to consider the alternative that seems much more
likely in view of the Bible’s promises of eternal life, namely,
that time was once created but will never cease to exist in the
future.
Those who, like Davis, deny that God is timelessly eter-
nal, still say that God has eternally existed but that he has
always existed in time and always experienced a succession
of moments. But this position raises even more difficulties,
because it requires that time never began, but stretches infi-
nitely far into the past. However, that does not seem possible,
because if the past is infinitely long, we could never have
reached this moment. (This objection is one form of saying
that an actual infinite cannot exist, a philosophical concep-
tion that is explained skillfully by William Lane Craig in The
Existence of God and the Beginning of the Universe [San Ber-
nardino, Calif.: Here’s Life Publishers, 1979], pp. 35-53, and,
with fuller reference to philosophical responses to this argu-
ment, by J. P. Moreland, Scaling the Secular City: A Defense of
Christianity [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987], pp. 15-34.)
CHAPTER 11 • INCOMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD
d. We Will Always Exist in Time: Will we ever share in God’s eternity? Specifically, in
the new heaven and new earth which are yet to come, will time still exist? Some have
thought that it would not. In fact, there is a hymn that begins, “When the trumpet of
the Lord shall sound, and time shall be no more . . And we read in Scripture, “And the
city has no need of sun or moon to shine upon it, for the glory of God is its light, and its
lamp is the Lamb . . . and there shall be no night there” (Rev. 21:23, 25; cf. 22:5).
Nevertheless, it is not true to say that heaven will be “timeless,” or without the pres-
ence of time or the passage of time. Rather, as long as we are finite creatures we will
necessarily experience events one after another. Even the passage that talks about no
night being in heaven also mentions the fact that the kings of the earth will bring into
the heavenly city “the glory and the honor of the nations” (Rev. 21:26). We are told con-
cerning the light of the heavenly city, “By its light shall the nations walk” (Rev. 21:24).
These activities of bringing things into the heavenly city and walking by the light of the
heavenly city imply that events are done one after another. Something is outside the
heavenly city, and then at a later point in time this thing is part of the glory and honor of
the nations that are brought into the heavenly city. To cast one’s crown before the throne
of God (Rev. 4:10) requires that at one moment the person has a crown and that at a
later moment that crown is cast before the throne. To sing a new song of praise before
God in heaven requires that one word be sung after another. In fact, the “tree of life” in
the heavenly city is said to be “ yielding its fruit each month” (Rev. 22:2), which implies a
regular passage of time and the occurrence of events in time. 18
Therefore, there will still be a succession of moments one after another and things
happening one after another in heaven. We will experience eternal life not in an exact
duplication of God’s attribute of eternity, but rather in a duration of time that will
never end: we, as God s people will experience fullness of joy in God’s presence for all
eternity— not in the sense that we will no longer experience time, but in the sense that
our lives with him will go on forever: “And night shall be no more; they need no light of
lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they shall reign for ever and ever”
(Rev. 22:5).
4. Omnipresence. Just as God is unlimited or infinite with respect to time, so God
is unlimited with respect to space. This characteristic of God’s nature is called God’s
omnipresence (the Latin prefix omni- means “all”). God’s omnipresence maybe defined
as follows. God does not have size or spatial dimensions and is present at every point of
space with his whole being, yet God acts differently in different places.
The fact that God is Lord of space and cannot be limited by space is evident first
from the fact that he created it, for the creation of the material world (Gen. 1:1) implies
the creation of space as well. Moses reminded the people of God’s lordship over space:
Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with
all that is in it” (Deut. 10:14).
Rev. 10:6 in the KJV reads, that there should be time no In fact, the next verse assumes the continuation of time, for it
longer, but “delay” is a better translation for the Greek term talks of events to be fulfilled “in the days of the trumpet call to
chronos in this context (as in the RSV, NASB, NIV, and NKJV). be sounded by the seventh angel” (Rev. 10:7).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
174
a. God Is Present Everywhere: Yet there are also specific passages that speak of God’s
presence in every part of space. We read in Jeremiah, “Am I a God at hand, says the
Lord, and not a God afar off? Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot
see him? says the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth? says the Lord” (Jer. 23:23-24).
God is here rebuking the prophets who think their words or thoughts are hidden from
God. He is everywhere and fills heaven and earth.
God’s omnipresence is beautifully expressed by David:
Whither shall I go from your Spirit?
Or whither shall I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me. (Ps. 139:7-10)
There is nowhere in the entire universe, on land or sea, in heaven or in hell, where one
can flee from God’s presence.
We should note also that there is no indication that simply a part of God is in one
place and a part of him in another. It is God himself who is present wherever David might
go. We cannot say that some of God or just part of God is present, for that would be
to think of his being in spatial terms, as if he were limited somehow by space. It seems
more appropriate to say that God is present with his whole being in every part of space
(cf. also Acts 17:28 where Paul affirms the correctness of the words, “In him we live and
move and have our being,” and Col. 1:17, which says of Christ, “in him all things hold
together”).
b. God Does Not Have Spatial Dimensions: While it seems necessary for us to say that
God’s whole being is present in every part of space, or at every point in space, it is also
necessary to say that God cannot be contained by any space , no matter how large. Solomon
says in his prayer to God, “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and
the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house which I have built!”
(1 Kings 8:27). Heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain God; indeed, he cannot
be contained by the largest space imaginable (cf. Isa. 66:1-2; Acts 7:48). While the
thought that God is everywhere present with his whole being ought to encourage us
greatly in prayer no matter where we are, the fact that no one place can be said to contain
God should also discourage us from thinking that there is some special place of worship
that gives people special access to God: he cannot be contained in any one place.
We should guard against thinking that God extends infinitely far in all directions
so that he himself exists in a sort of infinite, unending space. Nor should we think that
God is somehow a “bigger space” or bigger area surrounding the space of the universe
as we know it. All of these ideas continue to think of God’s being in spatial terms, as
if he were simply an extremely large being. Instead, we should try to avoid thinking of
God in terms of size or spatial dimensions. God is a being who exists without size or
CHAPTER 11 • INCOMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD
dimensions in space. In fact, before God created the universe, there was no matter or
material so there was no space either. Yet God still existed. Where was God? He was not
in a place that we could call a “where,” for there was no “where” or space. But God still
was! This fact makes us realize that God relates to space in a far different way than we
do or than any created thing does. He exists as a kind of being that is far different and
far greater than we can imagine.
We must also be careful not to think that God himself is equivalent to any part of
creation or to all of it. A pantheist believes that everything is God, or that God is every-
thing that exists. The biblical perspective is rather that God is present everywhere in his
creation, but that he is also distinct from his creation. How can this be? The analogy of
a sponge filled with water is not perfect, but it is helpful. Water is present everywhere
in the sponge, but the water is still completely distinct from the sponge. Now this anal-
ogy breaks down at very small points within the sponge, where we could say that there
is sponge at one point and not water, or water and not sponge. Yet this is because the
analogy is dealing with two materials that have spatial characteristics and dimensions,
while God does not.
c. God Can Be Present to Punish, to Sustain, or to Bless: The idea of God’s omnipres-
ence has sometimes troubled people who wonder how God can be present, for example,
in hell. In fact, isn’t hell the opposite of God’s presence, or the absence of God? This
difficulty can be resolved by realizing that God is present in different ways in different
places, or that God acts differently in different places in his creation. Sometimes God
is present to punish. A terrifying passage in Amos vividly portrays this presence of God
in judgment:
Not one of them shall flee away,
not one of them shall escape.
Though they dig into Sheol,
from there shall my hand take them;
though they climb up to heaven,
from there I will bring them down.
Though they hide themselves on the top of Carmel,
from there I will search out and take them;
and though they hide from my sight at the bottom of the sea,
there I will command the serpent, and it shall bite them.
And though they go into captivity before their enemies,
there I will command the sword, and it shall slay them;
and I will set my eyes upon them for evil and not for good.
(Amos 9:1-4)
At other times God is present neither to punish nor to bless, but merely present to
sustain, or to keep the universe existing and functioning in the way he intended it to
function. In this sense the divine nature of Christ is everywhere present: “He is before
all things, and in him all things hold together” (Col. 1:17). The author of Hebrews says
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
of God the Son that he is (continually) “upholding the universe by his word of power”
(Heb. 1:3). 19
Yet at other times or in other places God is present to bless. David says, “in your pres-
ence there is fulness of joy, in your right hand are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16:11).
Here David is speaking not of God’s presence to punish or merely to sustain, but of
God’s presence to bless.
In fact, most of the time that the Bible talks about God’s presence, it is referring to
God’s presence to bless. For example, it is in this way that we should understand God’s
presence above the ark of the covenant in the Old Testament. We read of “the ark of the
covenant of the Lord of hosts, who is enthroned on the cherubim” (1 Sam. 4:4; cf. Ex.
25:22), a reference to the fact that God made his presence known and acted in a special
way to bring blessing and protection to his people at the location he had designated as his
throne, namely, the place above the two golden figures of heavenly beings (“cherubim”)
that were over the top of the ark of the covenant. It is not that God was not present else-
where, but rather that here he especially made his presence known and here he especially
manifested his character and brought blessing to his people.
In the new covenant, there is no one place on earth that God has chosen as his par-
ticular dwelling place, for we can worship him anywhere (see John 4:20). But now and
for all eternity God has chosen the place the Bible calls “heaven” to be the focus of the
manifestation of his character and the presence of his blessing and glory. So when the
new Jerusalem comes down out of heaven from God, John in his vision hears a loud
voice from God’s throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling of God is with men. He will dwell
with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself will be with them” (Rev. 21:3).
We might find it misleading to say that God is “more present” in heaven than anywhere
else, but it would not be misleading to say that God is present in a special way in heaven,
present especially there to bless and to show forth his glory. We could also say that God
manifests his presence more fully in heaven than elsewhere.
In this way also Paul’s statement about Christ can be understood: “In him the whole
fulness of deity dwells bodily” (Col. 2:9). In one sense of course we could say that God’s
whole being is present at every point in space and therefore at every point in every per-
son, not only in Christ. But there are two difficulties with speaking this way: (1) The
Bible never speaks about God’s presence in unbelievers in a direct way, probably to avoid
any connection between God and the responsibility or blame for evil deeds, and prob-
ably also to avoid any suggestion of God’s presence to bless, since it is only a presence to
sustain. (2) Furthermore, this sense of “present to sustain” is not the sense Paul has in
mind in Colossians 2:9. In fact, there Paul does not even seem to mean simply “present
to bless” in the same sense in which God is present to bless in the lives of all believers.
Rather, Paul seems to mean that in Christ God’s own nature is present to bless and to
manifest his character in the fullest and most complete way possible.
Our difficulty in understanding how to express the way in which God is present in
unbelievers, for example, leads us to realize that although the Bible can speak of God
19 The present participle pheron, “carrying along,” in Heb. 1:3 is, keeping all things in the universe existing and functioning
implies that Christ’s activity of “carrying along all things” (that regularly) is a continual activity, one that never ceases.
CHAPTER 11 ■ INCOMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD
as being present everywhere, when the Bible says that God is “present” it usually means
present to bless. That is, although there are a few references to God’s presence to sus-
tain or presence to punish, the vast majority of biblical references to God’s presence are
simply more brief ways of stating that he is present to bless. When we become more and
more familiar with this biblical pattern of speech, it becomes more and more difficult
to speak of God s presence in any other way. And perhaps it is even misleading to do so
unless a clear explanation of our meaning can be given.
Some examples of the usual biblical means of expression are as follows: 2 Corinthians
3:17: “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom”; Romans 8:9-10: “you are in
the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. ... if Christ is in you . . . your spirits
arealive ; John 14:23: Ifa man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love
him, and we will come to him and make our home with him,” and so forth. All of these
verses talk about God’s presence and assume that we understand that they mean God’s
presence to bless.
In a parallel kind of expression, when the Bible talks about God being “far away” it
usually means he is “not present to bless.” For example, Isaiah 59:2 says, “Your iniquities
have made a separation between you and your God,” and Proverbs 15:29 declares: “The
Lord is far from the wicked, but he hears the prayer of the righteous.”
In summary, God is present in every part of space with his whole being, yet God acts
differently in different places. Furthermore, when the Bible speaks of God’s presence, it
usually means his presence to bless, and it is only normal for our own speech to conform
to this biblical usage.
Herman Bavinck, in The Doctrine of God, quotes a beautiful paragraph illustrating
the practical application of the doctrine of God’s omnipresence:
When you wish to do something evil, you retire from the public into your
house where no enemy may see you; from those places of your house which
are open and visible to the eyes of men you remove yourself into your room;
even in your room you fear some witness from another quarter; you retire into
your heart, there you meditate: he is more inward than your heart. Wherever,
therefore, you shall have fled, there he is. From yourself, whither will you flee?
Will you not follow yourself wherever you shall flee? But since there is One
more inward even than yourself, there is no place where you may flee from God
angry but to God reconciled. There is no place at all whither you may flee. Will
you flee from him? Flee unto him. 20
5. Unity. The unity of God may be defined as follows: God is not divided into parts, yet we
see different attributes of God emphasized at different times. This attribute of God has also
been called God’s simplicity, using simple in the less common sense of “not complex” or
not composed of parts. But since the word simple today has the more common sense
20 Herman Bavinck, The Doctrine of God, p. 164. The
citation is reproduced in the book with no indication of its
source.
177
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
178
of “easy to understand” and “unintelligent or foolish,” it is more helpful now to speak
of Gods “unity” rather than his “simplicity.” 21
When Scripture speaks about Gods attributes it never singles out one attribute of God
as more important than all the rest. There is an assumption that every attribute is com-
pletely true of God and is true of all of Gods character. For example, John can say that “God
is light” (1 John 1:5) and then a little later say also that “God is love” (1 John 4:8). There is
no suggestion that part of God is light and part of God is love, or that God is partly light and
partly love. Nor should we think that God is more light than love or more love than light.
Rather it is God himself who is light, and it is God himself who is also love.
The same is true of other descriptions of God’s character, such as that in Exodus
34:6-7:
The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a
God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love
and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and
transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the
iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the childrens children, to the third
and the fourth generation.”
We would not want to say that these attributes are only characteristic of some part of
God, but rather that they are characteristic of God himself and therefore characteristic
of all of God.
These considerations indicate that we should not think of God as some kind of
collection of various attributes added together as in figure 11.2.
GOD'S BEING IS NOT A COLLECTION OF ATTRIBUTES ADDED TOGETHER
Figure 1 1.2
21 Systematic theologians have often distinguished another called the “unity of singularity,” whereas what I have here called
aspect of God’s unity at this point, namely the “unity” found in God’s unity has then been called the “unity of simplicity.”
the fact that God is one God, not many gods. This fact has been While I agree that God is one God, it can be confusing to
CHAPTER 11 ■ INCOMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD
179
Nor should we think of the attributes of God as something external from God’s
real being or real self, something added on to who God really is, after the analogy of
figure 11.3.
GOD'S ATTRIBUTES ARE NOT ADDITIONS TO HIS REAL BEING
Figure 11.3
Rather, we must remember that God’s whole being includes all of his attributes: he is
entirely loving, entirely merciful, entirely just, and so forth. Every attribute of God that we
find in Scripture is true of all of God’s being, and we therefore can say that every attribute
of God also qualifies every other attribute.
Figure 11.4 may be helpful in understanding this doctrine of God’s unity. In the dia-
gram, let us assume that the horizontal lines represent the attribute of love, and that the
vertical lines represent the aspect of God’s justice.
GOD'S LOVE AND JUSTICE
Figure 11.4
Furthermore, let us understand the diagonal lines going from upper left to lower right
as representing God s holiness and the diagonal lines going from upper right to lower left
as representing God’s wisdom, as in figure 11.5.
speak of two different kinds of unity in God. Therefore, I have cept here, but have rather treated the question in chapter 14 , on
not used the term “unity of singularity” or discussed the con- the Trinity.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
180
GOD'S LOVE, JUSTICE, HOLINESS, AND WISDOM
Figure 11.5
We could of course go on with different sorts of lines for each of the different attri-
butes of God. But it should be clear that each attribute is simply a way of describing one
aspect of God’s total character or being. God himself is a unity , a unified and completely
integrated whole person who is infinitely perfect in all of these attributes.
Why then does Scripture speak of these different attributes of God? It is probably
because we are unable to grasp all of God’s character at one time, and we need to learn
of it from different perspectives over a period of time. Yet these perspectives should
never be set in opposition to one another, for they are just different ways of looking at
the totality of God’s character.
In terms of practical application, this means that we should never think, for example,
that God is a loving God at one point in history and a just or wrathful God at another
point in history. He is the same God always, and everything he says or does is fully
consistent with all his attributes. It is not accurate to say, as some have said, that God is
a God of justice in the Old Testament and a God of love in the New Testament. God is
and always has been infinitely just and infinitely loving as well, and everything he does
in the Old Testament as well as the New Testament is completely consistent with both
of those attributes.
Now it is true that some actions of God show certain of his attributes more promi-
nently. Creation demonstrates his power and wisdom, the atonement demonstrates his
love and justice, and the radiance of heaven demonstrates his glory and beauty. But all
of these in some way or other also demonstrate his knowledge and holiness and mercy
and truthfulness and patience and sovereignty, and so forth. It would be difficult indeed
to find some attribute of God that is not reflected at least to some degree in any one
of his acts of redemption. This is due to the fact mentioned above: God is a unity and
everything he does is an act of the whole person of God.
Moreover, the doctrine of the unity of God should caution us against attempting to
single out any one attribute of God as more important than all the others. At various
times people have attempted to see God’s holiness, or his love, or his self-existence, or
his righteousness, or some other attribute as the most important attribute of his being.
But all such attempts seem to misconceive of God as a combination of various parts,
with some parts being somehow larger or more influential than others. Furthermore,
it is hard to understand exactly what “most important” might mean. Does it mean that
there are some actions of God that are not fully consistent with some of his other attri-
butes? That there are some attributes that God somehow sets aside at times in order to
CHAPTER 11 * INCOMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD
act in ways slightly contrary to those attributes? Certainly we cannot maintain either
of these views, for that would mean that God is inconsistent with his own character or
that he changes and becomes something different from what he was previously. Rather,
when we see all the attributes as merely various aspects of the total character of God,
then such a question becomes quite unnecessary and we discover that there is no attri-
bute that can be singled out as more important. It is God himself in his whole being who
is supremely important, and it is God himself in his whole being whom we are to seek
to know and to love.
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. As you think of God’s independence, unchangeableness, eternity, omnipresence,
and unity, can you see some faint reflections of these five incommunicable attri-
butes in yourself as God created you to be? What would it mean to strive to become
more like God in these areas? At what point would it be wrong to even want to be
like God in each of these areas because it would be attempting to usurp his unique
role as Creator and Lord?
2. Using each of these five incommunicable attributes, explain how we will be more
like God in heaven than we are now, and also how we will for all eternity be unlike
God in each of these five areas.
3. Explain how each aspect of the doctrine of God’s independence makes you feel
emotionally. Does this doctrine have a positive or negative effect on your spiritual
life? Explain why.
4. Explain how the doctrine of God’s immutability or unchangeableness helps to
answer the following questions: Will we be able to do a good job of bringing up
children in such an evil world as we have today? Is it possible to have the same
close fellowship with God that people had during biblical times? What can we
think or do to make Bible stories seem more real and less removed from our pres-
ent life? Do you think that God is less willing to answer prayer today than he was
in Bible times?
5. If you sin against God today, when would it start bringing sorrow to God’s heart?
When would it stop bringing sorrow to God’s heart? Does this reflection help you
understand why God’s character requires that he punish sin? Why did God have to
send his Son to bear the punishment for sin instead of simply forgetting about sin
and welcoming sinners into heaven without having given the punishment for sin
to anyone? Does God now think of your sins as forgiven or as unforgiven sins?
6. If you sing praise to God today, when will the sound of that praise cease being
present in God s consciousness and bringing delight to his heart? Do songs of
praise to God have any ultimate meaning? What about trusting in him hour by
hour or obeying him throughout each day?
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
182
7. Is control over the use of your time a struggle in your own life? As we grow toward
maturity in the Christian life and toward conformity to the image of Christ, will
we become more like God in our mastery over time? In what ways?
8. Explain how each of the five incommunicable attributes of God discussed in this
chapter can be a help in your own prayer life.
SPECIAL TERMS
anthropomorphic language
aseity
communicable attributes
eternity
immutability
incommunicable attributes
independence
infinite
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter
1, pp. 38-39. Complete bibliographical data maybe found on pp. 1224-30.)
Note: For this chapter on God’s incommunicable attributes, it should be noted that
some systematic theologies classify and discuss God’s attributes in categories other than
communicable and incommunicable, so an exact cross-reference to parallel sections is
not always possible. A fuller list of the sections in systematic theology texts that discuss
the attributes of God in general will be found in the bibliography at the end of chapter
13.
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1882-92 Litton, 58-67
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1847 Finney, 49 - 65
1875-76 Pope, 1:248-55, 287-325
1892-94 Miley, 1:159-80, 214-22
1940 Wiley, 1:241-393
1960 Purkiser, 127-44
3. Baptist
1767 Gill, 25-31, 33-50, 119-22
1887 Boyce, 1:125-35, 183-90
1907 Strong, 243 - 303
1917 Mullins, 214-50
infinity with respect to space
infinity with respect to time
names of God
omnipresence
self-existence
simplicity
unchangeableness
unity
CHAPTER 11 • INCOMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD
1983-85
Erickson, 1:263-78
1987-94
Lewis/Demarest, 1:175-248
4. Dispensational
1947
Chafer, 1:179-191, 212-24, 260-71
1949
Thiessen, 118-28
5. Lutheran
1917-24
Pieper, 1:427-47
1934
Mueller, 160-67
6. Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1559
Calvin, 1:96-120
1861
Heppe, 57 - 104
1871-73
Hodge, 1:366—93
1878
Dabney, ST, 38-45, 144-54
1887-1921
Warfield, SSW, 1:69-8 7-, ST, 109-14
1889
Shedd, 1:151-94, 334-92
1909
Bavinck, DG, 113-72
1938
Berkhof, 47-63
1962
Buswell, 1:36-57
7. Renewal (or charismatic/Pentecostal)
1988-92
Williams, 55-59,77-79
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
1. Roman Catholic: Traditional
1955 Ott, 24-38
2. Roman Catholic: Post-Vatican II
1980 McBrien, 1:238-341
Other Works
Bromiley, G. W. “God.” In ISBE, 2:493-503.
Charnock, Stephen. The Existence and Attributes of God. Repr. ed. Evansville, Ind.:
Sovereign Grace Book Club, n.d., pp. 69- 180 (first published 1655-1680).
Diehl, D. W. “Process Theology.” In EDT, pp. 880-85.
Helm, Paul. Eternal God: A Study of God Without Time. Oxford: Clarendon, 1988.
Kaiser, Christopher B. The Doctrine of God. Westchester, 111.: Good News, 1982.
Lewis, Gordon R. “God, Attributes of.” In EDT, pp. 45 1 - 59.
McComiskey, Thomas E. “God, Names of.” In EDT, pp. 464-68.
Packer, J. I. Knowing God. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1973, pp. 67-79.
Saucy, R. H. “God, Doctrine of.” In EDT, pp. 459-64.
Tozer, A. W. The Knowledge of the Holy. New York: Harper and Row, 1961.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
184
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
Psalm 102:25-27:
Of old you laid the foundation of the earth,
and the heavens are the work of your hands.
They will perish, but you endure;
they will all wear out like a garment.
You change them like raiment, and they pass away;
but you are the same, and your years have no end.
HYMN
“Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise”
In several lines of this hymn the various attributes of God are mentioned in such
rapid succession that it is impossible for us to reflect on each one individually as we sing.
That is not entirely a disadvantage of the hymn, however, for it makes us realize that
when we finally see God in all his glory in heaven, the wonder of beholding him and all
his perfections at once will overwhelm us far more completely than does this hymn, and
we will find ourselves lost in praise.
Immortal, invisible, God only wise,
In light inaccessible hid from our eyes,
Most blessed, most glorious, the Ancient of Days,
Almighty, victorious, thy great name we praise.
Unresting, unhasting, and silent as light,
Nor wanting, nor wasting, thou rulest in might;
Thy justice like mountains high soaring above
Thy clouds which are fountains of goodness and love.
Great Father of glory, pure Father of light,
Thine angels adore thee, all veiling their sight;
All praise we would render; O help us to see
*Tis only the splendor of light hideth thee!
AUTHOR: WALTER CHALMERS SMITH, 1867
Alternative hymn: “Have You Not Known, Have You Not Heard?”
Chapter
THE CHARACTER OF GOD:
"COMMUNICABLE" ATTRIBUTES
(PART 1)
How is God like us in his being
and in mental and moral attributes?
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
In this chapter we consider the attributes of God that are “communicable,” or more
shared with us than those mentioned in the previous chapter. It must be remembered
that this division into “incommunicable” and “communicable” is not an absolute divi-
sion and there is some room for difference of opinion concerning which attributes
should fit into which categories . 1 The list of attributes here put in the category “com-
municable” is a common one, but understanding the definition of each attribute is
more important than being able to categorize them in exactly the way presented in
this book.
Furthermore, any list of God’s attributes must be based on some understanding of
how finely one wishes to make distinctions between various aspects of God’s character.
Are God’s goodness and love two attributes or one? What about knowledge and wis-
dom, or spirituality and invisibility? In this chapter, each of these attributes is treated
separately, and the result is a rather long list of various attributes. Yet in several cases it
would not make much difference if someone were to treat these pairs as various aspects
of the same attribute. If we remember that it is the entire and wholly integrated person
of God about whom we are talking, it will be apparent that the division into various
attributes is not a matter of great doctrinal significance but is something that must
be based on one’s judgment concerning the most effective way to present the biblical
material.
'See discussion of communicable and incommunicable
attributes in chapter 11, pp. 156-57.
185
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
186
This chapter divides God’s “communicable” attributes into five major categories,
with individual attributes listed under each category as follows:
A. Attributes Describing Gods Being
1. Spirituality
2. Invisibility
B. Mental Attributes
3. Knowledge (or Omniscience)
4. Wisdom
5. Truthfulness (and Faithfulness)
C. Moral Attributes
6. Goodness
7. Love
8. Mercy (Grace, Patience)
9. Holiness
10. Peace (or Order)
11. Righteousness (or Justice)
12. Jealousy
13. Wrath
D. Attributes of Purpose
14. Will
15. Freedom
16. Omnipotence (or Power, and Sovereignty)
E. “Summary” Attributes
17. Perfection
18. Blessedness
19. Beauty
20. Glory
Because God’s communicable attributes are to be imitated in our lives, 2 each of these
sections will include a short explanation of the way in which the attribute in question
is to be imitated by us.
A. Attributes Describing Go<Ts Being
1. Spirituality. People have often wondered, what is God made of? Is he made of flesh
and blood like ourselves? Certainly not. What then is the material that forms his being? Is
God made of matter at all? Or is God pure energy? Or is he in some sense pure thought?
The answer of Scripture is that God is none of these. Rather, we read that “God is
spirit ” (John 4:24). This statement is spoken by Jesus in the context of a discussion with
2 Note that Eph. 5:1 tells us to “be imitators of God, as created us to reflect his character in our lives, in chapter 21,
beloved children ” See also the discussion of the fact that God pp. 440-50.
CHAPTER 12 • COMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD (1)
187
the woman at the well in Samaria. The discussion is about the location where people
should worship God, and Jesus is telling her that true worship of God does not require
that one be present either in Jerusalem or in Samaria (John 4:21), for true worship has
to do not with physical location but with one’s inner spiritual condition. This is because
“God is spirit” and this apparently signifies that God is in no way limited to a spatial
location.
Thus, we should not think of God as having size or dimensions, even infinite ones (see
the discussion on God’s omnipresence in the previous chapter). We should not think
of God’s existence as spirit as meaning that God is infinitely large, for example, for it
is not part of God but all of God that is in every point of space (see Ps. 139:7-10). Nor
should we think that God’s existence as spirit means that God is infinitely small, for no
place in the universe can surround him or contain him (see 1 Kings 8:27). Thus, God’s
being cannot be rightly thought of in terms of space, however we may understand his
existence as “spirit.”
We also find that God forbids his people to think of his very being as similar to any-
thing else in the physical creation. We read in the Ten Commandments:
You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything
that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water
under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them ;forI the Lord
your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the chil-
dren to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing
steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
(Ex. 20:4-6)
The creation language in this commandment (“heaven above, or . . . earth beneath,
or . . . water under the earth”) is a reminder that God’s being, his essential mode of
existence, is different from everything that he has created. To think of his being in
terms of anything else in the created universe is to misrepresent him, to limit him, to
think of him as less than he really is. To make a graven (or “carved” or “sculptured”)
image of God as a golden calf, for example, may have been an attempt to portray God as
a God who is strong and full of life (like a calf), but to say that God was like a calf was
a horribly false statement about God’s knowledge, wisdom, love, mercy, omnipresence,
eternity, independence, holiness, righteousness, justice, and so forth. Indeed, while we
must say that God has made all creation so that each part of it reflects something of his
own character, we must also now affirm that to picture God as existing in a form or mode
of being that is like anything else in creation is to think of God in a horribly misleading
and dishonoring way.
This is why God’s jealousy is given as the reason for the prohibition against making
images of him: “for I the Lord your God am a jealous God . . .” (Ex. 20:5). God is jeal-
ous to protect his own honor. He eagerly seeks for people to think of him as he is and
to worship him for all his excellence, and he is angered when his glory is diminished or
his character is falsely represented (cf. Deut. 4:23-24, where God’s intense jealousy for
his own honor is again given as the reason for a prohibition against making any images
of him).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
188
Thus, God does not have a physical body, nor is he made of any kind of matter like
much of the rest of creation. Furthermore, God is not merely energy or thought or some
other element of creation. He is also not like vapor or steam or air or space, all of which
are created things: God's being is not like any of these. Gods being is not even exactly
like our own spirits, for these are created things that apparently are able to exist only in
one place in one time.
Instead of all these ideas of God, we must say that God is spirit. Whatever this means,
it is a kind of existence that is unlike anything else in creation. It is a kind of existence
that is far superior to all our material existence. We might say that God is “pure being”
or “the fullness or essence of being.” Furthermore, this kind of existence is not less real
or less desirable than our own existence. Rather, it is more real and more desirable than
the material and immaterial existence of all creation. Before there was any creation, God
existed as spirit. His own being is so very real that it was able to cause everything else
to come into existence!
At this point we can define God’s spirituality: God's spirituality means that God exists
as a being that is not made of any matter, has no parts or dimensions, is unable to be per-
ceived by our bodily senses, and is more excellent than any other kind of existence.
We may ask why God’s being is this way. Why is God spirit? All that we can say is that
this is the greatest, most excellent way to be! This is a form of existence far superior to
anything we know. It is amazing to meditate on this fact.
These considerations make us wonder if God’s spirituality should perhaps be called
an “incommunicable” attribute. To do so would indeed be appropriate in some ways,
since God’s being is so different from ours. Nevertheless, the fact remains that God
has given us spirits in which we worship him (John 4:24; 1 Cor. 14:14; Phil. 3:3), in
which we are united with the Lord’s spirit (1 Cor. 6:17), with which the Holy Spirit
joins to bear witness to our adoption in God’s family (Rom. 8:16), and in which we
pass into the Lord’s presence when we die (Luke 23:46; Eccl. 12:7; Heb. 12:23; cf. Phil.
1:23-24). Therefore there is clearly some communication from God to us of a spiritual
nature that is something like his own nature, though certainly not in all respects. For
this reason it also seems appropriate to think of God’s spirituality as a communicable
attribute.
2. Invisibility. Related to God’s spirituality is the fact that God is invisible. Yet we also
must speak of the visible ways in which God manifests himself. God’s invisibility can
be defined as follows: God's invisibility means that God's total essence, all of his spiritual
being, will never be able to be seen by us, yet God still shows himself to us through visible,
created things .
Many passages speak of the fact that God is not able to be seen. “No one has ever seen
God” (John 1:18). Jesus says, “Not that any one has seen the Father except him who is
from God; he has seen the Father” (John 6:46). Paul gives the following words of praise:
“To the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and
ever. Amen” (1 Tim. 1:17). He speaks of God as one “who alone has immortality and
dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has ever seen or can see" (1 Tim. 6:16).
John says, “No man has ever seen God” (1 John 4:12).
CHAPTER 12 - COMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD (1)
We must remember that these passages were all written after events in Scripture
where people saw some outward manifestation of God. For example, very early in Scrip-
ture we read, “Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his
friend” (Ex. 33:11). Yet God told Moses, “You cannot see my face; for man shall not see
me and live” (Ex. 33:20). Nevertheless, God caused his glory to pass by Moses while he
hid Moses in a cleft of the rock, and then God let Moses see his back after he had passed
by, but said, “my face shall not be seen” (Ex. 33:21-23). This sequence of verses and
others like it in the Old Testament indicate that there was a sense in which God could
not be seen at all, but that there was also some outward form or manifestation of God
which at least in part was able to be seen by man.
It is right, therefore, to say that although Gods total essence will never be able to be
seen by us, nevertheless, God still shows something of himself to us through visible,
created things. This happens in a variety of ways.
If we are to think of God, we must think of him somehow. God understands this
and gives us hundreds of different analogies taken from our human lives or from the
creative world. 3 This huge diversity of analogies from all parts of creation reminds us
that we should not focus overly much on any one of these analogies. Yet if we do not
focus exclusively on any one of these analogies, all of them help to reveal God to us in a
somewhat “visible” way (cf. Gen. 1:27; Ps. 19:1; Rom. 1:20).
The Old Testament also records a number of theophanies. A theophany is “an
appearance of God.” In these theophanies God took on various visible forms to show
himself to people. God appeared to Abraham (Gen. 18:1-33), Jacob (Gen. 32:28-30),
the people of Israel (as a pillar of cloud by day and fire by night: Ex. 13:21-22), the
elders of Israel (Ex. 24:9-11), Manoah and his wife (Judg. 13:21 -22), Isaiah (Isa. 6:1),
and others.
A much greater visible manifestation of God than these Old Testament theophanies
was found in the person of Jesus Christ himself. He could say, “He who has seen me
has seen the Father” (John 14:9). And John contrasts the fact that no one has ever seen
God with the fact that God’s only Son has made him known to us: “No one has ever
seen God; the only begotten God, 4 who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him
known” (John 1:18, author’s translation). Furthermore, Jesus is “the image of the invis-
ible God” (Col. 1:15), and is “the bright radiance of the glory of God” and is “the exact
representation of his nature” (Heb. 1:3 author’s translation). Thus, in the person of Jesus
we have a unique visible manifestation of God in the New Testament that was not avail-
able to believers who saw theophanies in the Old Testament.
But how will we see God in heaven? We will never be able to see or know all of God,
for “his greatness is unsearchable” (Ps. 145:3; cf. John 6:46; 1 Tim. 1:17; 6:16; 1 John
4:12, which were mentioned above). And we will not be able to see — at least with our
physical eyes — the spiritual being of God. Nevertheless, Scripture says that we will see
God himself. Jesus says, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God ” (Matt. 5:8).
3 See the discussion of the names of God taken from creation only begotten Son,” and this reading is not foreign to the con-
in chapter 11, p. 158. text: see Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John (Grand
4 There is a textual variant at this point, but “the only Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971), pp. 113-14.
begotten God” ( monogenes theos) is better attested than “the
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
We will be able to see the human nature of Jesus, of course (Rev. 1:7). But it is not clear
in exactly what sense we will be able to “see” the Father and the Holy Spirit, or the divine
nature of God the Son (cf. Rev. 1:4; 4:2-3, 5; 5:6). Perhaps the nature of this “seeing”
will not be known to us until we reach heaven.
Although what we see will not be an exhaustive vision of God, it will be a completely
true and clear and real vision of God. We shall see “face to face” (1 Cor. 13:12) and “we
shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). The most remarkable description of the open, close
fellowship with God that we shall experience is seen in the fact that in the heavenly city
“the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and his servants shall worship him;
they shall see his face, and his name shall be on their foreheads” (Rev. 22:3-4).
When we realize that God is the perfection of all that we long for or desire, that he is
the summation of everything beautiful or desirable, then we realize that the greatest joy
of the life to come will be that we “shall see his face.” This seeing of God “face to face”
has been called the beatific vision , meaning “the vision that makes us blessed or happy”
(“beatific” is from two Latin words, beatus , “blessed,” and facere, “to make”). To look
at God changes us and makes us like him: “We shall be like him, for we shall see him as
he is” (1 John 3:2; cf. 2 Cor. 3:18). This vision of God will be the consummation of our
knowing God and will give us full delight and joy for all eternity: “in your presence there
is fulness of joy, in your right hand are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16:11).
B. Mental Attributes
3. Knowledge (Omniscience). God’s knowledge maybe defined as follows: God fully
knows himself and all things actual and possible in one simple and eternal act.
Elihu says that God is the one “who is perfect in knowledge ” (Job 37:16), and John says
that God u knows everything” (1 John 3:20). The quality of knowing everything is called
omniscience, and because God knows everything, he is said to be omniscient (that is,
“all-knowing”).
The definition given above explains omniscience in more detail. It says first that
God fully knows himself. This is an amazing fact since God’s own being is infinite or
unlimited. Of course, only he who is infinite can fully know himself in every detail.
This fact is implied by Paul when he says, “For the Spirit searches everything, even the
depths of God. For what person knows a man’s thoughts except the spirit of the man
which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of
God” (1 Cor. 2:10-11).
This idea is also suggested by John’s statement that “God is light and in him is no
darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). In this context “light” has a suggestion of both moral
purity and full knowledge or awareness. If there is “no darkness at all” in God, but he
is entirely “light,” then God is himself both entirely holy and also entirely filled with
self-knowledge.
The definition also says that God knows “all things actual” This means all things
that exist and all things that happen. This applies to creation, for God is the one before
whom “no creature is hidden, but all are open and laid bare to the eyes of him with
whom we have to do” (Heb. 4:13; cf. 2 Chron. 16:9; Job 28:24; Matt. 10:29-30). God
CHAPTER 12 • COMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD (1)
191
also knows the future, for he is the one who can say, “I am God, and there is none like
me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done”
(Isa. 46:9-10; cf. 42:8-9 and frequent passages in the Old Testament prophets). He
knows the tiny details of every one of our lives, for Jesus tells us, “Your Father knows
what you need before you ask him” (Matt. 6:8), and, “Even the hairs of your head are all
numbered” (Matt. 10:30).
In Psalm 139 David reflects on the amazing detail of God’s knowledge of our lives.
He knows our actions and thoughts: “O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar” (Ps.
139:1-2). He knows the words we will say before they are spoken: “Even before a word
is on my tongue, lo, O Lord, you know it altogether” (Ps. 139:4). And he knows all the
days of our lives even before we are born: “Your eyes beheld my unformed substance; in
your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as
yet there was none of them” (Ps. 139:16).
The definition of God’s knowledge given above also specifies that God knows “all
things possible” This is because there are some instances in Scripture where God gives
information about events that might happen but that do not actually come to pass.
For example, when David was fleeing from Saul he rescued the city of Keilah from the
Philistines and then stayed for a time at Keilah. He decided to ask God whether Saul
would come to Keilah to attack him and, if Saul came, whether the men of Keilah would
surrender him into Saul’s hand. David said:
“Will Saul come down, as your servant has heard? O Lord, the God of Israel, I
beseech you, tell your servant.” And the Lord said, “He will come down.” Then
said David, “Will the men of Keilah surrender me and my men into the hand
of Saul?” And the Lord said, “They will surrender you.” Then David and his
men, who were about six hundred, arose and departed from Keilah, and they
went wherever they could go. When Saul was told that David had escaped from
Keilah, he gave up the expedition. (1 Sam. 23:11 - 13)
Similarly, Jesus could state that Tyre and Sidon would have repented if Jesus’ own
miracles had been done there in former days: “Woe to you, Chorazin! woe to you, Beth-
saida! for if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would
have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes” (Matt. 11:21). Similarly, he says, “And
you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You shall be brought down to Hades.
For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained
until this day” (Matt. 11:23; cf. 2 Kings 13:19, where Elisha tells what would have hap-
pened if King Joash had struck the ground five or six times with the arrows).
The fact that God knows all things possible can also be deduced from God’s full
knowledge of himself. If God fully knows himself, he knows everything he is able to do,
which includes all things that are possible. This fact is indeed amazing. God has made
an incredibly complex and varied universe. But there are thousands upon thousands
of other variations or kinds of things that God could have created but did not. God’s
infinite knowledge includes detailed knowledge of what each of those other possible
creations would have been like and what would have happened in each of them! “Such
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
192
knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain it” (Ps. 139:6). “For as
the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my
thoughts than your thoughts” (Isa. 55:9).
Our definition of God's knowledge speaks of God knowing everything in one “simple
act.” Here again the word simple is used in the sense “not divided into parts.” This means
that God is always fully aware of everything. If he should wish to tell us the number of
grains of sand on the seashore or the number of stars in the sky, he would not have to
count them all quickly like some kind of giant computer, nor would he have to call the
number to mind because it was something he had not thought about for a time. Rather,
he always knows all things at once. All of these facts and all other things that he knows
are always fully present in his consciousness. He does not have to reason to conclusions
or ponder carefully before he answers, for he knows the end from the beginning, and
he never learns and never forgets anything (cf. Ps. 90:4; 2 Peter 3:8; and the verses cited
above on God’s perfect knowledge). Every bit of God’s knowledge is always fully present
in his consciousness; it never grows dim or fades into his nonconscious memory. Finally,
the definition talks about God’s knowledge as not only a simple act but also an “eternal
act.” This means that God’s knowledge never changes or grows. If he were ever to learn
something new, he would not have been omniscient beforehand. Thus, from all eternity
God has known all things that would happen and all things that he would do.
Someone may object that God promises to forget our sins. For example, he says, “I
will not remember your sins” (Isa. 43:25). Yet passages like this can certainly be under-
stood to mean that God will never again let the knowledge of these sins play any part in
the way he relates to us: he will “forget” them in his relationship to us. Another objec-
tion to the biblical teaching about God’s omniscience has been brought from Jeremiah
7:31; 19:5; and 31:35, where God refers to the horrible practices of parents who burn to
death their own children in the sacrificial fires of the pagan god Baal, and says, “which I
did not command, nor did it come into my mind ” (Jer. 7:31). Does this mean that before
the time of Jeremiah God had never thought of the possibility that parents would sac-
rifice their own children? Certainly not, for that very practice had occurred a century
earlier in the reigns of Ahaz (2 Kings 16:3) and Hoshea (2 Kings 17:17), and God himself
had forbidden the practice eight hundred years earlier under Moses (Lev. 18:21). The
verses in Jeremiah are probably better translated quite literally, “nor did it enter into my
heart ” (so KJV at Jer. 7:31, and the literal translation in the NASB mg. — the Hebrew
word is leby most frequently translated “heart”), giving the sense, “nor did I wish for it,
desire it, think of it in a positive way.” 5
Another difficulty that arises in this connection is the question of the relationship
between God’s knowledge of everything that will happen in the future and the reality
and degree of freedom we have in our actions. If God knows everything that will hap-
pen, how can our choices be at all “free”? In fact, this difficulty has loomed so large
that some theologians have concluded that God does not know all of the future. They
5 The same phrase (“to have a thought enter into the heart”) 3:16 (where it cannot mean simply “have a factual knowledge
seems to have the sense “desire, wish for, long for” in all five of of’); 7:31; 19:5; 32:35; as well as in the equivalent Greek phrase
its occurrences in the Hebrew Old Testament: Isa. 65:17; Jer. anebeepi ten kardian in Acts 7:23.
CHAPTER 12 • COMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD (1)
have said that God does not know things that cannot (in their opinion) be known,
such as the free acts of people that have not yet occurred (sometimes the phrase used
is the “contingent acts of free moral agents/’ where “contingent” means “possible but
not certain”). But such a position is unsatisfactory because it essentially denies God’s
knowledge of the future of human history at any point in time and thus is inconsistent
with the passages cited above about God’s knowledge of the future and with dozens of
other Old Testament prophetic passages where God predicts the future far in advance
and in great detail. 6
How then are we to resolve this difficulty? Although this question will be treated
in much more detail in chapter 16 on God’s providence, it may be helpful at this point
to note the suggestion of Augustine, who said that God has given us “reasonable self-
determination.” His statement does not involve the terms free or freedom, for these terms
are exceptionally difficult to define in any way that satisfactorily accounts for God’s
complete knowledge of future events. But this statement does affirm what is important
to us and what we sense to be true in our own experience, that our choices and decisions
are “reasonable.” That is, we think about what to do, consciously decide what we will do,
and then we follow the course of action that we have chosen.
Augustine’s statement also says that we have “self-determination.” This is simply
affirming that our choices really do determine what will happen. It is not as if events
occur regardless of what we decide or do, but rather that they occur because o/what we
decide and do. No attempt is made in this statement to define the sense in which we are
free or not free, but that is not the really important issue: for us, it is important that
we think, choose, and act, and that these thoughts, choices, and actions are real and
actually have eternal significance. If God knows all our thoughts, words, and actions
long before they occur, then there must be some sense in which our choices are not
absolutely free. But further definition of this issue is better left until it can be treated
more fully in chapter 16.
4. Wisdom. God’s wisdom means that God always chooses the best goals and the best means
to those goals. This definition goes beyond the idea of God knowing all things and speci-
fies that God’s decisions about what he will do are always wise decisions: that is, they
always will bring about the best results (from God’s ultimate perspective), and they will
bring about those results through the best possible means.
Scripture affirms God’s wisdom in general in several places. He is called “the only
wise God” (Rom. 16:27). Job says that God “is wise in heart” (Job 9:4), and “With him
are wisdom and might; he has counsel and understanding” (Job 12:13). God’s wisdom
is seen specifically in creation. The psalmist exclaims, “O Lord, how manifold are your
works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures” (Ps.
104:24). As God created the universe, it was perfectly suited to bring him glory, both in
its day-by-day processes and in the goals for which he created it. Even now, while we still
see the effects of sin and the curse on the natural world, we should be amazed at how
harmonious and intricate God’s creation is.
6 See additional discussion of this question in chapter 16,
pp. 347-49.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
194
Gods wisdom is also seen in his great plan of redemption. Christ is “the wisdom
of God” to those who are called (1 Cor. 1:24, 30), even though the word of the cross is
“foolishness” to those who reject it and think themselves to be wise in this world (1 Cor.
1:18-20). Yet even this is a reflection of God’s wise plan: “For since, in the wisdom of God,
the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we
preach to save those who believe God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the
wise ... so that no human being might boast in the presence of God” (1 Cor. 1:21, 27, 29).
Paul knows that what we now think of as the “simple” gospel message, understand-
able even to the very young, reflects an amazing plan of God, which in its depths of
wisdom surpasses anything man could ever have imagined. At the end of eleven chapters
of reflection on the wisdom of God’s plan of redemption, Paul bursts forth into spon-
taneous praise: “O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How
unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” (Rom. 11:33).
When Paul preaches the gospel both to Jews and to Gentiles, and they become uni-
fied in the one body of Christ (Eph. 3:6), the incredible “mystery” that was “hidden
for ages in God who created all things” (Eph. 3:9) is plain for all to see, namely, that in
Christ such totally diverse people become united. When groups so different racially and
culturally become members of the one body of Christ, then God’s purpose is fulfilled,
“that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the
principalities and powers in the heavenly places” (Eph. 3:10).
Today this means that God’s wisdom is shown even to angels and demons (“prin-
cipalities and powers”) when people from different racial and cultural backgrounds
are united in Christ in the church. If the Christian church is faithful to God’s wise
plan, it will be always in the forefront in breaking down racial and social barriers in
societies around the world, and will thus be a visible manifestation of God’s amazingly
wise plan to bring great unity out of great diversity and thereby to cause all creation to
honor him.
God’s wisdom is also shown in our individual lives. “We know that God works all
things together for good for those who love him, who are called according to his pur-
pose” (Rom. 8:28, author’s translation). Here Paul affirms that God does work wisely in
all the things that come into our lives, and that through all these things he advances us
toward the goal of conformity to the image of Christ (Rom. 8:29). It should be our great
confidence and a source of peace day by day to know that God causes all things to move
us toward the ultimate goal he has for our lives, namely, that we might be like Christ and
thereby bring glory to him. Such confidence enabled Paul to accept his “thorn in the
flesh” (2 Cor. 12:7) as something that, though painful, God in his wisdom had chosen
not to remove (2 Cor. 12:8-10).
Every day of our lives, we may quiet our discouragement with the comfort that comes
from the knowledge of God’s infinite wisdom: if we are his children, we can know that
he is working wisely in our lives, even today, to bring us into greater conformity into the
image of Christ.
God’s wisdom is, of course, in part communicable to us. We can ask God confidently
for wisdom when we need it, for he promises in his Word, “If any of you lacks wisdom,
let him ask God, who gives to all men generously and without reproaching, and it will
CHAPTER 12 • COMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD (1)
be given him” (James 1:5). This wisdom, or skill in living a life pleasing to God, comes
primarily from reading and obeying his Word: “The testimony of the Lord is sure,
making wise the simple” (Ps. 19:7; cf. Deut. 4:6-8).
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Ps. 111:10; Prov. 9:10; cf. Prov.
1:7), because if we fear dishonoring God or displeasing him, and if we fear his fatherly
discipline, then we will have the motivation that makes us want to follow his ways and
live according to his wise commands. Furthermore, the possession of wisdom from
God will result not in pride but in humility (Prov. 11:2; James 3:13), not in arrogance
but in a gentle and peaceful spirit (James 3:14-18). The person who is wise according
to God’s standards will continually walk in dependence on the Lord and with a desire
to exalt him.
Yet we must also remember that God’s wisdom is not entirely communicable: we can
never fully share God’s wisdom (Rom. 11:33). In practical terms, this means that there
will frequently be times in this life when we will not be able to understand why God
allowed something to happen. Then we have simply to trust him and go on obeying his
wise commands for our lives: “Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will do
right and entrust their souls to a faithful Creator” (1 Peter 4:19; cf. Deut. 29:29; Prov.
3:5-6). God is infinitely wise and we are not, and it pleases him when we have faith to
trust his wisdom even when we do not understand what he is doing.
5. Truthfulness (and Faithfulness). God’s truthfulness means that he is the true God, and
that all his knowledge and words are both true and the final standard of truth.
The term veracity, which means “truthfulness” or “reliability,” has sometimes been
used as a synonym for God’s truthfulness.
The first part of this definition indicates that the God revealed in Scripture is the true
or real God and that all other so-called gods are idols. “The Lord is the true God; he is
the living God and the everlasting King. . . . The gods who did not make the heavens and
the earth shall perish from the earth and from under the heavens” (Jer. 10:10-11). Jesus
says to his Father, “And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus
Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3; cf. 1 John 5:20).
We might ask what it means to be the true God as opposed to other beings who are not
God. It must mean that God in his own being or character is the one who fully conforms
to the idea of what God should be: namely, a being who is infinitely perfect in power, in
wisdom, in goodness, in lordship over time and space, and so forth. But we may further
ask, whose idea of God is this? What idea of God must one conform to in order to be the
true God?
At this point our train of thought becomes somewhat circular, for we must not say
that a being must conform to our idea of what God should be like in order to be the true
God! We are mere creatures! We cannot define what the true God must be like! So we
must say that it is God himself who has the only perfect idea of what the true God should
be like. And he himself is the true God because in his being and character he perfectly
conforms to his own idea of what the true God should be. In addition, he has implanted
in our minds a reflection of his own idea of what the true God must be, and this enables
us to recognize him as God.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
196
The definition given above also affirms that all of God’s knowledge is true and is the
final standard of truth. Job tells us that God is “perfect in knowledge” (Job 37:16; see
also the verses cited above under the discussion of God’s omniscience). To say that God
knows all things and that his knowledge is perfect is to say that he is never mistaken in
his perception or understanding of the world: all that he knows and thinks is true and
is a correct understanding of the nature of reality. In fact, since God knows all things
infinitely well, we can say that the standard of true knowledge is conformity to God’s
knowledge. If we think the same thing God thinks about anything in the universe, we
are thinking truthfully about it.
Our definition also affirms that God’s words are both true and the final standard
of truth. This means that God is reliable and faithful in his words. With respect to his
promises, God always does what he promises to do, and we can depend on him never to
be unfaithful to his promises. Thus, he is “a God of faithfulness” (Deut. 32:4). In fact,
this specific aspect of God’s truthfulness is sometimes viewed as a distinct attribute:
God's faithfulness means that God will always do what he has said and fulfill what he has
promised (Num. 23:19; cf. 2 Sam. 7:28; Ps. 141:6, et al.). He can be relied upon, and he
will never prove unfaithful to those who trust what he has said. Indeed, the essence of
true faith is taking God at his word and relying on him to do as he has promised.
In addition to the fact that God is faithful to his promises, we must also affirm that
all of God’s words about himself and about his creation completely correspond to real-
ity. That is, God always speaks truth when he speaks. He is “the unlying God” (Titus
1:2, author’s translation), the God for whom it is impossible to lie (Heb. 6:18), the God
whose every word is perfectly “pure” (Ps. 12:6), the one of whom it can be said, “Every
word of God proves true” (Prov. 30:5). God’s words are not simply true in the sense that
they conform to some standard of truthfulness outside of God. Rather, they are truth
itself; they are the final standard and definition of truth. So Jesus can say to the Father,
“Your word is truth ” (John 17:17). What was said about the truthfulness of God’s knowl-
edge can also be said about God’s words, for they are based on his perfect knowledge and
accurately reflect that perfect knowledge: God’s words are “truth” in the sense that they
are the final standard by which truthfulness is to be judged: whatever conforms to God’s
own words is also true, and what fails to conform to his words is not true.
The truthfulness of God is also communicable in that we can in part imitate it by striv-
ing to have true knowledge about God and about his world. In fact, as we begin to think true
thoughts about God and creation, thoughts that we learn from Scripture and from allowing
Scripture to guide us in our observation and interpretation of the natural world, we begin
to think God’s own thoughts after him! We can exclaim with the psalmist, “How precious
to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!” (Ps. 139:17).
This realization should encourage us in the pursuit of knowledge in all areas of the
natural and social sciences and the humanities. Whatever the area of our investigation,
when we discover more truth about the nature of reality, we discover more of the truth
that God already knows. In this sense we can affirm that “all truth is God’s truth” 7 and
7 See All Truth Is God's Truth by Arthur Holmes (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977).
CHAPTER 12 • COMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD (1)
rejoice whenever the learning or discovery of this truth is used in ways pleasing to God.
Growth in knowledge is part of the process of becoming more like God or becoming
creatures who are more fully in God’s image. Paul tells us that we have put on the “new
nature,” which, he says, “is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator”
(Col. 3:10).
In a society that is exceedingly careless with the truthfulness of spoken words, we
as God’s children are to imitate our Creator and take great care to be sure that our
words are always truthful. “Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the
old nature with its practices and have put on the new nature” (Col. 3:9-10). Again Paul
admonishes, “Therefore, putting away falsehood, let every one speak the truth with his
neighbor” (Eph. 4:25). In his own ministry, Paul says that he sought to practice absolute
truthfulness: “We have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways; we refuse to practice
cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would
commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God” (2 Cor. 4:2). God is
pleased when his people put “devious talk” far from them (Prov. 4:24) and speak with
words that are acceptable not only in the sight of people but also in the sigh t of the Lord
himself (Ps. 19:14).
Furthermore, we should imitate God’s truthfulness in our own reaction to truth and
falsehood. Like God, we should love truth and hate falsehood. The commandment not
to bear false witness against our neighbor (Ex. 20:16), like the other commandments,
requires not merely outward conformity but also conformity in heart attitude. One who
is pleasing to God “speaks truth from his heart” (Ps. 15:2), and strives to be like the
righteous man who “hates falsehood” (Prov. 13:5). God commands his people through
Zechariah, “Do not devise evil in your hearts against one another, and love no false oath,
for all these things I hate, says the Lord” (Zech. 8:17).
These commands are given because God himself loves truth and hates falsehood:
“Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who act faithfully are his delight”
(Prov. 12:22; cf. Isa. 59:3—4). Falsehood and lying come not from God but from Satan,
who delights in falsehood: “When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he
is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44). It is appropriate then that with “the cowardly,
the faithless, the polluted” and the “murderers, fornicators, sorcerers, [and] idolaters”
who are found in “the lake that burns with fire and sulphur” far from the heavenly city,
are found also “all liars ” (Rev. 21:8).
Thus, Scripture teaches us that lying is wrong not only because of the great harm
that comes from it (and much more harm comes from lying than we often realize), but
also for an even deeper and more profound reason: when we lie we dishonor God and
diminish his glory, for we, as those created in God’s image and created for the purpose
of reflecting God’s glory in our lives, are acting in a way that is contrary to God’s own
character.
C. Moral Attributes
6. Goodness. The goodness of God means that God is the final standard of good, and that
all that God is and does is worthy of approval.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
198
In this definition we find a situation similar to the one we faced in defining God as
the true God. Here, “good” can be understood to mean “worthy of approval,” but we
have not answered the question, approval by whom? In one sense, we can say that any-
thing that is truly good should be worthy of approval by us. But in a more ultimate sense,
we are not free to decide by ourselves what is worthy of approval and what is not. Ulti-
mately, therefore, God’s being and actions are perfectly worthy of his own approval. He
is therefore the final standard of good. Jesus implies this when he says, “No one is good
but God alone” (Luke 18:19). The Psalms frequently affirm that “the Lord is good” (Ps.
100:5) or exclaim, “O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good” (Pss. 106:1; 107:1, et al.).
David encourages us, “O taste and see that the Lord is good!” (Ps. 34:8).
But if God is himself good and therefore the ultimate standard of good, then we have a
definition of the meaning of “good” that will greatly help us in the study of ethics and aes-
thetics. What is “good”? “Good” is what God approves. We may ask then, why is what God
approves good? We must answer, “Because he approves it.” That is to say, there is no higher
standard of goodness than God’s own character and his approval of whatever is consistent
with that character. Nonetheless, God has given us some reflection of his own sense of
goodness, so that when we evaluate things in the way God created us to evaluate them, we
will also approve what God approves and delight in things in which he delights.
Our definition also states that all that God does is worthy of approval. We see evi-
dence of this in the creation narrative: “And God saw everything that he had made, and
behold, it was very good ” (Gen. 1:31). The psalmist connects the goodness of God with
the goodness of his actions: “You are good and you do good; teach me your statutes” (Ps.
119:68). Psalm 104 is an excellent example of praise to God for his goodness in creation,
while many Psalms, such as Psalms 106 and 107, give thanks to God for his goodness in
all his actions toward his people. And Paul encourages us to discover in practice how
God’s will for our lives is “ good and acceptable and perfect” (Rom. 12:2).
Scripture also tells us that God is the source of all good in the world. “Every good
endowment and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights
with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17; cf. Ps. 145:9; Acts
14:17). Moreover, God does only good things for his children. We read, “No good thing
does the Lord withhold from those who walk uprightly” (Ps. 84:11). And in the same
context in which Paul assures us that “in everything God works for good with those who
love him” (Rom. 8:28), he also says, “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up
for us all, will he not also give us all things with him?” (Rom. 8:32). Much more than an
earthly father, our heavenly Father will “give good things to those who ask him” (Matt.
7:11), and even his discipline is a manifestation of his love and is for our good (Heb.
12:10). This knowledge of God’s great goodness should encourage us to “give thanks in
all circumstances” (1 Thess. 5:18).
In imitation of this communicable attribute, we should ourselves do good (that is, we
should do what God approves) and thereby imitate the goodness of our heavenly Father.
Paul writes, “So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all men, and especially
to those who are of the household of faith” (Gal. 6:10; cf. Luke 6:27, 33-35; 2 Tim. 3:17).
Moreover, when we realize that God is the definition and source of all good, we will real-
ize that God himself is the ultimate good that we seek. We will say with the psalmist,
CHAPTER 12 • COMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD (1)
199
“Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing upon earth that I desire besides
you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion
forever” (Ps. 73:25 - 26; cf. 16:11; 42:1 -2).
God’s goodness is closely related to several other characteristics of his nature, among
them love, mercy, patience, and grace. Sometimes these are considered separate attri-
butes and are treated individually. At other times these are considered part of God’s
goodness and are treated as various aspects of God’s goodness. In this chapter we will
treat love as a separate attribute since it is so prominent in Scripture. The other three
characteristics (mercy, patience, and grace), while also prominent in Scripture, will be
treated together as aspects of God’s goodness to individuals in specific situations. Thus,
God’s mercy is his goodness toward those in distress, his grace is his goodness toward those
who deserve only punishment, and his patience is his goodness toward those who continue
to sin over a period of time (see below, section C.8, on mercy, patience, and grace).
7. Love. God’s love means that God eternally gives of himself to others.
This definition understands love as self-giving for the benefit of others. This attri-
bute of God shows that it is part of his nature to give of himself in order to bring about
blessing or good for others.
John tells us that “God is love” (1 John 4:8). We see evidence that this attribute of
God was active even before creation among the members of the Trinity. Jesus speaks to
his Father of “my glory which you have given me in your love for me before the foundation
of the world” (John 17:24), thus indicating that there was love and a giving of honor from
the Father to the Son from all eternity. It continues at the present time, for we read, “The
Father loves the Son, and has given all things into his hand” (John 3:35).
This love is also reciprocal, for Jesus says, “I do as the Father has commanded me,
so that the world may know that I love the Father” (John 14:31). The love between the
Father and the Son also presumably characterizes their relationship with the Holy Spirit,
even though it is not explicitly mentioned. This eternal love of the Father for the Son, the
Son for the Father, and of both for the Holy Spirit makes heaven a world of love and joy
because each person of the Trinity seeks to bring joy and happiness to the other two.
The self-giving that characterizes the Trinity finds clear expression in God’s relation-
ship to mankind, and especially to sinful men. “In this is love, not that we loved God but
that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10, author’s
translation). Paul writes, “God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners
Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). John also writes, “For God so loved the world that he
gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life”
(John 3:16). Paul also speaks of “the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me”
(Gal. 2:20), thus showing an awareness of the directly personal application of Christ’s
love to individual sinners. It should cause us great joy to know that it is the purpose of
God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to give of themselves to us to bring us true joy and
happiness. It is God’s nature to act that way toward those upon whom he has set his love,
and he will continue to act that way toward us for all eternity.
We imitate this communicable attribute of God, first by loving God in return, and
second by loving others in imitation of the way God loves them. All our obligations to
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
200
God can be summarized in this: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
and with all your soul, and with all your mind. . . . You shall love your neighbor as
yourself ” (Matt. 22:37-38). If we love God, we will obey his commandments (1 John
5:3) and thus do what is pleasing to him. We will love God, not the world (1 John 2:15),
and we will do all this because he first loved us (1 John 4:19).
It is one of the most amazing facts in all Scripture that just as God’s love involves his
giving of himself to make us happy, so we can in return give of ourselves and actually
bring joy to Gods heart. Isaiah promises God’s people, “As the bridegroom rejoices
over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you” (Isa. 62:5), and Zephaniah tells God’s
people, “The Lord, your God, is in your midst ... he will rejoice over you with glad-
ness, he will renew you in his love; he will exult over you with loud singing as on a day
of festival” (Zeph. 3:17-18).
Our imitation of God’s love is also seen in our love for others. John makes this
explicit: “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:11).
In fact, our love for others within the fellowship of believers is so evidently an imitation
of Christ that by it the world recognizes us as his: “By this all men will know that you
are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35; cf. 15:13; Rom. 13:10; 1
Cor. 13:4-7; Heb. 10:24). God himself gives us his love to enable us to love each other
(John 17:26; Rom. 5:5). Moreover, our love for our enemies especially reflects God’s
love (Matt. 5:43-48).
8. Mercy, Grace, Patience. God’s mercy, patience, and grace may be seen as three sepa-
rate attributes, or as specific aspects of God’s goodness. The definitions given here show
these attributes as special examples of God’s goodness when it is used for the benefit of
specific classes of people.
God’s mercy means God’s goodness toward those in misery and distress.
God’s grace means God’s goodness toward those who deserve only punishment.
God’s patience means God’s goodness in withholding of punishment toward those
who sin over a period of time.
These three characteristics of God’s nature are often mentioned together, especially
in the Old Testament. When God declared his name to Moses, he proclaimed, “The
Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast
love and faithfulness” (Ex. 34:6). David says in Psalm 103:8, “The Lord is merciful and
gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.”
Because these characteristics of God are often mentioned together, it may seem dif-
ficult to distinguish among them. Yet the characteristic of mercy is often emphasized
where people are in misery or distress. David says, for example, “I am in great distress;
let us fall into the hand of the Lord for his mercy is great . . .” (2 Sam. 24:14). The two
blind men who wish Jesus to see their plight and heal them cry, “Have mercy on us, Son
of David” (Matt. 9:27). When Paul speaks of the fact that God comforts us in affliction,
he calls God the “Father of mercies and God of all comfort” (2 Cor. 1:3). 8 In time of
need, we are to draw near to God’s throne so that we might receive both mercy and grace
8 This verse uses oiktirmos, “compassion, mercy,” rather and both refer to compassion or goodness toward those in
than eleosy “mercy,” but the terms are closely related in meaning distress.
CHAPTER 12 • COMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD (1)
(Heb. 4:16; cf. 2:17; James 5:11). We are to imitate God’s mercy in our conduct toward
others: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” (Matt. 5:7; cf. 2 Cor.
1:3-4).
With respect to the attribute of grace, we find that Scripture emphasizes that God’s
grace, or his favor toward those who deserve no favor but only punishment, is never
obligated but is always freely given on God’s part. God says, “I will be gracious to whom
I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy” (Ex. 33:19; quoted
in Rom. 9:15). Yet God is regularly gracious toward his people: “Turn to me and be gra-
cious to me, After Thy manner with those who love Thy name” (Ps. 119:132 NASB). In
fact, Peter can call God “the God of all grace” (1 Peter 5:10).
Grace as God s goodness especially shown to those who do not deserve it is seen
frequently in Paul’s writings. He emphasizes that salvation by grace is the opposite of
salvation by human effort, for grace is a freely given gift. “Since all have sinned and fall
short of the glory of God, they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption
which is in Christ Jesus ’ (Rom. 3:23—24). The distinction between grace and a salvation
earned by works that merit a reward is also seen in Romans 11:6: “But if it is by grace,
it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace.” Grace,
then, is God s favor freely given to those who do not deserve this favor.
Paul also sees that if grace is unmerited, then there is only one human attitude appro-
priate as an instrument for receiving such grace, namely, faith: “That is why it depends
on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace. . .” (Rom. 4:16). Faith is the one
human attitude that is the opposite of depending on oneself, for it involves trust in or
dependence upon another. Thus, it is devoid of self-reliance or attempts to gain righ-
teousness by human effort. If God’s favor is to come to us apart from our own merit,
then it must come when we depend not on our own merit but on the merits of another,
and that is precisely when we have faith.
In the New Testament, and especially in Paul, not only the forgiveness of sins, but
also the entire living of the Christian life can be seen to result from God’s continuous
bestowal of grace. Paul can say, “by the grace of God I am what I am” (1 Cor. 15:10).
Luke speaks of Antioch as the place where Paul and Barnabas “had been commended
to the grace of God for the work which they had fulfilled” (Acts 14:26), indicating that
the church there, in sending out Paul and Barnabas, saw the success of their ministry
as dependent upon God’s continuing grace. Furthermore, the blessing of “grace” upon
Paul’s readers is the most frequent apostolic blessing in his letters (see, e.g., Rom. 1:7;
16:20; 1 Cor. 1:3; 16:23; 2 Cor. 1:2; 13:14; Gal. 1:3; 6:18).
God s patience, similarly, was mentioned in some of the verses cited above in connec-
tion with God s mercy. The Old Testament frequently speaks of God as “slow to anger”
(Ex. 34:6; Num. 14:18; Pss. 86:15; 103:8; 145:8; Jonah 4:2; Nah. 1:3, et al.). In the New
Testament, Paul speaks about God’s “kindness and forbearance and patience” (Rom.
2:4), and says that Jesus Christ displayed his “perfect patience” toward Paul himself as
an example for others (1 Tim. 1:16; cf. Rom. 9:22; 1 Peter 3:20).
We are also to imitate God’s patience and be “slow to anger” (James 1:19), and be
patient in suffering as Christ was (1 Peter 2:20). We are to lead a life “with patience”
(Eph. 4:2), and “patience” is listed among the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22 (see
also Rom. 8:25; 1 Cor. 13:4; Col. 1:11; 3:12; 2 Tim. 3:10; 4:2; James 5:7-8; Rev. 2:2-3,
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
202
et al.). As with most of the attributes of God that we are to imitate in our lives, patience
requires a moment-by-moment trust in God to fulfill his promises and purposes in our
lives at his chosen time. Our confidence that the Lord will soon fulfill his purposes for
our good and his glory will enable us to be patient. James makes this connection when
he says, “You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at
hand” (James 5:8).
9. Holiness. God’s holiness means that he is separated from sin and devoted to seeking his
own honor . This definition contains both a relational quality (separation from) and a
moral quality (the separation is from sin or evil, and the devotion is to the good of God’s
own honor or glory). The idea of holiness as including both separation from evil and
devotion to God’s own glory is found in a number of Old Testament passages. The word
holy is used to describe both parts of the tabernacle, for example. The tabernacle itself
was a place separate from the evil and sin of the world, and the first room in it was called
the “holy place.” It was dedicated to God’s service. But then God commanded that there
be a veil, “and the veil shall separate for you the holy place from the most holy” (Ex.
26:33). The most holy place, where the ark of the covenant was kept, was the place most
separated from evil and sin and most fully devoted to God’s service.
The place where God himself dwelt was itself holy: “Who shall ascend the hill of the
Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place?” (Ps. 24:3). The element of dedication to
God’s service is seen in the holiness of the sabbath day: “the Lord blessed the sabbath
day and made it holy” (or “hallowed it”; the verb is a Piel form of qddash and means “to
make holy”) (Ex. 20:11; cf. Gen. 2:3). The sabbath day was made holy because it was set
apart from the ordinary activities of the world and dedicated to God’s service. In the
same way the tabernacle and the altar, as well as Aaron and his sons, were to be “made
holy” (Ex. 29:44), that is, set apart from ordinary tasks and from the evil and sin of the
world and dedicated to God’s service (cf. Ex. 30:25-33).
God himself is the Most Holy One. He is called the “Holy One of Israel” (Pss. 71:22;
78:41; 89:18; Isa. 1:4; 5:19, 24, et al.). The seraphim around God’s throne cry, “Holy,
holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory” (Isa. 6:3). “The Lord
our God is holy!” exclaims the psalmist (Ps. 99:9; cf. 99:3, 5; 22:3).
God’s holiness provides the pattern for his people to imitate. He commands them,
“You shall be holy; for I the Lord your God am holy” (Lev. 19:2; cf. 11:44-45; 20:26;
1 Peter 1:16). When God called his people out of Egypt and brought them to himself
and commanded them to obey his voice, then he said, “You shall be to me a kingdom
of priests and a holy nation ” (Ex. 19:4-6). In this case the idea of separation from evil
and sin (which here included in a very striking way separation from life in Egypt) and
the idea of devotion to God (in serving him and in obeying his statutes) are both seen
in the example of a “holy nation.”
New covenant believers are also to “strive ... for the holiness without which no one
will see the Lord” (Heb. 12:14) and to know that God’s discipline is given to us “that we
may share his holiness” (Heb. 12:10). Paul encourages Christians to be separate from
the dominating influence that comes from close association with unbelievers (2 Cor.
6:14-18) and then encourages them, “Let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement
of body and spirit, and make holiness perfect in the fear of God” (2 Cor. 7:1; cf. Rom.
CHAPTER 12 • COMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD (1)
203
12:1). The church itself is intended by God to grow “into a holy temple in the Lord”
(Eph. 2:21), and Christ’s present work for the church is “that he might sanctify her . . .
that he might present the church to himself in splendor . . . that she might be holy and
without blemish” (Eph. 5:26-27). Not only individuals but also the church itself must
grow in holiness!
Zechariah prophesies a day when everything on earth will be “holy to the Lord.”
He says:
And on that day there shall be inscribed on the bells of the horses, “Holy to
the Lord.” And the pots in the house of the Lord shall be as the bowls before
the altar; and every pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be sacred to the Lord of
hosts. (Zech. 14:20-21)
At that time, everything on earth will be separated from evil, purified from sin, and
devoted to the service of God in true moral purity.
10. Peace (or Order). In 1 Corinthians 14:33 Paul says, “God is not a God of confusion
but of peace. Although “peace” and “order” have not traditionally been classified as
attributes of God, Paul here indicates another quality that we could think of as a distinct
attribute of God. Paul says that God’s actions are characterized by “peace” and not by
disorder (Gk. akatastasia, a word meaning “disorder, confusion, unrest”). God himself
is “the God of peace” (Rom. 15:33; 16:20; Phil. 4:9; 1 Thess. 5:23; Heb. 13:20; cf. Eph.
2:14; 2 Thess. 3:16). But those who walk in wickedness do not have peace: “ 'There is no
peace,’ says the Lord, ‘for the wicked’ ” (Isa. 48:22; 57:21; cf. 59:8).
However, when God looks with compassion upon the people whom he loves, he sees
them as “afflicted . . . storm-tossed (LXX, akatastatos, “in disorder, in confusion”), and not
comforted” (Isa. 54:11), and promises to establish their foundations with precious stones
(Isa. 54:11-12) and lead them forth in “peace” (Isa. 55:12). The proclamation of God’s plan
of redemption contains the promise of peace to God’s people (Pss. 29:11; 85:8; 119:165;
Prov. 3:17; Isa. 9:6-7; 26:3; 57:19; John 14:27; Rom. 8:6; 2 Thess. 3:16, et al.). In fact, the
third element that Paul lists as part of the fruit of the Spirit is “peace” (Gal. 5:22).
This peace certainly does not imply inactivity, for it was at a time of intense growth
and activity that Luke could say that “the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and
Samaria had peace and was built up” (Acts 9:31). Furthermore, although God is a God of
peace, he is also the one who “will neither slumber nor sleep” (Ps. 121:4). He is the God
who is continually working (John 5:17). And even though heaven is a place of peace, it is
a place also of continual praise to God and service for him
Thus, God’s peace can be defined as follows: God’s peace means that in God’s being
and in his actions he is separate from all confusion and disorder, yet he is continually active
in innumerable well-ordered, fully controlled, simultaneous actions.
This definition indicates that God s peace does not have to do with inactivity, but
with ordered and controlled activity. To engage in infinite activity of this sort, of course,
requires God’s infinite wisdom, knowledge, and power.
When we understand God’s peace in this way we can see an imitation of this attri-
bute of God not only in “peace” as part of the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23,
but also in the last-mentioned element in the fruit of the Spirit, namely, “self-control”
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
204
(Gal. 5:23). When we as God’s people walk in his ways, we come to know more and more
fully by experience that the kingdom of God is indeed “righteousness and peace and joy
in the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 14:17), and we can say of the path of God’s wisdom, “Her ways
are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace ” (Prov. 3:17).
11. Righteousness, Justice. In English the terms righteousness and justice are different
words, but in both the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament there is
only one word group behind these two English terms. (In the Old Testament the terms
primarily translate forms of the tsedek word group, and the New Testament members
of the dikaios word group.) Therefore, these two terms will be considered together as
speaking of one attribute of God.
God’s righteousness means that God always acts in accordance with what is right and is
himself the final standard of what is right.
Speaking of God, Moses says, “All his ways are justice . A God of faithfulness and
without iniquity, just and right is he” (Deut. 32:4). Abraham successfully appeals to
God’s own character of righteousness when he says, “Shall not the Judge of all the earth
do right?” (Gen. 18:25). God also speaks and commands what is right: “The precepts of
the Lord are right , rejoicing the heart” (Ps. 19:8). And God says of himself, “I the Lord
speak the truth, I declare what is right ” (Isa. 45:19). As a result of God’s righteousness, it
is necessary that he treat people according to what they deserve. Thus, it is necessary that
God punish sin, for it does not deserve reward; it is wrong and deserves punishment.
When God does not punish sin, it seems to indicate that he is unrighteous, unless
some other means of punishing sin can be seen. This is why Paul says that when God sent
Christ as a sacrifice to bear the punishment for sin, it “was to show God’s righteousness,
because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins; it was to prove at the
present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies him who has faith in Jesus”
(Rom. 3:25-26). When Christ died to pay the penalty for our sins it showed that God
was truly righteous, because he did give appropriate punishment to sin, even though he
did forgive his people their sins.
With respect to the definition of righteousness given above, we may ask, what is
“right”? In other words, what ought to happen and what ought to be? Here we must
respond that whatever conforms to God’s moral character is right . But why is whatever
conforms to God’s moral character right? It is right because it conforms to his moral
character! If indeed God is the final standard of righteousness, then there can be no
standard outside of God by which we measure righteousness or justice. He himself is
the final standard. (This is similar to the situation we encountered with respect to truth
and God being the ultimate standard of truth.) Whenever Scripture confronts the ques-
tion of whether God himself is righteous or not, the ultimate answer is always that we
as God’s creatures have no right to say that God is unrighteous or unjust. The creature
cannot say that of the Creator. Paul responds to a very difficult question about God’s
righteousness by saying, “But who are you, a man, to answer back to God? Will what is
molded say to its molder, ‘Why have you made me thus?’ Has the potter no right over
the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for beauty and another for menial
use?” (Rom. 9:20-21).
In answer to Job’s questioning about whether God has been righteous in his dealings
CHAPTER 12 • COMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD (1)
with him, God answers Job, “Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty? . . . Will you
even put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you may be justified?” (Job 40:2,
8) . Then God answers not in terms of an explanation that would allow Job to understand
why God’s actions were right, but rather in terms of a statement of God’s own majesty
and power! God does not need to explain the rightness of his actions to Job, for God is
the Creator and Job is the creature. “Have you an arm like God, and can you thunder
with a voice like his? (Job 40:9). “Have you commanded the morning since your days
began, and caused the dawn to know its place . . . ?” (Job 38:12). “Can you lift up your
voice to the clouds, that a flood of waters may cover you? Can you send forth lightnings,
that they may go and say to you, ‘Here we are’?” (Job 38:34-35). “Do you give the horse
his might? (Job 39:19). Is it by your wisdom that the hawk soars, and spreads his wings
toward the south? (Job 39:26). Job answers, “Behold, I am of small account; what shall
I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth” (Job 40:4).
Nevertheless, it should be a cause for thanksgiving and gratitude when we realize that
righteousness and omnipotence are both possessed by God. If he were a God of perfect
righteousness without power to carry out that righteousness, he would not be worthy of
worship and we would have no guarantee that justice will ultimately prevail in the uni-
verse. But if he were a God of unlimited power, yet without righteousness in his character,
how unthinkably horrible the universe would be! There would be unrighteousness at the
center of all existence and there would be nothing anyone could do to change it. Existence
would become meaningless, and we would be driven to the most utter despair. We ought
therefore continually to thank and praise God for who he is, “for all his ways are justice.
A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and right is he” (Deut. 32:4).
12. Jealousy. Although the word jealous is frequently used in a negative sense in English,
it also takes a positive sense at times. For example, Paul says to the Corinthians, “I feel
a divine jealousy for you” (2 Cor. 11:2). Here the sense is “earnestly protective or watch-
ful.” It has the meaning of being deeply committed to seeking the honor or welfare of
someone, whether oneself or someone else.
Scripture represents God as being jealous in this way. He continually and earnestly
seeks to protect his own honor. He commands his people not to bow down to idols or
serve them, saying, “for I the Lord your God am a jealous God” (Ex. 20:5). He desires
that worship be given to himself and not to false gods. Therefore, he commands the
people of Israel to tear down the altars of pagan gods in the land of Canaan, giving the
following reason: “For you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is
Jealous, is a jealous God” (Ex. 34:14; cf. Deut. 4:24; 5:9).
Thus, God s jealousy may be defined as follows: God’s jealousy means that God
continually seeks to protect his own honor.
People sometimes have trouble thinking that jealousy is a desirable attribute in God.
This is because jealousy for our own honor as human beings is almost always wrong.
We are not to be proud, but humble. Yet we must realize that the reason pride is wrong
is a theological reason: it is that we do not deserve the honor that belongs to God alone
(cf. 1 Cor. 4:7; Rev. 4:11).
It is not wrong for God to seek his own honor, however, for he deserves it fully. God
freely admits that his actions in creation and redemption are done for his own honor.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
206
Speaking of his decision to withhold judgment from his people, God says, “For my
own sake, for my own sake, I do it . . . My glory I will not give to another” (Isa. 48:11).
It is healthy for us spiritually when we settle in our hearts the fact that God deserves
all honor and glory from his creation, and that it is right for him to seek this honor. He
alone is infinitely worthy of being praised. To realize this fact and to delight in it is to
find the secret of true worship.
13. Wrath. It may surprise us to find how frequently the Bible talks about the wrath
of God. Yet if God loves all that is right and good, and all that conforms to his moral
character, then it should not be surprising that he would hate everything that is opposed
to his moral character. Gods wrath directed against sin is therefore closely related to
God’s holiness and justice. God’s wrath may be defined as follows: God’s wrath means
that he intensely hates all sin .
Descriptions of God’s wrath are found frequently in the narrative passages of Scrip-
ture, especially when God’s people sin greatly against him. God sees the idolatry of
the people of Israel and says to Moses, “I have seen this people . . . ; now therefore let
me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them” (Ex.
32:9- 10). Later Moses tells the people, “Remember and do not forget how you provoked
the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness Even at Horeb you provoked the Lord
to wrath , and the Lord was so angry with you that he was ready to destroy you” (Deut.
9:7-8; cf. 29:23; 2 Kings 22:13).
The doctrine of the wrath of God in Scripture is not limited to the Old Testament,
however, as some have falsely imagined. We read in lohn 3:36, “He who believes in the
Son has eternal life; he who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of
God rests upon him” Paul says, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all
ungodliness and wickedness of men” (Rom. 1:18; cf. 2:5, 8; 5:9; 9:22; Col. 3:6; 1 Thess.
1:10; 2:16; 5:9; Heb. 3:11; Rev. 6:16-17; 19:15). Many more New Testament verses also
indicate God’s wrath against sin.
As with the other attributes of God, this is an attribute for which we should thank
and praise God. It may not immediately appear to us how this can be done, since wrath
seems to be such a negative concept. Viewed alone, it would arouse only fear and dread.
Yet it is helpful for us to ask what God would be like if he were a God that did not hate
sin. He would then be a God who either delighted in sin or at least was not troubled by
it. Such a God would not be worthy of our worship, for sin is hateful and it is worthy
of being hated. Sin ought not to be. It is in fact a virtue to hate evil and sin (cf. Heb.
1:9; Zech. 8:17, et al.), and we rightly imitate this attribute of God when we feel hatred
against great evil, injustice, and sin. 9
Furthermore, we should feel no fear of God’s wrath as Christians, for although “we were
by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” (Eph. 2:3), we now have trusted in
Jesus, “who delivers us from the wrath to come” (1 Thess. 1:10; cf. Rom. 5:10). When we
meditate on the wrath of God, we will be amazed to think that our Lord Jesus Christ bore the
wrath of God that was due to our sin, in order that we might be saved (Rom. 3:25— 26). 10
9 It is appropriate for us in this regard to “hate the sin but 10 See the discussion of Christ’s bearing of the wrath of God
love the sinner” as a popular slogan puts it. in chapter 27, pp. 574-77.
CHAPTER 12 ■ COMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD (1)
Moreover, in thinking about God’s wrath we must also bear in mind his patience.
Both patience and wrath are mentioned together in Psalm 103: “The Lord is . . . slow
to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He will not always chide, nor will he keep his
anger for ever” (Ps. 103:8-9). In fact, the delay of the execution of God’s wrath upon
evil is for the purpose of leading people to repentance (see Rom. 2:4).
Thus, when we think of God’s wrath to come, we should simultaneously be thankful
for his patience in waiting to execute that wrath in order that yet more people may be
saved: The Lord is not slow about his promise as some count slowness, but is forbearing
toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with
a loud noise ... (2 Peter 3:9—10). God’s wrath should motivate us to evangelism and
should also cause us to be thankful that God finally will punish all wrongdoing and will
reign over new heavens and a new earth in which there will be no unrighteousness.
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
Spirituality
1. Why is God so strongly displeased at carved idols, even those that are intended to
represent him? How then shall we picture God or think of God in our minds when
we pray to him?
2. What is it about our culture or our way of thinking today that makes us think of
the physical world as more real and more permanent than the spiritual world?
What can we do to change our intuitive perspective on the reality of the spiritual
world?
Knowledge
3. When should we try to hide our thoughts and deeds from God? How is your
answer to this question a blessing for your life?
4. With regard to the circumstances of your life, will God ever make a mistake, or
fail to plan ahead, or fail to take into account all the eventualities that occur? How
is the answer to this question a blessing in your life?
5. When did God learn that you would be at the location you are now in, reading this
sentence, at this time on this day? How is the realization of your answer to this
question a blessing to your life?
Wisdom
6. Do you really believe that God is working wisely today in your life? In the world?
If you find this difficult to believe at times, what might you do to change your
attitude?
Truthfulness
7. Why are people in our society, sometimes even Christians, quite careless with
regard to truthfulness in speech? Why do we not very often realize that the great-
est harm of all that comes from lying is the fact that God himself is dishonored?
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
Do you need to ask God’s help to more fully reflect his truthfulness in speech in
any of the following areas: promising to pray for someone; saying that you will be
some place at a certain time; exaggerating events to make a more exciting story;
taking care to remember and then be faithful to what you have said in business
commitments; reporting what other people have said or what you think someone
else is thinking; fairly representing your opponent’s viewpoint in an argument?
Goodness
8. Remembering that every good and perfect gift is from God (James 1:17), see how
many good gifts from God you can list on a piece of paper in five minutes. When
you have finished, ask yourself how often you have an attitude of thankfulness to
God for most of these gifts. Why do you think we tend to forget that these bless-
ings come from God? What can we do to remember more frequently?
Love
9. Is it appropriate to define love as “self-giving” with respect to our own inter-
personal relationships? In what ways could you imitate God’s love specifically
today?
10. Is it possible to decide to love someone and then to act on that decision, or does
love between human beings simply depend on spontaneous emotional feelings?
Mercy
11. If you were to reflect God’s mercy more fully, for whom among those you know
would you show special care during the next week?
Holiness
12. Are there activities or relationships in your present pattern of life that are hinder-
ing your growth in holiness because they make it difficult for you to be separated
from sin and devoted to seeking God’s honor?
Peace
13. As you think about reflecting God’s peace in your own life, think first about your
own emotional, mental, and spiritual state. Can you say that by-and-large you have
God’s peace in the sense that your inner life is separate from confusion and dis-
order, and is frequently or continually active in well-ordered and well-controlled
actions that further God’s glory? Then ask the same questions concerning what
may be called the “external circumstances” of your life, that is, your family rela-
tionships, your relationships with neighbors, your activities in studying or at your
job, and your relationships in church activities. What about the overall picture of
your life, viewed as a whole? Does it exhibit God’s peace? What might you do to
reflect God’s peace more fully?
Righteousness
14. Do you ever find yourself wishing that some of God’s laws were different than
they are? If so, does such a wish reflect a dislike for some aspect of God’s moral
character? What passages of Scripture might you read to convince yourself more
fully that God’s character and his laws are right in these areas?
CHAPTER 12 • COMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD (1)
Jealousy
15. Do you reflect God’s jealousy for his own honor instinctively when you hear him
dishonored in conversation or on television or in other contexts? What can we do
to deepen our jealousy for God’s honor?
Wrath
16. Should we love the fact that God is a God of wrath who hates sin? In what ways is
it right for us to imitate this wrath, and in what ways is it wrong for us to do so?
SPECIAL TERMS
attributes of being
beatific vision
communicable attributes
faithfulness
good
goodness
grace
holiness
impassible
invisibility
jealousy
justice
knowledge
love
mental attributes
mercy
moral attributes
omniscience
one simple and eternal
act
order
patience
peace
reasonable self-
determination
righteousness
spirituality
theophany
truthfulness
veracity
wisdom
wrath
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Since chapters 12 and 13 are so closely related in subject matter, the bibliographic
material for both is at the end of chapter 13.
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
Exodus 34:6-7: The Lord passed before him, and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a
God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who
will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and
the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”
Note: The last section of this passage speaks of God “visiting the iniquity of the
fathers upon the children and the children’s children.” Some might want to stop short
of this part in memorizing the passage, but we should remember that this, too, is Scrip-
ture and is written for our edification. This statement shows the horrible nature of sin
in the way it has effects far beyond the individual sinner, also harming those around
the sinner and harming future generations as well. We see this in tragic ways in ordi-
nary life, where the children of alcoholics often become alcoholics and the children of
abusive parents often become abusive parents.
Christians who are forgiven by Christ should not think of these phrases as applying
to them, however, for they are in the other category of people mentioned just before
this section on “the guilty”: they are among the “thousands” to whom God continually
209
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
210
shows “steadfast love,” and is continually “forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin”
(v. 7). When someone comes to Christ the chain of sin is broken. Here it is important to
remember Peter’s words: “You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inher-
ited from your fathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the
precious blood of Christ” (1 Peter 1:18 — 19).
HYMN
“O Worship the King*
Almost the entire hymnbook could be used to sing of one aspect or another of God’s
character. Literally hundreds of hymns would be appropriate. Yet this hymn contains a
listing of many of God’s attributes and combines them in such a way that the hymn is
worthy of being sung again and again. Verse 1 speaks of God’s glory, power, love; verse 2
speaks of his might, grace, wrath; and so forth. In verse 6, “ineffable” means “incapable
of being expressed fully.” The hymn is written as an encouragement for Christians to
sing to one another, exhorting each other to “worship the King, all glorious above.” Yet
in the process of such exhortation the song itself also contains much high praise.
O worship the King all glorious above,
O gratefully sing his pow’r and his love;
Our shield and defender, the Ancient of Days,
Pavilioned in splendor, and girded with praise.
O tell of his might, O sing of his grace,
Whose robe is the light, whose canopy space.
His chariots of wrath the deep thunder- clouds form,
And dark is his path on the wings of the storm.
The earth with its store of wonders untold,
Almighty, your power has founded of old;
Has ’stablished it fast by a changeless decree,
And round it has cast, like a mantle, the sea.
Your bountiful care what tongue can recite?
It breathes in the air; it shines in the light;
It streams from the hills; it descends to the plain;
And sweetly distills in the dew and the rain.
Frail children of dust, and feeble as frail,
In you do we trust, nor find you to fail;
Your mercies how tender, how firm to the end,
Our maker, defender, redeemer, and friend!
O measureless might! Ineffable love!
While angels delight to hymn you above,
The humbler creation, though feeble their ways,
With true adoration shall lisp to your praise.
AUTHOR: SIR ROBERT GRANT, 1833 (BASED ON PSALM 104)
Alternative hymn: “Round the Lord in Glory Seated”
Chapter
THE CHARACTER OF GOD:
“COMMUNICABLE” ATTRIBUTES
(PART 2)
How is God like us in attributes of will and in attributes that
summarize his excellence?
In the previous chapter we discussed the attributes of God that described his being
(spirituality, invisibility), his mental attributes (knowledge, wisdom, and truthfulness),
and his moral attributes (goodness, love, mercy, grace, patience, holiness, peace, righ-
teousness, jealousy, and wrath). In this chapter we will examine God’s attributes oi pur-
pose, that is, attributes that have to do with making and carrying out decisions (will,
freedom, and omnipotence) and his summary attributes (perfection, blessedness, beauty,
and glory).
D. Attributes of Purpose
In this category of attributes we will discuss first God’s will in general, then the
freedom of God s will, and finally the omnipotence (or infinite power) of God’s will.
14. Will. God s will is that attribute of God whereby he approves and determines to bring
about every action necessary for the existence and activity of himself and all creation.
This definition indicates that God’s will has to do with deciding and approving the
things that God is and does. It concerns God’s choices of what to do and what not to do.
a. God’s Will in General: Scripture frequently indicates God’s will as the final or most
ultimate reason for everything that happens. Paul refers to God as the one “who accom-
plishes all things according to the counsel of his will ” (Eph. 1:11). The phrase here trans-
lated “all things” ( ta panta ) is used frequently by Paul to refer to everything that exists
or everything in creation (see, for example, Eph. 1:10, 23; 3:9; 4:10; Col. 1:16 [twice], 17;
211
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
212
Rom. 11:36; 1 Cor. 8:6 [twice]; 15:27-28 [twice]). 1 The word translated “accomplishes”
(energeo, “works, works out, brings about, produces”) is a present participle and suggests
continual activity. The phrase might more explicitly be translated, “who continually
brings about everything in the universe according to the counsel of his will.”
More specifically, all things were created by God’s will: “For you created all things,
and by your will they existed and were created ” (Rev. 4:11). Both Old and New Testaments
speak of human government as coming about according to God’s will: the voice from
heaven tells Nebuchadnezzar that he is to learn “that the Most High rules the kingdom
of men and gives it to whom he will” (Dan. 4:32), and Paul says that “there is no author-
ity except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God” (Rom. 13:1).
All the events connected with the death of Christ were according to God’s will, the
church at Jerusalem believed, for in their prayer they said, “truly in this city there were
gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod
and Pontius Pilate, with all the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your
hand and your plan had predestined to take place” (Acts 4:27-28). The specific mention
of the various parties involved at different stages of the crucifixion, together with the
indefiniteness of the plural relative pronoun “whatever” (Gk. hosa, “the things which”)
implies that not simply the fact of Jesus’ death but all the detailed events connected with
it are comprehended in this statement: God’s hand and will had predestined that all
those things would come about.
Sometimes it is God’s will that Christians suffer, as is seen in 1 Peter 3:17, for exam-
ple: “For it is better to suffer for doing right, if that should be God's will , than for doing
wrong.” Then in the next chapter Peter says, “Therefore let those who suffer according
to God's will do right and entrust their souls to a faithful Creator” (1 Peter 4:19). In this
verse, the phrase “according to God’s will” cannot refer to the manner in which Chris-
tians endure suffering, for then it would make the verse say essentially, “Let those who
suffer while doing right, do right and entrust their souls ” This would make the phrase
“according to God’s will” redundant. Rather, the phrase “according to God’s will” must
refer to the fact that these Christians are suffering, just as “God’s will” referred to suf-
fering in the previous chapter (1 Peter 3:17).
James encourages us to see all the events of our lives as subject to God’s will. To
those who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a
year there and trade and get gain,” James says, “You do not know about tomorrow. . . .
Instead you ought to say, Hf the Lord wills, we shall live and we shall do this or that’ ”
(James 4:13-15). To attribute so many events, even evil events, to the will of God often
causes misunderstanding and difficulty for Christians. Some of the difficulties con-
nected with this subject will be treated here and others will be dealt with in chapter 16
on God’s providence.
b. Distinctions in Aspects of God’s Will: (1) Necessary will and free will: Some distinc-
tions made in the past may help us understand various aspects of God’s will. Just as we
^he phrase does not always carry that meaning (cf. passage), the phrase does seem quite clearly to refer to
Rom. 1 1:32; 1 Cor. 12:6; 2 Cor. 12:19), but in contexts where the everything in all creation,
scope of Paul’s thought is cosmic or universal in nature (as in this
CHAPTER 13 • COMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD (2)
can will or choose something eagerly or reluctantly, happily or with regret, secretly or
publicly, so also God in the infinite greatness of his personality is able to will different
things in different ways.
One helpful distinction applied to aspects of God’s will is the distinction between
God’s necessary will and God’s free will. God’s necessary will includes everything that
he must will according to his own nature. What does God will necessarily? He wills
himself. God eternally wills to be, or wants to be, who he is and what he is. He says, “I
AM WHO I AM” or, “I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE” (Ex. 3:14). God cannot choose to
be different than he is or to cease to exist.
God’s free will includes all things that God decided to will but had no necessity to will
according to his nature. Here we must put God’s decision to create the universe, and all
the decisions relating to the details of that creation. Here we must also place all God’s
acts of redemption. There was nothing in God’s own nature that required him to decide
to create the universe or to redeem out of sinful mankind a people for himself (see the
discussion above concerning God’s independence). However, God did decide to create
and to redeem, and these were totally free choices on his part. Though within the mem-
bers of the Trinity love and fellowship and glory exist in infinite measure for all eternity
(see John 17:5, 24), nonetheless God decided to create the universe and to redeem us
for his own glory (cf. Isa. 43:7; 48:9-11; Rom. 11:36; 1 Cor.8:6;Eph. 1:12; Rev. 4:11). It
would be wrong for us ever to try to find a necessary cause for creation or redemption
in the being of God himself, for that would rob God of his total independence. It would
be to say that without us God could not truly be God. God’s decisions to create and to
redeem were totally free decisions.
(2) Secret will and revealed will: Another helpful distinction applied to different aspects
of God’s will is the distinction between God’s secret will and his revealed will. Even in
our own experience we know that we are able to will some things secretly and then only
later make this will known to others. Sometimes we tell others before the thing that we
have willed comes about, and at other times we do not reveal our secret will until the
event we willed has happened.
Surely a distinction between aspects of God’s will is evident in many passages of
Scripture. According to Moses, “The secret things belong to the Lord our God; but the
things that are revealed belong to us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the
words of this law” (Deut. 29:29). Those things that God has revealed are given for the
purpose of obeying God’s will: “that we may do all the words of this law.” There were
many other aspects of his plan, however, that he had not revealed to them: many details
about future events, specific details of hardship or of blessing in their lives, and so forth.
With regard to these matters, they were simply to trust him.
Because God’s revealed will usually contains his commands or “precepts” for our
moral conduct, God’s revealed will is sometimes also called God’s will of precept or will
of command. This revealed will of God is God’s declared will concerning what we should
do or what God commands us to do.
On the other hand, God’s secret will usually includes his hidden decrees by which he
governs the universe and determines everything that will happen. He does not ordinarily
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
214
reveal these decrees to us (except in prophecies of the future), so these decrees really are
God’s “secret” will. We find out what God has decreed when events actually happen.
Because this secret will of God has to do with his decreeing of events in the world, this
aspect of God’s will is sometimes also called God’s will of decree. 2
There are several instances where Scripture mentions God’s revealed will. In the
Lord’s prayer the petition, “ Your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10)
is a prayer that people would obey God’s revealed will, his commands, on earth just as
they do in heaven (that is, fully and completely). This could not be a prayer that God’s
secret will (that is, his decrees for events that he has planned) would in fact be fulfilled,
for what God has decreed in his secret will shall certainly come to pass. To ask God
to bring about what he has already decreed to happen would simply be to pray, “May
what is going to happen happen.” That would be a hollow prayer indeed, for it would
not be asking for anything at all. Furthermore, since we do not know God’s secret will
regarding the future, the person praying a prayer for God’s secret will to be done would
never know for what he or she was praying. It would be a prayer without understandable
content and without effect. Rather, the prayer “Your will be done” must be understood
as an appeal for the revealed will of God to be followed on earth.
If the phrase is understood in this way, it provides a pattern for us to pray on the
basis of God’s commands in Scripture. In this sense, lesus provides us with a guide for
an exceedingly broad range of prayer requests. We are encouraged by Christ here to pray
that people would obey God’s laws, that they would follow his principles for life, that
they would obey his commands to repent of sin and trust in Christ as Savior. To pray
these things is to pray that God’s will would be done on earth as it is in heaven.
A little later, Jesus says, “Not every one who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the
kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 7:21) .
Once again, the reference cannot be to God’s secret will or will of decree (for all man-
kind follows this, even if unknowingly), but to God’s revealed will, namely, the moral
law of God that Christ’s followers are to obey (cf. Matt. 12:50; probably also 18:14).
When Paul commands the Ephesians to “understand what the will of the Lord is” (Eph.
5:17; cf. Rom. 2:18), he again is speaking of God’s revealed will. So also is John when he
says, “If we ask anything according to his will he hears us” (1 John 5:14).
It is probably best to put 1 Timothy 2:4 and 2 Peter 3:9 in this category as well. Paul
says that God “ desires [or ‘wills, wishes,’ Gk. theleo] all men to be saved and to come
to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:4). Peter says that the Lord “is not slow about
his promise as some count slowness, but is forbearing toward you, not wishing that any
should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). In neither of these
verses can God’s will be understood to be his secret will, his decree concerning what
will certainly occur. This is because the New Testament is clear that there will be a final
judgment and not all will be saved. It is best therefore to understand these references as
speaking of God’s revealed will, his commands for mankind to obey and his declaration
to us of what is pleasing in his sight.
On the other hand, many passages speak of God’s secret will. When James tells us to
say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and we shall do this or that” (James 4:15), he cannot
2 See the discussion of God's decrees in chapter 16, pp. 332-33.
CHAPTER 13 • COMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD (2)
be talking about God’s revealed will or will of precept, for with regard to many of our
actions we know that it is according to God’s command that we do one or another activ-
ity that we have planned. Rather, to trust in the secret will of God overcomes pride and
expresses humble dependence on God’s sovereign control over the events of our lives.
Another instance is found in Genesis 50:20. Joseph says to his brothers, “As for you,
you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people
should be kept alive, as they are today.” Here God’s revealed will to Joseph’s brothers was
that they should love him and not steal from him or sell him into slavery or make plans
to murder him. But God’s secret will was that in the disobedience of Joseph’s brothers
a greater good would be done when Joseph, having been sold into slavery into Egypt,
gained authority over the land and was able to save his family.
When Paul says to the Corinthians, “I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills” (1
Cor. 4:19), he is not speaking of God’s revealed will, for Paul has already determined, in
obedience to God and in fulfillment of his apostolic office, to come to visit the Corin-
thians. He is speaking rather of God’s secret will, his hidden plan for the future, which
is unknown to Paul and which will be known only as it comes to pass (cf. Acts 21:14;
Rom. 1:10; 15:32; Eph. 1:11; 1 Peter 3:17; 4:19). 3
Both the revealing of the good news of the gospel to some and its hiding from others
are said to be according to God’s will. Jesus says, “I thank you. Father, Lord of heaven
and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and
revealed them to babes; yea, Father, for such was your gracious will” (Matt. 11:25-26).
This again must refer to God’s secret will, for his revealed will is that all come to salva-
tion. Indeed, only two verses later, Jesus commands everyone, “Come to me, all who
labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28). And both Paul and
Peter tell us that God wills all people to be saved (see 1 Tim. 2:4; 2 Peter 3:9). Thus, the
fact that some are not saved and some have the gospel hidden from them must be under-
stood as happening according to God’s secret will, unknown to us and inappropriate
for us to seek to pry into. In the same way we must understand the mention of God’s
will in Romans 9:18 (“He has mercy upon whomever he wills, and he hardens the heart
of whomever he wills”) and Acts 4:28 (“to do whatever your hand and your plan had
predestined to take place”) as references to God’s secret will.
There is danger in speaking about evil events as happening according to the will of
God, even though we see Scripture speaking of them in this way. One danger is that we
might begin to think that God takes pleasure in evil, which he does not do (see Ezek.
33:11), though he can use it for his good purposes (see chapter 16 for further discussion).
Another danger is that we might begin to blame God for sin, rather than ourselves, or to
think that we are not responsible for our evil actions. Scripture, however, does not hesi-
tate to couple statements of God’s sovereign will with statements of man’s responsibility
for evil. Peter could say in the same sentence that Jesus was “delivered up according to
the definite plan and foreknowledge of God,” and also that “this Jesus ...you crucified
and killed by the hands of lawless men” (Acts 2:23). Both God’s hidden will of decree
In Eph. 1.9 10 Paul says that God has made known to revealed will because God made it known to the apostles and
us . . . the mystery of his will ... to unite all things in him.” then to the church.
Here he tells us that part of God’s secret will has become God’s
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
216
and the culpable wickedness of “lawless men” in carrying it out are affirmed in the same
statement. However we may understand the secret workings of God’s hidden will, we
must never understand it to imply that we are freed from responsibility for evil, or that
God is ever to be blamed for sin. Scripture never speaks that way, and we may not either,
even though how this can be so may remain a mystery for us in this age. 4
15, Freedom. God's freedom is that attribute of God whereby he does whatever he pleases .
This definition implies that nothing in all creation can hinder God from doing his
will. This attribute of God is therefore closely related to his will and his power. Yet this
aspect of freedom focuses on the fact that God is not constrained by anything external
to himself and that he is free to do whatever he wishes to do. There is no person or force
that can ever dictate to God what he should do. He is under no authority or external
restraint.
God’s freedom is mentioned in Psalm 115, where his great power is contrasted with
the weakness of idols: “Our God is in the heavens; he does whatever he pleases " (Ps.
115:3). Human rulers are not able to stand against God and effectively oppose his will,
for “the king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever
he will” (Prov. 21:1). Similarly, Nebuchadnezzar learns in his repentance that it is true
to say of God, “he does according to his will in the host of heaven and among the inhab-
itants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, ‘What are you doing?’ ”
(Dan. 4:35).
Because God is free we should not try to seek any more ultimate answer for God’s
actions in creation than the fact that he willed to do something and that his will has
perfect freedom (so long as the actions he takes are consistent with his own moral char-
acter). Sometimes people try to discover the reason why God had to do one or another
action (such as create the world or save us). It is better simply to say that it was God’s
totally free will (working in a way consistent with his character) that was the final reason
why he chose to create the world and to save sinners.
16. Omnipotence (Power, Sovereignty). God's omnipotence means that God is able to do
all his holy will The word omnipotence is derived from two Latin words, omni, “all,” and
potenSy “powerful,” and means “all-powerful.” Whereas God’s freedom referred to the
fact that there are no external constraints on God’s decisions, God’s omnipotence has
reference to his own power to do what he decides to do.
This power is frequently mentioned in Scripture. God is “The Lord, strong and
mighty, the Lord, mighty in battle!” (Ps. 24:8). The rhetorical question, “Is anything
too hard for the Lord?” (Gen. 18:14; Jer. 32:27) certainly implies (in the contexts in
which it occurs) that nothing is too hard for the Lord. In fact, Jeremiah says to God,
“nothing is too hard for you” (Jer. 32:17).
Paul says that God is “able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think”
(Eph. 3:20), and God is called the “Almighty” (2 Cor. 6:18; Rev. 1:8), a term (Gk.
4 See chapter 16, pp. 322-30, 343 for further discussion of the Election and God’s Desire for All to Be Saved,” in Still Sovereign,
relationship between the will of God and evil. See also the excel- ed. by Tom Schreiner and Bruce Ware (Grand Rapids: Baker,
lent essay by John Piper, “Are There Two Wills in God? Divine 2000).
CHAPTER 13 • COMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD (2)
pantokrator) that suggests the possession of all power and authority. Furthermore, the
angel Gabriel says to Mary, “With God nothing will be impossible” (Luke 1:37), and
Jesus says, “With God all things are possible” (Matt. 19:26).
These passages indicate that God’s power is infinite, and that he is therefore not
limited to doing only what he actually has done. In fact, God is able to do more than he
actually does. For example, John the Baptist says in Matthew 3:9, “God is able from these
stones to raise up children to Abraham.” God is one who “does whatever he pleases”
(Ps. 115:3); he could have destroyed Israel and raised up a great nation from Moses (cf.
Ex. 32:10), but he did not do so.
However, there are some things that God cannot do. God cannot will or do anything
that would deny his own character. This is why the definition of omnipotence is stated
in terms of God’s ability to do “all his holy will.” It is not absolutely everything that
God is able to do, but everything that is consistent with his character. For example, God
cannot lie. In Titus 1:2 he is called (literally) “the unlying God” or the “God who never
lies.” The author of Hebrews says that in God’s oath and promise “it is impossible for
God to lie” (Heb. 6:18, author’s translation). Second Timothy 2:13 says of Christ, “He
cannot deny himself.” Furthermore, James says, “God cannot be tempted with evil and
he himself tempts no one” (James 1:13). Thus, God cannot lie, sin, deny himself, or be
tempted with evil. He cannot cease to exist, or cease to be God, or act in a way inconsis-
tent with any of his attributes.
This means that it is not entirely accurate to say that God can do anything. Even the
Scripture passages quoted above that use phrases similar to this must be understood
in their contexts to mean that God can do anything he wills to do or anything that is
consistent with his character. Although God’s power is infinite, his use of that power is
qualified by his other attributes (just as all God’s attributes qualify all his actions). This
is therefore another instance where misunderstanding would result if one attribute were
isolated from the rest of God’s character and emphasized in a disproportionate way.
God’s exercise of power over his creation is also called God’s sovereignty. God’s sov-
ereignty is his exercise of rule (as “sovereign” or “king”) over his creation. This subject
will be discussed in more detail in chapter 16, on God’s providence.
As we conclude our treatment of God’s attributes of purpose, it is appropriate to real-
ize that he has made us in such a way that we show in our lives some faint reflection of
each of them. God has made us as creatures with a will. We exercise choice and make
real decisions regarding the events of our lives. Although our will is not absolutely free
in the way God’s is, God has nonetheless given us relative freedom within our spheres of
activity in the universe he has created.
In fact, we have an intuitive sense that it is our ability to exercise our wills and make
choices, and to do so in a relatively free way, that is one of the most significant marks of
God-likeness in our existence. Of course our desire to exercise our wills and our desire
to be free from restraint can show themselves in sinful ways. People can become proud
and can desire a kind of freedom that involves rebellion against God’s authority and a
refusal to obey his will. Nonetheless, when we use our will and our freedom to make
choices that are pleasing to God, we reflect his character and bring glory to him. When
human beings are deprived of their ability to make free choices by evil governments or
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
218
by other circumstances, a significant part of their God-likeness is suppressed. It is not
surprising that they will pay almost any price to regain their freedom. American revo-
lutionary Patrick Henry’s cry, “Give me liberty or give me death!” finds an echo deep
within every soul created in the image of God.
We do not of course have infinite power or omnipotence any more than we have infi-
nite freedom or any of God’s other attributes to an infinite degree. But even though we
do not have omnipotence, God has given us power to bring about results, both physical
power and other kinds of power: mental power, spiritual power, persuasive power, and
power in various kinds of authority structures (family, church, civil government, and so
forth). In all of these areas, the use of power in ways pleasing to God and consistent with
his will is again something that brings him glory as it reflects his own character.
E. “Summary 5 Attributes
17. Perfection. God's perfection means that God completely possesses all excellent qualities
and lacks no part of any qualities that would be desirable for him.
It is difficult to decide whether this should be listed as a separate attribute or simply
be included in the description of the other attributes. Some passages say that God is
“perfect” or “complete.” Jesus tells us, “You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly
Father is perfect" (Matt. 5:48). And David says of God, “His way is perfect" (Ps. 18:30; cf.
Deut. 32:4). There is some scriptural precedent, therefore, for stating explicitly that God
lacks nothing in his excellence: he fully possesses all of his attributes and lacks nothing
from any one of those attributes. Furthermore, there is no quality of excellence that it
would be desirable for God to have that he does not have: he is “complete” or “perfect”
in every way.
This attribute is the first of those classified as a “summary” attribute because it does
not fit well into the other categories that have been listed. Even though all the attributes
of God modify all the others in some senses, those that fit in this category seem more
directly to apply to all the attributes or to describe some aspect of all of the attributes
that it is worthwhile to state explicitly.
18. Blessedness. To be “blessed” is to be happy in a very full and rich sense. Often
Scripture talks about the blessedness of those people who walk in God’s ways. Yet in 1
Timothy Paul calls God “the blessed and only Sovereign” (1 Tim. 6:15) and speaks of
“the glorious gospel of the blessed God” (1 Tim. 1:11). In both instances the word is not
eulogetos (which is often translated “blessed”), but makarios (which means “happy”).
Thus, God’s blessedness may be defined as follows: God's blessedness means that God
delights fully in himself and in all that reflects his character. In this definition the idea of
God’s happiness or blessedness is connected directly to his own person as the focus of
all that is worthy of joy or delight. This definition indicates that God is perfectly happy,
that he has fullness of joy in himself.
The definition reflects the fact that God takes pleasure in everything in creation that
mirrors his own excellence. When he finished his work of creation, he looked at every-
thing that he had made and saw that it was “very good” (Gen. 1:31). This indicates God’s
delight in and approval of his creation. Then in Isaiah we read a promise of God’s future
CHAPTER 13 • COMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD (2)
219
rejoicing over his people: “As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God
rejoice over you” (Isa. 62:5; cf. Prov. 8:30-31; Zeph. 3:17).
It may at first seem strange or even somewhat disappointing to us that when God
rejoices in his creation, or even when he rejoices in us, it is really the reflection of his
own excellent qualities in which he is rejoicing. But when we remember that the sum
of everything that is desirable or excellent is found in infinite measure in God himself,
then we realize that it could not be otherwise: whatever excellence there is in the uni-
verse, whatever is desirable, must ultimately have come from him, for he is the Creator
of all and he is the source of all good. “ Every good endowment and every perfect gift is
from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or
shadow due to change” (James 1:17).
We ought therefore to say to ourselves, as Paul says to the Corinthians, “What have
you that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if it were not
a gift?” (1 Cor. 4:7). “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him
be glory for ever” (Rom. 11:36).
We imitate God’s blessedness when we find delight and happiness in all that is pleas-
ing to God, both those aspects of our own lives that are pleasing to God and the deeds
of others. In fact, when we are thankful for and delight in the specific abilities, prefer-
ences, and other characteristics with which God has created us as individuals, then we
also imitate his attribute of blessedness. Furthermore, we imitate God’s blessedness by
rejoicing in the creation as it reflects various aspects of his excellent character. And we
find our greatest blessedness, our greatest happiness, in delighting in the source of all
good qualities, God himself.
19. Beauty. God’s beauty is that attribute of God whereby he is the sum of all desirable qual-
ities. This attribute of God has been implicit in a number of the preceding attributes,
and is especially related to God’s perfection. However, God’s perfection was defined in
such a way as to show that he does not lack anything that would be desirable for him.
This attribute, beauty, is defined in a positive way to show that God actually does pos-
sess all desirable qualities: “perfection” means that God doesn’t lack anything desir-
able; “beauty” means that God has everything desirable. They are two different ways of
affirming the same truth.
Nevertheless, there is value in affirming this positive aspect of God’s possession of
everything that is desirable. It reminds us that all of our good and righteous desires, all
of the desires that really ought to be in us or in any other creature, find their ultimate
fulfillment in God and in no one else.
David speaks of the beauty of the Lord in Psalm 27:4: “One thing have I asked of
the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of
my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple.” A similar idea
is expressed in another psalm: “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing
upon earth that I desire besides you” (Ps. 73:25). In both cases, the psalmist recognizes
that his desire for God, who is the sum of everything desirable, far surpasses all other
desires. This desire culminates in a longing to be near God and to enjoy his presence
forevermore. Thus, the greatest blessing of the heavenly city shall be this: “They shall see
his face” (Rev. 22:4).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
220
Anne R. Cousin certainly had a proper perspective on heaven, for in the last stanza
of her hymn, “The Sands of Time are Sinking” she wrote:
The bride eyes not her garment,
But her dear bridegroom’s face.
I will not gaze at glory,
But on my King of grace;
Not at the crown he giveth,
But on his pierced hand:
The Lamb is all the glory
Of Emmanuel’s land.
We reflect God’s beauty in our own lives when we exhibit conduct that is pleasing
to him. Thus, Peter tells wives in the churches to which he writes that their “adorn-
ing” (that is, their source of beauty) should be “the hidden person of the heart with the
imperishable jewel of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious” (1
Peter 3:4). Similarly, Paul instructs servants that by their conduct they should “ adorn
the doctrine of God our Savior” (Titus 2:10).
The beauty of our lives is so important to Christ that his purpose now is to sanctify
the entire church “that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without
spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (Eph.
5:27). Thus, we individually and corporately reflect God’s beauty in every way in which
we exhibit his character. When we reflect his character, he delights in us and finds us
beautiful in his sight.
But we also delight in God’s excellence as we see it manifested in the lives of our
brothers and sisters in the Lord. Therefore it is right that we feel joy and delight in the
fellowship of one another, and that this joy deepens as our conformity to the life of
Christ increases. It is right that we long to be in the fellowship of God’s people in which
God’s character is manifested, for when we delight in the godliness of God’s people, we
are ultimately delighting in God himself as we see his character evidenced in the lives
of his people.
20. Glory. In one sense of the word glory it simply means “honor” or “excellent reputa-
tion.” This is the meaning of the term in Isaiah 43:7, where God speaks of his children,
“whom I created for my glory” or Romans 3:23, which says that all “have sinned and fall
short of the glory of God.” It also has that meaning in John 17:5, where Jesus speaks to the
Father of “the glory which I had with you before the world was made,” and in Hebrews
1:3, which says that the Son “is the radiance of God’s glory ” (author’s translation). In this
sense, the glory of God is not exactly an attribute of his being but rather describes the
superlative honor that should be given to God by everything in the universe (including,
in Heb. 1:3 and John 17:5, the honor that is shared among the members of the Trinity).
But that is not the sense of the word glory that we are concerned with in this section.
In another sense, God’s “glory” means the bright light that surrounds God’s pres-
ence. Since God is spirit, and not energy or matter, this visible light is not part of God’s
being but is something that was created. We may define it as follows: God's glory is the
created brightness that surrounds God's revelation of himself
CHAPTER 13 • COMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD (2)
This “attribute” of God is really not an attribute of God in the sense that the others
were, for here we are speaking not of God’s own character but of the created light or bril-
liance that surrounds God as he manifests himself in his creation. Thus, God’s glory in this
sense is not actually an attribute of God in himself. Nevertheless, God’s glory is something
that belongs to him alone and is the appropriate outward expression of his own excellence.
It seems right therefore to treat it here immediately after the attributes of God.
Scripture often speaks of God’s glory. David asks, “Who is this King of glory? The
Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory!” (Ps. 24:10). We read in Psalm 104:1-2, “O Lord
my God, you are very great! You are clothed with honor and majesty, you who cover
yourself with light as with a garment. . . .” This glory of God is frequently mentioned in
the Old Testament.
It is mentioned again in the New Testament in connection with the annunciation of
Jesus’ birth to the shepherds: “And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory
of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear” (Luke 2:9). God’s glory
was also evident at the transfiguration of Christ (cf. Matt. 17:2), and we find in the
heavenly city yet to come that “the city has no need of sun or moon to shine upon it, for
the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb” (Rev. 21:23).
It is very appropriate that God’s revelation of himself should be accompanied by
such splendor and brightness, for this glory of God is the visible manifestation of the
excellence of God s character. The greatness of God’s being, the perfection of all his
attributes, is something that we can never fully comprehend, but before which we can
only stand in awe and worship. Thus, it is appropriate indeed that the visible manifes-
tation of God be such that we would be unable to gaze fully upon it, and that it would
be so bright that it would call forth both great delight and deep awe from us when we
behold it only in part.
Quite amazingly, God made us to reflect his glory. Paul tells us that even now in our
Christian lives we all are being “changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to
another (2 Cor. 3:18; cf. Matt. 5:16; Phil. 2:15). Though we do not now find ourselves
surrounded by a visible light, there is a brightness, a splendor, or a beauty about the
manner of life of a person who deeply loves God, and it is often evident to those around
such a person. In the life to come, such brightness will be intensified, so that as we reign
with Christ, it seems that we also will receive an outward appearance that is appropriate
to that reign and to our status as image bearers of God and servants of the Lord Jesus
Christ (cf. Prov. 4:18; Dan. 12:3; Matt. 13:43; 1 Cor. 15:43). 5
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
Will, Freedom
1. As children grow toward adulthood, what are proper and improper ways for
them to show in their own lives greater and greater exercise of individual will
5 See the discussion of glorification in chapter 42,
pp. 828-39.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
222
and freedom from parental control? Are these to be expected as evidence of our
creation in the image of God?
Power
2. If God’s power is his ability to do what he wills to do, then is power for us the
ability to obey God’s will and bring about results in the world that are pleasing to
him? Name several ways in which we can increase in such power in our lives.
Perfection
3. How does God’s attribute of perfection remind us that we can never be satis-
fied with the reflection of only some of God’s character in our own lives? Can
you describe some aspects of what it would mean to “be perfect” as our heavenly
Father is perfect, with respect to your own life?
Blessedness
4. Are you happy with the way God created you — with the physical, emotional, men-
tal, and relational traits he gave you? With the sex he gave you (whether masculine
or feminine)? With the spiritual gifts he has given you? In what ways is it right to
be happy or pleased with our own personalities, physical characteristics, abilities,
positions, etc.? In what ways is it wrong to be pleased or happy about these things?
Will we ever be fully “blessed” or happy? When will that be and why?
5. Think about the qualities that you admire in other people, both Christians and
non-Christians. Which of these are right to admire and which are not? How can
you decide? How can we come to delight more frequently and more fully in God
himself?
Beauty
6. If we refuse to accept our society’s definition of beauty, or even the definitions
that we ourselves may have worked with previously, and decide that that which is
truly beautiful is the character of God himself, then how will our understanding
of beauty be different from the one we previously held? Will we still be able to
rightly apply our new idea of beauty to some of the things we previously thought
to be beautiful? Why or why not?
7. Can you understand why David’s one desire above all others in life was “that I may
dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the
Lord, and to inquire in his temple” (Ps. 27:4)?
Glory
8. When the shepherds near Bethlehem experienced the glory of the Lord shining
around them, “they were filled with fear” (Luke 2:9). Yet when we come to live
forever in the heavenly city, we will continually be surrounded by the light of the
glory of the Lord (Rev. 21:23). Will we then continually feel this same fear the
shepherds felt? Why or why not? Would you like to live in the presence of this
glory? Can we experience any of it in this life?
CHAPTER 13 ■ COMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD (2)
SPECIAL TERMS
attributes of purpose
beauty
free will
glory
necessary will
omnipotence
perfection
power
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter
1, pp. 38-39. Complete bibliographical data maybe found on pp. 1224-30.)
Because systematic theologies have different ways of classifying the attributes of God,
some of the sections listed below discuss only the communicable attributes of God, and
some discuss all the attributes of God.
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1882-92 Litton, 58-74
1930 Thomas, 14 - 20, 495-500
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1847 Finney, 49-65, 135-80, 524-44
1875- 76 Pope, 1:248-55, 287-360
1892-94 Miley, 1:159-222
1940 Wiley, 1:241-393
1960 Purkiser, 127-42
1983 Carter, 1:111-27
1983- Cottrell, 1:192-305, 388-468; 3:175 -400,
461-528
1987-90 Oden, 1:15-130
3. Baptist
1767 Gill, 1:37-187, 359-65
1887 Boyce, 54-115
1907 Strong, 243-303
1917 Mullins, 214-50
1976- 83 Henry, 2:151-246; 5:9-164, 214-375; 6:35-89, 251-417
1983-85 Erickson, 263 - 320
1987-94 Lewis/Demarest, 1:175 -248
4. Dispensational
1947 Chafer, 1:179-224, 260-71
1949 Thiessen, 75-88
1986 Ryrie, 35-50
223
blessedness
freedom
reasonable self-determination
revealed will
secret will
sovereignty
“summary attributes”
will
5. Lutheran
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
224
1917-24
Pieper, 1:405-66
1934
Mueller, 160-75
Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1559
Calvin, 1:96-120 (1.10-12)
1861
Heppe, 57-104
1871-73
Hodge, 1:366-441
1878
Dabney, 38-54, 144-74
1887-1921
Warfield, BTS, 505-22; SSW, 1:69-81; ST, 109-14
1889
Shedd, 1:151-94, 334- 92; 3:89-248
1909
Bavinck, DG, 175-251 (this is an exceptionally valuable
discussion of the attributes of God)
1938
Berkhof, 41-81
1962
Buswell, 1:29-71
7. Renewal (or charismatic/Pentecostal)
1988-92 Williams, 1:47-82
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
1. Roman Catholic: Traditional
1955 Ott, 24-49
2. Roman Catholic: Post-Vatican II
1980 McBrien, 1:283-342
Other Works
Bray, Gerald L. The Doctrine of God. Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press, 1993.
Bromiley, G. W. “God” In ISBE, 2:493-503.
Charnock, Stephen. The Existence and Attributes of God . Repr. ed. Evansville, Ind.:
Sovereign Grace Book Club, n.d., pp. 181-802 (first published 1655- 1680).
Kaiser, Christopher B. The Doctrine of God. Westchester, 111.: Good News, 1982.
Lewis, Gordon R. “God, Attributes of.” In EDT, pp. 451-59.
. “Impassibility of God.” In EDT, pp. 553-54.
Packer, 1. 1. “God.” In NDT, pp. 274-77.
. Knowing God. London: Inter- Varsity Press, 1973, pp. 80-254.
Piper, John. Desiring God . Portland, Ore.: Multnomah, 1986.
. The Pleasures of God. Portland, Ore.: Multnomah, 1991.
Saucy, R. L. “God, Doctrine of.” In EDT, pp. 459-64.
Tozer, A. W. The Knowledge of the Holy. New York: Harper and Row, 1961.
Van Til, Cornelius. In Defense of the Faith, vol. 5: An Introduction to Systematic Theology.
Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1976, pp. 200-252.
Wenham, John W. The Goodness of God. London: Inter- Varsity Press, 1974.
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
Psalm 73:25-26: Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing upon earth that I
desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and
my portion for ever.
CHAPTER 13 • COMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD (2)
225
HYMN
“If Thou but Suffer God to Guide Thee”
This is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful hymns ever written that expresses trust
in God for his sovereignty.
If thou but suffer God to guide thee,
And hope in him through all thy ways,
He’ll give thee strength, whate’er betide thee,
And bear thee through the evil days:
Who trusts in God’s unchanging love
Builds on the rock that naught can move.
What can these anxious cares avail thee,
These never-ceasing moans and sighs?
What can it help, if thou bewail thee
O’er each dark moment as it flies?
Our cross and trials do but press
The heavier for our bitterness.
Only be still, and wait his leisure
In cheerful hope, with heart content
To take whate’er thy Father’s pleasure
And all-deserving love hath sent;
Nor doubt our inmost wants are known
To him who chose us for his own.
All are alike before the highest;
’ Tis easy to our God, we know,
To raise thee up though low thou liest,
To make the rich man poor and low;
True wonders still by him are wrought
Who setteth up and brings to naught.
Sing, pray, and keep his ways unswerving,
So do thine own part faithfully,
And trust his Word, though undeserving,
Thou yet shalt find it true for thee;
God never yet forsook at need
The soul that trusted him indeed.
AUTHOR: GEORG NEUMARK, 1641
Alternative hymns: God Moves in a Mysterious Way” (printed at the end of chapter
16); “Crown Him With Many Crowns”
Chapter
GOD IN THREE PERSONS:
THE TRINITY
How can God be three persons, yet one God?
The preceding chapters have discussed many attributes of God. But if we understood
only those attributes, we would not rightly understand God at all, for we would not
understand that God, in his very being, has always existed as more than one person. In
fact, God exists as three persons, yet he is one God.
It is important to remember the doctrine of the Trinity in connection with the study
of God’s attributes. When we think of God as eternal, omnipresent, omnipotent, and so
forth, we may have a tendency to think only of God the Father in connection with these
attributes. But the biblical teaching on the Trinity tells us that all of God’s attributes are
true of all three persons, for each is fully God. Thus, God the Son and God the Holy
Spirit are also eternal, omnipresent, omnipotent, infinitely wise, infinitely holy, infinitely
loving, omniscient, and so forth.
The doctrine of the Trinity is one of the most important doctrines of the Christian
faith. To study the Bible’s teachings on the Trinity gives us great insight into the question
that is at the center of all of our seeking after God: What is God like in himself ? Here
we learn that in himself, in his very being, God exists in the persons of Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit, yet he is one God.
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
We may define the doctrine of the Trinity as follows: God eternally exists as three
persons , Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and each person is fully God, and there is one God .
A. The Doctrine of the Trinity Is Progressively Revealed in Scripture
1. Partial Revelation in the Old Testament. The word trinity is never found in the Bible,
though the idea represented by the word is taught in many places. The word trinity
226
CHAPTER 14 • THE TRINITY
means “tri-unity” or “three-in-oneness.” It is used to summarize the teaching of Scrip-
ture that God is three persons yet one God.
Sometimes people think the doctrine of the Trinity is found only in the New Testa-
ment, not in the Old. If God has eternally existed as three persons, it would be surprising
to find no indications of that in the Old Testament. Although the doctrine of the Trinity
is not explicitly found in the Old Testament, several passages suggest or even imply that
God exists as more than one person.
For instance, according to Genesis 1:26, God said, “Let us make man in our image,
after our likeness.” What do the plural verb (“let us”) and the plural pronoun (“our”)
mean? Some have suggested they are plurals of majesty, a form of speech a king would
use in saying, for example, “We are pleased to grant your request.” 1 However, in Old
Testament Hebrew there are no other examples of a monarch using plural verbs or
plural pronouns of himself in such a “plural of majesty,” so this suggestion has no
evidence to support it. 2 Another suggestion is that God is here speaking to angels.
But angels did not participate in the creation of man, nor was man created in the
image and likeness of angels, so this suggestion is not convincing. The best explana-
tion is that already in the first chapter of Genesis we have an indication of a plurality
of persons in God himself. 3 We are not told how many persons, and we have noth-
ing approaching a complete doctrine of the Trinity, but it is implied that more than
one person is involved. The same can be said of Genesis 3:22 (“Behold, the man has
become like one of us y knowing good and evil”), Genesis 11:7 (“Come, let us go down,
and there confuse their language”), and Isaiah 6:8 (“Whom shall I send, and who will
go for ws?”). (Note the combination of singular and plural in the same sentence in the
last passage.)
Moreover, there are passages where one person is called “God” or “the Lord” and is
distinguished from another person who is also said to be God. In Psalm 45:6-7 (NIV),
the psalmist says, “Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever You love righ-
teousness and hate wickedness; therefore God, your God, has set you above your com-
panions by anointing you with the oil of joy.” Here the psalm passes beyond describing
anything that could be true of an earthly king and calls the king “God” (v. 6), whose
throne will last “forever and ever.” But then, still speaking to the person called “God,”
the author says that “God, your God, has set you above your companions” (v. 7). So two
separate persons are called “God” (Heb. ’ Elohitn ). In the New Testament, the author of
1 Both Alexander the Great (in 152 B.C.) and King Demetrius
(about 145 B.C.) refer to themselves in this way, for example, in
the Septuagint text of 1 Macc. 10:19 and 11:31, but this is in
Greek, not Hebrew, and it is written long after Genesis 1.
2 See E. Kautzsch, ed., Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammary 2d ed.
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1910), Section 124g, n. 2, with ref-
erence to the suggestion of a plural of majesty: “The plural
used by God in Genesis 1:26, 11:7, Isaiah 6:8 has been incor-
rectly explained in this way.” They understand Gen. 1 :26 as “a
plural of self-deliberation.” My own extensive search of sub-
sequent Jewish interpretation in the Babylonian Talmud, the
targumim and the midrashim showed only that later Rabbinic
interpreters were unable to reach agreement on any satisfac-
tory interpretation of this passage, although the “plural of
majesty” and “God speaking to angels” interpretations were
commonly suggested.
3 “The plural ‘We’ was regarded by the fathers and earlier
theologians almost unanimously as indicative of the Trinity”
[Keil and Delitzsch, Old Testament Commentaries (Grand
Rapids: Associated Publishers and Authors, n.d.], 1:48, with
objections to other positions and an affirmation that Gen.
1:26 contains “the truth that lies at the foundation of the
Trinitarian view”).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
228
Hebrews quotes this passage and applies it to Christ: “Your throne, O God, is for ever
and ever” (Heb. 1:8). 4
Similarly, in Psalm 110:1, David says, “The Lord says to my lord: ‘Sit at my right hand
until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet’” (NIV). Jesus rightly understands
that David is referring to two separate persons as “Lord” (Matt. 22:41 -46), but who is
Davids “Lord” if not God himself ? And who could be saying to God, “Sit at my right
hand” except someone else who is also fully God? From a New Testament perspective,
we can paraphrase this verse: “God the Father said to God the Son, ‘Sit at my right
hand.’ ” But even without the New Testament teaching on the Trinity, it seems clear that
David was aware of a plurality of persons in one God. Jesus, of course, understood this,
but when he asked the Pharisees for an explanation of this passage, “no one was able to
answer him a word, nor from that day did any one dare to ask him any more questions”
(Matt. 22:46). Unless they are willing to admit a plurality of persons in one God, Jew-
ish interpreters of Scripture to this day will have no more satisfactory explanation of
Psalm 110:1 (or of Gen. 1:26, or of the other passages just discussed) than they did in
Jesus day.
Isaiah 63:10 says that Gods people “rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit” (NIV),
apparently suggesting both that the Holy Spirit is distinct from God himself (it is “his
Holy Spirit”), and that this Holy Spirit can be “grieved,” thus suggesting emotional
capabilities characteristic of a distinct person. (Isa. 61:1 also distinguishes “The Spirit
of the Lord GOD” from “the Lord,” even though no personal qualities are attributed to
the Spirit of the Lord in that verse.)
Similar evidence is found in Malachi, when the Lord says, “The Lord whom you seek
will suddenly come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight,
behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming,
and who can stand when he appears?” (Mai. 3:1-2). Here again the one speaking (“the
Lord of hosts”) distinguishes himself from “the Lord whom you seek,” suggesting two
separate persons, both of whom can be called “Lord.”
In Hosea 1:7, the Lord is speaking, and says of the house of Judah, “I will deliver them
by the Lord their God,” once again suggesting that more than one person can be called
“Lord” (Heb. Yahweh ) and “God” CElohim ).
4 The RSV translates Ps. 45:6, “Your divine throne endures
forever and ever,” but this is a highly unlikely translation because
it requires understanding the Hebrew noun for “throne” in con-
struct state, something extremely unusual when a noun has a
pronominal suffix, as this one does. The RSV translation would
only be adopted because of a theological assumption (that an
Old Testament psalmist could not predict a fully divine messi-
anic king), but not on the grounds of language or grammar. The
KJV, NIV, and NASB all take the verse in its plain, straightfor-
ward sense, as do the ancient translations and Heb. 1:8. Derek
Kidner, Psalms 1-72 , TOTC (London: Inter-Varsity Press, 1973),
p. 172, says this verse is “an example of Old Testament language
bursting its banks, to demand a more than human fulfillment,”
and “this paradox is consistent with the Incarnation, but
mystifying in any other context ”
Though some ancient kings, such as the Egyptian pha-
raohs, were sometimes addressed as “gods,” this was part of
the falsehood connected with pagan idolatry, and it should
not be confused with Ps. 45, which is part of Scripture and
therefore true.
The suggested translation of Heb. 1:8 in the RSV margin,
“God is your throne forever and ever,” while possible gram-
matically, is completely inconsistent with the thinking of
both Old and New Testaments: the mighty God who created
everything and rules supreme over the universe would never
be merely a “throne” for someone else. The thought itself is
dishonoring to God, and it should certainly not be considered
as a possibly appropriate translation.
CHAPTER 14 • THE TRINITY
And in Isaiah 48:16, the speaker (apparently the servant of the Lord) says, “And now
the Lord GOD has sent me and his Spirit.” 5 Here the Spirit of the Lord, like the servant
of the Lord, has been “sent” by the Lord GOD on a particular mission. The parallel
between the two objects of sending (“me” and “his Spirit”) would be consistent with see-
ing them both as distinct persons: it seems to mean more than simply “the Lord has sent
me and his power.” 6 In fact, from a full New Testament perspective (which recognizes
Jesus the Messiah to be the true servant of the Lord predicted in Isaiah’s prophecies),
Isaiah 48:16 has trinitarian implications: “And now the Lord GOD has sent me and his
Spirit,” if spoken by Jesus the Son of God, refers to all three persons of the Trinity.
Furthermore, several Old Testament passages about “the angel of the Lord” suggest
a plurality of persons in God. The word translated “angel” (Heb. maVak) means simply
“messenger.” If this angel of the Lord is a “messenger” of the Lord, he is then distinct
from the Lord himself. Yet at some points the angel of the Lord is called “God” or “the
Lord” (see Gen. 16:13; Ex. 3:2-6; 23:20-22 [note “my name is in him” in v. 21]; Num.
22:35 with 38; Judg. 2:1-2; 6:11 with 14). At other points in the Old Testament “the
angel of the Lord” simply refers to a created angel, but at least at these texts the special
angel (or messenger”) of the Lord seems to be a distinct person who is fully divine.
One of the most disputed Old Testament texts that could show distinct personality
for more than one person is Proverbs 8:22-31. Although the earlier part of the chapter
could be understood as merely a personification of “wisdom” for literary effect, showing
wisdom calling to the simple and inviting them to learn, vv. 22-31, one could argue, say
things about wisdom” that seem to go far beyond mere personification. Speaking of the
time when God created the earth, “wisdom” says, “Then I was the craftsman at his side.
I was filled with delight day after day, rejoicing always in his presence, rejoicing in his
whole world and delighting in mankind” (Prov. 8:30-31 NIV). To work as a “craftsman”
at God’s side in the creation suggests in itself the idea of distinct personhood, and the
following phrases might seem even more convincing, for only real persons can be “filled
with delight day after day” and can rejoice in the world and delight in mankind. 7
But if we decide that “wisdom” here really refers to the Son of God before he became
man, there is a difficulty. Verses 22—25 (RSV) seem to speak of the creation of this per-
son who is called “wisdom”:
The Lord created me at the beginning of his work,
the first of his acts of old.
Ages ago I was set up,
at the first, before the beginning of the earth.
5 This RSV translation of Isa. 48:16 accurately reproduces
both the literal sense of the Hebrew words and the word order
in the Hebrew text.
6 The NIV translation, “with his Spirit,” is not required by
the Hebrew text and tends to obscure the parallel thoughts
of the Lord sending “me” and “his Spirit.” The word with
in the NIV is the translators* interpretation of the Hebrew
conjunction w* which most commonly means simply “and.” The
common Hebrew word for “with” (* im ) is not in the text.
7 In response to these arguments, one could argue that
there are similarly detailed personifications of wisdom in
Prov. 8:1-12 and 9:1-6, and of foolishness in Prov. 9:13-18,
and no interpreter understands these to be actual persons.
Therefore, Prov. 8:22-31 does not represent an actual per-
son either. This argument seems convincing to me, but I have
included the following paragraph because Prov. 8:22-31 has a
long history of interpreters who think it refers to God the Son.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
230
When there were no depths I was brought forth,
when there were no springs abounding with water.
Before the mountains had been shaped,
before the hills, I was brought forth.
Does this not indicate that this “wisdom” was created?
In fact, it does not. The Hebrew word that commonly means “create” (bara’) is not
used in verse 22; rather the word is qanah y which occurs eighty-four times in the Old
Testament and almost always means “to get, acquire.” The NASB is most clear here:
“The Lord possessed me at the beginning of his way” (similarly KJV). (Note this sense
of the word in Gen. 39:1; Ex. 21:2; Prov. 4:5, 7; 23:23; Eccl. 2:7; Isa. 1:3 [“owner”].) This
is a legitimate sense and, if wisdom is understood as a real person, would mean only
that God the Father began to direct and make use of the powerful creative work of God
the Son at the time creation began 8 : the Father summoned the Son to work with him in
the activity of creation. The expression “brought forth” in verses 24 and 25 is a different
term but could carry a similar meaning: the Father began to direct and make use of the
powerful creative work of the Son in the creation of the universe.
2. More Complete Revelation of the Trinity in the New Testament. When the New
Testament opens, we enter into the history of the coming of the Son of God to earth. It
is to be expected that this great event would be accompanied by more explicit teaching
about the trinitarian nature of God, and that is in fact what we find. Before looking at
this in detail, we can simply list several passages where all three persons of the Trinity
are named together.
When Jesus was baptized, “the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God
descending like a dove, and alighting on him; and lo, a voice from heaven, saying,
‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased*” (Matt. 3:16-17). Here at one
moment we have three members of the Trinity performing three distinct activities. God
the Father is speaking from heaven; God the Son is being baptized and is then spoken
to from heaven by God the Father; and God the Holy Spirit is descending from heaven
to rest upon and empower Jesus for his ministry.
At the end of Jesus* earthly ministry, he tells the disciples that they should go “and
make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son
and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:19). The very names “Father” and “Son,” drawn as they
are from the family, the most familiar of human institutions, indicate very strongly the
distinct personhood of both the Father and the Son. When “the Holy Spirit” is put in
the same expression and on the same level as the other two persons, it is hard to avoid
the conclusion that the Holy Spirit is also viewed as a person and of equal standing with
the Father and the Son.
8 The confusion surrounding the translation of the verse
seems to have been caused by the unusual translation of
the Septuagint, which used ktizo (“create”) rather than the
usual translation ktaomai (“acquire, take possession of”) to
translate the Hebrew term at this verse. Qanah occurs eighty-
four times in the Hebrew Old Testament and is translated more
than seventy times by ktaomai , but only three times by ktizo
(Gen. 14:19; Prov. 8:22; Jer. 39(32):15), all of which are ques-
tionable translations. The other Greek translations of the Old
Testament by Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotian all have
ktaomai at Prov. 8:22.
CHAPTER 14 • THE TRINITY
When we realize that the New Testament authors generally use the name “God” (Gk.
theos) to refer to God the Father and the name “Lord” (Gk. kyrios) to refer to God the
Son, then it is clear that there is another trinitarian expression in 1 Corinthians 12:4-6:
“Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service,
but the same Lord; and there are varieties of working, but it is the same God who inspires
them all in every one.”
Similarly, the last verse of 2 Corinthians is trinitarian in its expression: “The grace of
the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you
all (2 Cor. 13:14). We see the three persons mentioned separately in Ephesians 4:4—6
as well: “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that
belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, who
is above all and through all and in all.”
All three persons of the Trinity are mentioned together in the opening sentence of
1 Peter: According to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of
the Spirit, that you may obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with his blood” (1 Peter 1:2
NASB). And in Jude 20—21, we read: “But you, beloved, build yourselves up on your
most holy faith; pray in the Holy Spirit; keep yourselves in the love of God; wait for the
mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.”
However, the KJV translation of 1 John 5:7 should not be used in this connection. It
reads, “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy
Ghost: and these three are one.”
The problem with this translation is that it is based on a very small number of unreli-
able Greek manuscripts, the earliest of which comes from the fourteenth century A.D.
No modern translation (except nkjv) includes this KJV reading, but all omit it, as do
the vast majority of Greek manuscripts from all major text traditions, including several
very reliable manuscripts from the fourth and fifth century A.D., and also including
quotations by church fathers such as Irenaeus (d. ca. A.D. 202), Clement of Alexandria
(d. ca. A.D. 212), Tertullian (died after A.D. 220), and the great defender of the Trinity,
Athanasius (d. A.D. 373).
B. Three Statements Summarize the Biblical Teaching
In one sense the doctrine of the Trinity is a mystery that we will never be able to
understand fully. However, we can understand something of its truth by summarizing
the teaching of Scripture in three statements:
1. God is three persons.
2. Each person is fully God.
3. There is one God.
The following section will develop each of these statements in more detail.
1. God Is Three Persons. The fact that God is three persons means that the Father is not
the Son; they are distinct persons. It also means that the Father is not the Holy Spirit,
but that they are distinct persons. And it means that the Son is not the Holy Spirit. These
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
232
distinctions are seen in a number of the passages quoted in the earlier section as well as
in many additional New Testament passages.
John 1:1-2 tells us: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.” The fact that the “Word”
(who is seen to be Christ in vv. 9- 18) is “with” God shows distinction from God the
Father. In John 17:24 (NIV), Jesus speaks to God the Father about “my glory, the glory
you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world,” thus showing
distinction of persons, sharing of glory, and a relationship of love between the Father
and the Son before the world was created.
We are told that Jesus continues as our High Priest and Advocate before God the
Father: “If any one does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righ-
teous” (1 John 2:1). Christ is the one who “is able for all time to save those who draw
near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them” (Heb.
7:25). Yet in order to intercede for us before God the Father, it is necessary that Christ
be a person distinct from the Father.
Moreover, the Father is not the Holy Spirit, and the Son is not the Holy Spirit. They
are distinguished in several verses. Jesus says, “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom
the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remem-
brance all that I have said to you” (John 14:26). The Holy Spirit also prays or “inter-
cedes” for us (Rom. 8:27), indicating a distinction between the Holy Spirit and God the
Father to whom the intercession is made.
Finally, the fact that the Son is not the Holy Spirit is also indicated in the several
trinitarian passages mentioned earlier, such as the Great Commission (Matt. 28:19), and
in passages that indicate that Christ went back to heaven and then sent the Holy Spirit to
the church. Jesus said, “It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the
Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you” (John 16:7).
Some have questioned whether the Holy Spirit is indeed a distinct person, rather than
just the “power” or “force” of God at work in the world. But the New Testament evidence
is quite clear and strong. 9 First are the several verses mentioned earlier where the Holy
Spirit is put in a coordinate relationship with the Father and the Son (Matt. 28:19; 1 Cor.
12:4-6; 2 Cor. 13:14; Eph. 4:4-6; 1 Peter 1:2): since the Father and Son are both per-
sons, the coordinate expression strongly intimates that the Holy Spirit is a person also.
Then there are places where the masculine pronoun he (Gk. ekeinos) is applied to the
Holy Spirit (John 14:26; 15:26; 16:13 - 14), which one would not expect from the rules of
Greek grammar, for the word “ spirit ” (Gk. pneuma) is neuter, not masculine, and would
ordinarily be referred to with the neuter pronoun ekeino. Moreover, the name counselor
or comforter (Gk. parakletos) is a term commonly used to speak of a person who helps or
gives comfort or counsel to another person or persons, but is used of the Holy Spirit in
Johns gospel (14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7).
Other personal activities are ascribed to the Holy Spirit, such as teaching (John
14:26), bearing witness (John 15:26; Rom. 8:16), interceding or praying on behalf of
9 The following section on the distinct personality of the
Holy Spirit follows quite closely the excellent material in Louis
Berkhof, Systematic Theology, p. 96.
CHAPTER 14 • THE TRINITY
others (Rom. 8:26—27), searching the depths of God (1 Cor. 2:10), knowing the thoughts
of God (1 Cor. 2:11), willing to distribute some gifts to some and other gifts to others
(1 Cor. 12:11), forbidding or not allowing certain activities (Acts 16:6-7), speaking
(Acts 8:29; 13:2; and many times in both Old and New Testaments), evaluating and
approving a wise course of action (Acts 15:28), and being grieved by sin in the lives of
Christians (Eph. 4:30).
Finally, if the Holy Spirit is understood simply to be the power of God, rather than
a distinct person, then a number of passages would simply not make sense, because
in them the Holy Spirit and his power or the power of God are both mentioned. For
example, Luke 4:14, “And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee,” would
have to mean, “Jesus returned in the power of the power of God into Galilee.” In Acts
10:38, God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power,” would
mean, “God anointed Jesus with the power of God and with power” (see also Rom.
15:13; 1 Cor. 2:4).
Although so many passages clearly distinguish the Holy Spirit from the other mem-
bers of the Trinity, one puzzling verse has been 2 Corinthians 3:17: “Now the Lord is the
Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” Interpreters often assume
that “the Lord” here must mean Christ, because Paul frequently uses “the Lord” to
refer to Christ. But that is probably not the case here, for a good argument can be made
from grammar and context to say that this verse is better translated with the Holy Spirit
as subject, “Now the Spirit is the Lord ” 10 In this case, Paul would be saying that
the Holy Spirit is also “Yahweh” (or “Jehovah”), the Lord of the Old Testament (note
the clear Old Testament background of this context, beginning at v. 7). Theologically
this would be quite acceptable, for it could truly be said that just as God the Father is
“Lord” and God the Son is “Lord” (in the full Old Testament sense of “Lord” as a name
for God), so also the Holy Spirit is the one called “Lord” in the Old Testament— and
it is the Holy Spirit who especially manifests the presence of the Lord to us in the new
covenant age. 11
2. Each Person Is Fully God. In addition to the fact that all three persons are distinct,
the abundant testimony of Scripture is that each person is fully God as well.
First, God the Father is clearly God. This is evident from the first verse of the Bible,
where God created the heaven and the earth. It is evident through the Old and New
Testaments, where God the Father is clearly viewed as sovereign Lord over all and where
Jesus prays to his Father in heaven.
‘“Grammatically both “the Spirit” (to pneuma) and “the
Lord” {ho kyrios ) are in the nominative case, which is the case
taken both by the subject and by the predicate noun in a sen-
tence with the verb “to be.” And word order does not indicate
the subject in Greek as it does in English. The definite article
(ho, “the”) before “Lord” here is probably anaphoric (that is, it
refers back to the previous mention of “Lord” in v. 16 and says
that the Spirit is “the Lord” who was just mentioned in the pre-
vious sentence). (See Murray Harris, “2 Corinthians,” in EBC
10:338-39.)
“Another possible interpretation is to say that this is speak-
ing of the function of Christ and the function of the Holy Spirit
as so closely related in the New Testament age that they can be
spoken of as one in purpose. The verse would then mean some-
thing like “The Lord Jesus is in this age seen and known through
the activity of the Holy Spirit, for the Holy Spirit’s function is to
glorify Christ.” But this is a less persuasive interpretation, since
it seems unlikely that Paul would speak of an identity of func-
tion in such an obscure way, or even that Paul would want to say
that the work of Christ and the work of the Spirit are identical.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
234
Next, the Son is fully God . Although this point will be developed in greater detail in
chapter 26, “The Person of Christ,” we can briefly note several explicit passages at this
point. John 1:1-4 clearly affirms the full deity of Christ:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word
was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through
him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life,
and the life was the light of men.
Here Christ is referred to as “the Word,” and John says both that he was “with God”
and that he “was God.” The Greek text echoes the opening words of Genesis 1:1 (“In
the beginning . . .”) and reminds us that John is talking about something that was true
before the world was made. God the Son was always fully God.
The translation “the Word was God” has been challenged by the Jehovah’s Witnesses,
who translate it “the Word was a god,” implying that the Word was simply a heavenly
being but not fully divine. They justify this translation by pointing to the fact that the
definite article (Gk. ho, “the”) does not occur before the Greek word theos (“God”). They
say therefore that theos should be translated “a god.” However, their interpretation has
been followed by no recognized Greek scholar anywhere, for it is commonly known that
the sentence follows a regular rule of Greek grammar, and the absence of the definite
article merely indicates that “God” is the predicate rather than the subject of the sen-
tence. 12 (A recent publication by the Jehovah’s Witnesses now acknowledges the relevant
grammatical rule but continues to affirm their position on John 1:1 nonetheless.) 13
12 This rule (called “Colwell’s rule”) is covered as early as
chapter 6 of a standard introductory Greek grammar: See John
Wenham, The Elements of New Testament Greek (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1965), p. 35; also, BDF, 273. The
rule is simply that in sentences with the linking verb “to be”
(such as Gk. eimi), a definite predicate noun will usually drop
the definite article when it precedes the verb, but the subject
of the sentence, if definite, will retain the definite article. So if
John had wanted to say, “The Word was God,” John 1 : 1 is exactly
the way he would have said it. (Recent grammatical study has
confirmed and even strengthened Colwell’s original rule: see
Lane C. McGaughy, Toward a Descriptive Analysis ofEINAI as a
Linking Verb in the New Testament [SBLDS 6; Missoula, Mont.:
SBL, 1972], esp. pp. 49-53, 73-77; and the important review of
this book by E. V. N. Goetchius in JBL 95 [1976] : 147-49.)
Of course, if John had wanted to say, “The Word was a
god” (with an indefinite predicate, “a god”), it would also have
been written this way, since there would have been no definite
article to drop in the first place. But if that were the case, there
would have to be some clues in the context that John was using
the word theos to speak of a heavenly being that was not fully
divine. So the question becomes, what kind of God (or “god”)
is John talking about in this context? Is he speaking of the one
true God who created the heavens and the earth? In that case,
theos was definite and dropped the definite article to show
that it was the predicate noun. Or is he speaking about some
other kind of heavenly being (“a god”) who is not the one true
God? In that case, theos was indefinite and never had a definite
article in the first place.
The context decides this question clearly. From the other
uses of the word theos to mean “God” in vv. 1, 2, 6, 12, 13, et
al., and from the opening words that recall Gen. 1:1 (“In the
beginning”), it is clear that John is speaking of the one true
God who created the heavens and the earth. That means that
theos in v. 2 must be understood to refer to that same God
as well.
13 The argument is found in a detailed, rather extensive
attack on the doctrine of the Trinity: Should You Believe in the
Trinity ? (no author named; Brooklyn, N.Y.: Watchtower Bible
and Tract Society, 1989). This group apparently deems this
booklet a significant statement of their position, for page 2
states, “First printing in English: 5,000,000 copies.” The book-
let first advances the traditional argument that John 1:1 should
be translated “a god” because of the absence on the definite
article (p. 27). But then it later acknowledges that Colwell’s rule
is relevant for John 1:1 (p. 28) and there admits that the context,
not the absence of the definite article, determines whether we
should translate “the Word was God” (definite) or “the Word
was a god” (indefinite). Then it argues as follows: “. . . when the
context requires it, translators may insert an indefinite article
in front of the noun in this type of sentence structure. Does the
CHAPTER 14 • THE TRINITY
The inconsistency of the Jehovah s Witnesses’ position can further be seen in their
translation of the rest of the chapter. For various other grammatical reasons the word
theos also lacks the definite article at other places in this chapter, such as verse 6 (“There
was a man sent from God”), verse 12 (“power to become children of God”), verse 13
(“but of God”), and verse 18 (“No one has ever seen God”). If the Jehovah’s Witnesses
were consistent with their argument about the absence of the definite article, they would
have to translate all of these with the phrase “a god,” but they translate “God” in every
case.
John 20:28 in its context is also a strong proof for the deity of Christ. Thomas had
doubted the reports of the other disciples that they had seen Jesus raised from the dead,
and he said he would not believe unless he could see the nail prints in Jesus’ hands and
place his hand in his wounded side (John 20:25). Then Jesus appeared to the disciples
when Thomas was with them. He said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my
hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side; do not be faithless, but believ-
ing (John 20:27). In response to this, we read, “Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and
my God!’” (John 20:28). Here Thomas calls Jesus “my God.” The narrative shows that
both John in writing his gospel and Jesus himself approve of what Thomas has said and
encourage everyone who hears about Thomas to believe the same things that Thomas
did. Jesus immediately responds to Thomas, “Have you believed because you have seen
me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe” (John 20:29). As far as John
is concerned, this is the dramatic high point of the gospel, for he immediately tells the
reader— in the very next verse— that this was the reason he wrote it:
Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are
not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus
is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name
(John 20:30-31)
Jesus speaks of those who will not see him and will yet believe, and John immediately
tells the reader that he recorded the events written in his gospel in order that they may
believe in just this way, imitating Thomas in his confession of faith. In other words, the
entire gospel is written to persuade people to imitate Thomas, who sincerely called Jesus
“My Lord and my God.” Because this is set out by John as the purpose of his gospel, the
sentence takes on added force. 14
context require an indefinite article at John 1:1? Yes, for the tes-
timony of the entire Bible is that Jesus is not Almighty God”
(P- 28).
We should note carefully the weakness of this argument:
They admit that context is decisive, but then they quote not
one shred of evidence from the context of John 1:1. Rather,
they simply assert again their conclusion about “the entire
Bible .” If they agree that this context is decisive, but they can
find nothing in this context that supports their view, they have
simply lost the argument. Therefore, having acknowledged
Colwell’s rule, they still hold their view on John 1:1, but with
no supporting evidence. To hold a view with no evidence to
support it is simply irrationality.
The booklet as a whole will give an appearance of scholarly
work to laypersons, since it quotes dozens of theologians and
academic reference works (always without adequate documen-
tation). However, many quotations are taken out of context
and made to say something the authors never intended, and
others are from liberal Catholic or Protestant scholars who
themselves are questioning both the doctrine of the Trinity
and the truthfulness of the Bible.
14 The Jehovah’s Witnesses’ booklet Should You Believe in
the Trinity ? offers two explanations for John 20:28: (1) “To
Thomas, Jesus was like ‘a god,’ especially in the miraculous
circumstances that prompted his exclamation” (p. 29). But this
explanation is unconvincing, because Thomas did not say, “You
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
236
Other passages speaking of Jesus as fully divine include Hebrews 1:3, where the author
says that Christ is the “exact representation” (Gk. charakter , “exact duplicate”) of the
nature or being (Gk. hypostasis) of God — meaning that God the Son exactly duplicates
the being or nature of God the Father in everyway: whatever attributes or power God the
Father has, God the Son has them as well. The author goes on to refer to the Son as “God”
in verse 8 (“But of the Son he says, ‘Your throne, O God, is for ever and ever ”), and he
attributes the creation of the heavens to Christ when he says of him, “You, Lord, did
found the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the work of your hands” (Heb. 1:10,
quoting Ps. 102:25). Titus 2:13 refers to “our great God and Savior Jesus Christ,” and 2
Peter 1:1 speaks of “the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ.” 15 Romans 9:5,
speaking of the Jewish people, says, “Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced
the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen” (NIV). 16
In the Old Testament, Isaiah 9:6 predicts,
“For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given;
and the government will be upon his shoulder,
are like a god but rather called Jesus “my God ” The Greek text
has the definite article (it cannot be translated “a god”) and is
explicit: ho theos mou is not “a god of mine” but “my God.”
(2) The second explanation offered is that “Thomas may
simply have made an emotional exclamation of astonishment,
spoken to Jesus but directed to God” (ibid.). The second part
of this sentence, “spoken to Jesus but directed to God,” is
simply incoherent: it seems to mean, “spoken to Jesus but not
spoken to Jesus,” which is not only self-contradictory, but also
impossible: if Thomas is speaking to Jesus he is also directing
his words to Jesus. The first part of this sentence, the claim
that Thomas is really not calling Jesus “God,” but is merely
swearing or uttering some involuntary words of exclamation,
is without merit, for the verse makes it clear that Thomas
was not speaking into the blue but was speaking directly to
Jesus: “Thomas answered and said to Him, ‘My Lord and my
God!’-” (John 20:28, NASB). And immediately both Jesus
and John in his writing commend Thomas, certainly not for
swearing but for believing in Jesus as his Lord and his God.
15 Both Titus 2:13 and 2 Peter 1:1 have marginal readings
in the RSV whereby Jesus is referred to as a different person
than “God” and therefore is not called God: “the great God
and our Savior Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13 mg.) and “our God
and the Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 1:1 mg.). These alterna-
tive translations are possible grammatically but are unlikely.
Both verses have the same Greek construction, in which one
definite article governs two nouns joined by the Greek word
for and ( kai ). In all cases where this construction is found the
two nouns are viewed as unified in some way, and often they
are two separate names for the same person or thing. Espe-
cially significant is 2 Peter 1:1, for exactly the same construc-
tion is used by Peter three other times in this book to speak of
“Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 1:11; 2:20; 3:18).
In these three other verses, the Greek wording is exactly the
same in every detail except that the word Lord ( kyrios ) is used
instead of the word God (theos). If these other three instances
are all translated “Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,” as they
are in all major translations, then consistency in translation
would seem to require the translation of 2 Peter 1 : 1 as “Our
God and Savior Jesus Christ,” again referring to Christ as God.
In Titus 2:13 Paul is writing about the hope of Christ’s second
coming, which the New Testament writers consistently speak
of in terms that emphasize the manifestation of Jesus Christ in
his glory, not in terms that emphasize the glory of the Father.
16 The marginal reading in the NIV is similar to the read-
ing in the main text of the RSV, which is, “and of their race,
according to the flesh, is the Christ. God who is over all be
blessed for ever. Amen” (Rom. 9:5 RSV). But this transla-
tion is far less likely on grammatical and contextual grounds
and is justified primarily by arguing that Paul would not have
referred to Christ as “God.” The NIV translation, which refers
to Christ as “God over all,” is preferable because (1) Paul’s nor-
mal pattern is to declare a word of blessing concerning the per-
son about whom he has just been speaking, who in this case
is Christ; (2) the Greek participle on, “being,” which makes
the phrase say literally, “who, being God over all is blessed
forever,” would be redundant if Paul were starting a new sen-
tence as the RSV has it; (3) when Paul elsewhere begins a new
sentence with a word of blessing to God, the word “blessed”
comes first in the Greek sentence (see 2 Cor. 1:3; Eph. 1:3; cf.
Peter’s pattern in 1 Peter 1:3), but here the expression does not
follow that pattern, making the RSV translation unlikely. See
Donald Guthrie, New Testament Theology (Leicester: Inter-
Varsity Press, 1981), pp. 339-40. For a definitive treatment
of all the New Testament texts that refer to Jesus as “God,”
see Murray Harris, Jesus as God (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992).
CHAPTER 14 • THE TRINITY
237
and his name will be called
‘Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God.’ ”
As this prophecy is applied to Christ, it refers to him as “Mighty God.” Note the similar
application of the titles ‘Lord” and “God” in the prophecy of the coming of the Messiah
in Isaiah 40:3, “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the
desert a highway for our God,” quoted by John the Baptist in preparation for the coming
of Christ in Matthew 3:3.
Many other passages will be discussed in chapter 26 below, but these should be suf-
ficient to demonstrate that the New Testament clearly refers to Christ as fully God. As
Paul says in Colossians 2:9, In him the whole fulness of deity dwells bodily.”
Next, the Holy Spirit is also fully God. Once we understand God the Father and God
the Son to be fully God, then the trinitarian expressions in verses like Matthew 28:19
(“baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”)
assume significance for the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, because they show that the Holy
Spirit is classified on an equal level with the Father and the Son. This can be seen if we
recognize how unthinkable it would have been for Jesus to say something like, “baptiz-
ing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the archangel Michael” — this
would give to a created being a status entirely inappropriate even to an archangel. Believ-
ers throughout all ages can only be baptized into the name (and thus into a taking on
of the character) of God himself. 17 (Note also the other trinitarian passages mentioned
above: 1 Cor. 12:4-6; 2 Cor. 13:14; Eph. 4:4-6; 1 Peter 1:2; Jude 20-21.)
In Acts 5:3—4, Peter asks Ananias, “Why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy
Spirit . . . ? You have not lied to men but to God.” According to Peter’s words, to lie to the
Holy Spirit is to lie to God. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3:16, “Do you not know that you
are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” God’s temple is the place where
God himself dwells, which Paul explains by the fact that “God’s Spirit” dwells in it, thus
apparently equating God’s Spirit with God himself.
David asks in Psalm 139:7—8, ‘Whither shall I go from your Spirit? Or whither shall
I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there!” This passage attributes
the divine characteristic of omnipresence to the Holy Spirit, something that is not true
of any of God’s creatures. It seems that David is equating God’s Spirit with God’s pres-
ence. To go from God’s Spirit is to go from his presence, but if there is nowhere that
David can flee from God’s Spirit, then he knows that wherever he goes he will have to
say, “You are there.”
Paul attributes the divine characteristic of omniscience to the Holy Spirit in 1 Corinthi-
ans 2:10-11: “For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For what person
knows a man’s thoughts except the spirit of the man which is in him? So also no one com-
prehends the thoughts of God [Gk., literally ‘the things of God’] except the Spirit of God.”
17 1 Tim. 5:21 should not be seen as a counter example to this
claim, for there Paul is simply warning Timothy in the presence
of a host of heavenly witnesses, both divine and angelic, who he
knows are watching Timothy’s conduct. This is similar to the
mention of God and Christ and the angels of heaven and the
“spirits of just men made perfect” in Heb. 12:22-24, where a
great heavenly assembly is mentioned. 1 Tim. 5:21 should there-
fore be seen as significantly different from the trinitarian pas-
sages mentioned above, since those passages speak of uniquely
divine activities, such as distributing gifts to every Christian (1
Cor. 12:4-6) or having the name into which all believers are
baptized (Matt. 28:19).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
238
Moreover, the activity of giving new birth to everyone who is born again is the work
of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, “unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter
the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of
the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born anew’ ” (John
3:5-7). But the work of giving new spiritual life to people when they become Christians
is something that only God can do (cf. 1 John 3:9, “born of God”). This passage there-
fore gives another indication that the Holy Spirit is fully God.
Up to this point we have two conclusions, both abundantly taught throughout
Scripture:
1. God is three persons.
2. Each person is fully God.
If the Bible taught only these two facts, there would be no logical problem at all in fitting
them together, for the obvious solution would be that there are three Gods. The Father
is fully God, the Son is fully God, and the Holy Spirit is fully God. We would have a sys-
tem where there are three equally divine beings. Such a system of belief would be called
polytheism — or, more specifically, “tritheism ,” or belief in three Gods. But that is far
from what the Bible teaches.
3. There Is One God. Scripture is abundantly clear that there is one and only one God.
The three different persons of the Trinity are one not only in purpose and in agreement
on what they think, but they are one in essence, one in their essential nature. In other
words, God is only one being. There are not three Gods. There is only one God.
One of the most familiar passages of the Old Testament is Deuteronomy 6:4-5
(NIV): “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God
with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.”
When Moses sings,
“Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods?
Who is like you, majestic in holiness,
terrible in glorious deeds, doing wonders?” (Ex. 15:11)
the answer obviously is “No one.” God is unique, and there is no one like him and there
can be no one like him. In fact, Solomon prays “that all the peoples of the earth may
know that the Lord is God; there is no other” (1 Kings 8:60).
When God speaks, he repeatedly makes it clear that he is the only true God; the idea
that there are three Gods to be worshiped rather than one would be unthinkable in the
light of these extremely strong statements. God alone is the one true God and there is
no one like him. When he speaks, he alone is speaking — he is not speaking as one God
among three who are to be worshiped. He says:
“I am the Lord, and there is no other,
besides me there is no God;
I gird you, though you do not know me,
that men may know, from the rising of the sun
and from the west, that there is none besides me;
I am the Lord, and there is no other” (Isa. 45:5-6)
CHAPTER 14 • THE TRINITY
239
Similarly, he calls everyone on earth to turn to him:
“There is no other god besides me,
a righteous God and a Savior;
there is none besides me.
“Turn to me and be saved,
all the ends of the earth!
For I am God, and there is no other.”
(Isa. 45:21-22; cf. 44:6-8)
The New Testament also affirms that there is one God. Paul writes, “For there is one
God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim.
2:5). Paul affirms that “God is one” (Rom. 3:30), and that “there is one God, the Father,
from whom are all things and for whom we exist” (1 Cor. 8:6). 18 Finally, James acknowl-
edges that even demons recognize that there is one God, even though their intellectual
assent to that fact is not enough to save them: “You believe that God is one; you do well.
Even the demons believe and shudder” (James 2:19). But clearly James affirms that
one “does well” to believe that “God is one.”
4. Simplistic Solutions Must All Deny One Strand of Biblical Teaching. We now have
three statements, all of which are taught in Scripture:
1. God is three persons.
2. Each person is fully God.
3. There is one God.
Throughout the history of the church there have been attempts to come up with a simple
solution to the doctrine of the Trinity by denying one or another of these statements.
If someone denies the first statement, then we are simply left with the fact that each of
the persons named in Scripture (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) is God, and there is one
God. But if we do not have to say that they are distinct persons, then there is an easy
solution: these are just different names for one person who acts differently at different
times. Sometimes this person calls himself Father, sometimes he calls himself Son, and
sometimes he calls himself Spirit. 19 We have no difficulty in understanding that, for in
our own experience the same person can act at one time as a lawyer (for example), at
another time as a father to his own children, and at another time as a son with respect
to his parents: The same person is a lawyer, a father, and a son. But such a solution would
deny the fact that the three persons are distinct individuals, that God the Father sends
God the Son into the world, that the Son prays to the Father, and that the Holy Spirit
intercedes before the Father for us.
18 1 Cor. 8:6 does not deny that God the Son and God the
Holy Spirit are also “God,” but here Paul says that God the
Father is identified as this “one God.” Elsewhere, as we have
seen, he can speak of God the Son and God the Holy Spirit as
also “God.” Moreover, in this same verse, he goes on to speak
of “one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and
through whom we exist.” He is here using the word Lord in its
full Old Testament sense of “Yahweh” as a name for God, and
saying that this is the person through whom all things were
created, thus affirming the full deity of Christ as well, but with
a different name. Thus this verse affirms both the unity of
God and the diversity of persons in God.
19 The technical name for this view is modalism, a heresy
condemned in the ancient church: see discussion below.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
240
Another simple solution might be found by denying the second statement , that is, deny-
ing that some of the persons named in Scripture are really fully God. If we simply hold
that God is three persons, and that there is one God, then we might be tempted to say
that some of the “persons” in this one God are not fully God, but are only subordinate or
created parts of God. This solution would be taken, for example, by those who deny the
full deity of the Son (and of the Holy Spirit). 20 But, as we saw above, this solution would
have to deny an entire category of biblical teaching.
Finally, as we noted above, a simple solution could come by denying that there is one God .
But this would result in a belief in three Gods, something clearly contrary to Scripture.
Though the third error has not been common, as we shall see below, each of the first
two errors has appeared at one time or another in the history of the church and they still
persist today in some groups.
5. All Analogies Have Shortcomings. If we cannot adopt any of these simple solutions,
then how can we put the three truths of Scripture together and maintain the doctrine of
the Trinity? Sometimes people have used several analogies drawn from nature or human
experience to attempt to explain this doctrine. Although these analogies are helpful at an
elementary level of understanding, they all turn out to be inadequate or misleading on fur-
ther reflection. To say, for example, that God is like a three-leaf clover, which has three parts
yet remains one clover, fails because each leaf is only part of the clover, and any one leaf can-
not be said to be the whole clover. But in the Trinity, each of the persons is not just a separate
part of God, each person is fully God. Moreover, the leaf of a clover is impersonal and does
not have distinct and complex personality in the way each person of the Trinity does.
Others have used the analogy of a tree with three parts: the roots, trunk, and branches
all constitute one tree. But a similar problem arises, for these are only parts of a tree,
and none of the parts can be said to be the whole tree. Moreover, in this analogy the
parts have different properties, unlike the persons of the Trinity, all of whom possess all
of the attributes of God in equal measure. And the lack of personality in each part is a
deficiency as well.
The analogy of the three forms of water (steam, water, and ice) is also inadequate
because (a) no quantity of water is ever all three of these at the same time, 21 (b) they have
different properties or characteristics, (c) the analogy has nothing that corresponds to
the fact that there is only one God (there is no such thing as “one water” or “all the water
in the universe”), and (d) the element of intelligent personality is lacking.
Other analogies have been drawn from human experience. It might be said that the
Trinity is something like a man who is both a farmer, the mayor of his town, and an
elder in his church. He functions in different roles at different times, but he is one man.
However, this analogy is very deficient because there is only one person doing these three
activities at different times, and the analogy cannot deal with the personal interaction
20 The technical name for this view is Arianism, another ice can all exist simultaneously, but even then the quantity
heresy condemned in the ancient church: see discussion below. of water that is steam is not ice or liquid, the quantity that is
21 There is a certain atmospheric condition (called the liquid is not steam or ice, etc.
“triple point” by chemists) at which steam, liquid water, and
CHAPTER 14 • THE TRINITY
among the members of the Trinity. (In fact, this analogy simply teaches the heresy called
modalism, discussed below.)
Another analogy taken from human life is the union of the intellect, the emotions,
and the will in one human person. While these are parts of a personality, however, no
one factor constitutes the entire person. And the parts are not identical in characteristics
but have different abilities.
So what analogy shall we use to teach the Trinity? Although the Bible uses many
analogies from nature and life to teach us various aspects of God’s character (God is like
a rock in his faithfulness, he is like a shepherd in his care, etc.), it is interesting that Scrip-
ture nowhere uses any analogies to teach the doctrine of the Trinity. The closest we come
to an analogy is found in the titles “Father” and “Son” themselves, titles that clearly speak
of distinct persons and of the close relationship that exists between them in a human
family. But on the human level, of course, we have two entirely separate human beings,
not one being comprised of three distinct persons. It is best to conclude that no analogy
adequately teaches about the Trinity, and all are misleading in significant ways.
6. God Eternally and Necessarily Exists as the Trinity. When the universe was created
God the Father spoke the powerful creative words that brought it into being, God the
Son was the divine agent who carried out these words (John 1:3; 1 Cor. 8:6; Col. 1:16;
Heb. 1:2), and God the Holy Spirit was active “moving over the face of the waters” (Gen.
1 :2) . So it is as we would expect: if all three members of the Trinity are equally and fully
divine, then they have all three existed for all eternity, and God has eternally existed
as a Trinity (cf. also John 17:5, 24). Moreover, God cannot be other than he is, for he
is unchanging (see chapter 11 above). Therefore it seems right to conclude that God
necessarily exists as a Trinity — he cannot be other than he is.
C. Errors Have Come By Denying Any of the Three Statements Summarizing
the Biblical Teaching
In the previous section we saw how the Bible requires that we affirm the following
three statements:
1. God is three persons.
2. Each person is fully God.
3. There is one God.
Before we discuss further the differences between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and
the way they relate to one another, it is important that we recall some of the doctrinal
errors about the Trinity that have been made in the history of the church. In this histori-
cal survey we will see some of the mistakes that we ourselves should avoid in any further
thinking about this doctrine. In fact, the major trinitarian errors that have arisen have
come through a denial of one or another of these three primary statements. 22
22 An excellent discussion of the history and theologi- of Christ in the Mirror of Heresy and Orthodoxy from the
cal implications of the trinitarian heresies discussed in this Apostles to the Present (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1984),
section is found in Harold O. J. Brown, Heresies: The Image pp. 95- 157.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1. Modalism Claims That There Is One Person Who Appears to Us in Three Different
Forms (or “Modes”). At various times people have taught that God is not really three
distinct persons, but only one person who appears to people in different “modes” at dif-
ferent times. For example, in the Old Testament God appeared as “Father.” Throughout
the Gospels, this same divine person appeared as “the Son” as seen in the human life
and ministry of Jesus. After Pentecost, this same person then revealed himself as the
“Spirit” active in the church.
This teaching is also referred to by two other names. Sometimes it is called Sabel-
lianism, after a teacher named Sabellius who lived in Rome in the early third century
A.D. Another term for modalism is “modalistic monarchianism,” because this teaching
not only says that God revealed himself in different “modes” but it also says that there
is only one supreme ruler (“monarch”) in the universe and that is God himself, who
consists of only one person.
Modalism gains its attractiveness from the desire to emphasize clearly the fact that
there is only one God. It may claim support not only from the passages talking about
one God, but also from passages such as John 10:30 (“I and the Father are one”) and
John 14:9 (“He who has seen me has seen the Father”). However, the last passage can
simply mean that Jesus fully reveals the character of God the Father, and the former
passage (John 10:30), in a context in which Jesus affirms that he will accomplish all that
the Father has given him to do and save all whom the Father has given to him, seems to
mean that Jesus and the Father are one in purpose (though it may also imply oneness
of essence).
The fatal shortcoming of modalism is the fact that it must deny the personal relation-
ships within the Trinity that appear in so many places in Scripture (or it must affirm that
these were simply an illusion and not real). Thus, it must deny three separate persons at
the baptism of Jesus, where the Father speaks from heaven and the Spirit descends on
Jesus like a dove. And it must say that all those instances where Jesus is praying to the
Father are an illusion or a charade. The idea of the Son or the Holy Spirit interceding
for us before God the Father is lost. Finally, modalism ultimately loses the heart of the
doctrine of the atonement — that is, the idea that God sent his Son as a substitution-
ary sacrifice, and that the Son bore the wrath of God in our place, and that the Father,
representing the interests of the Trinity, saw the suffering of Christ and was satisfied
(Isa. 53:11).
Moreover, modalism denies the independence of God, for if God is only one person,
then he has no ability to love and to communicate without other persons in his creation.
Therefore it was necessary for God to create the world, and God would no longer be
independent of creation (see chapter 12, above, on God’s independence).
One present denomination within Protestantism (broadly defined), the United
Pentecostal Church, is modalistic in its doctrinal position. 23
23 Some of the leaders who formed this group had earlier
been forced out of the Assemblies of God when the Assemblies
decided to insist on a trinitarian statement of faith for its min-
isters in 1916. The United Pentecostal Church is sometimes
identified with the slogan “Jesus only,” and it insists that people
should be baptized in the name of Jesus, not in the name of the
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Because of its denial of the three
distinct persons in God, the denomination should not be con-
sidered to be evangelical, and it is doubtful whether it should be
considered genuinely Christian at all.
CHAPTER 14 • THE TRINITY
2. Arianism Denies the Full Deity of the Son and the Holy Spirit.
243
a. The Arian Controversy: The term Arianism is derived from Arius, a presbyter (elder)
of Alexandria whose views were condemned at the Council of Nicea in A.D. 325, and
who died in A.D. 336. Arius taught that God the Son was at one point created by God
the Father, and that before that time the Son did not exist, nor did the Holy Spirit, but
the Father only. Thus, though the Son is a heavenly being who existed before the rest
of creation and who is far greater than all the rest of creation, he is still not equal to the
Father in all his attributes — he may even be said to be “like the Father” or “similar to
the Father in his nature, but he cannot be said to be “of the same nature” as the Father.
The Arians depended heavily on texts that called Christ God’s “only begotten” Son
(John 1:14; 3:16, 18; 1 John 4:9). If Christ were “begotten” by God the Father, they rea-
soned, it must mean that he was brought into existence by God the Father (for the word
beget in human experience refers to the father’s role in conceiving a child) . Further
support for the Arian view was found in Colossians 1:15, “He is the image of the invisible
God, the first-born of all creation. Does not “first-born” here imply that the Son was at
some point brought into existence by the Father? 24 And if this is true of the Son, it must
necessarily be true of the Holy Spirit as well.
But these texts do not require us to believe the Arian position. Colossians 1:15, which
calls Christ “the first-born of all creation,” is better understood to mean that Christ
has the rights or privileges of the first-born” — that is, according to biblical usage and
custom, the right of leadership or authority in the family for one’s generation. (Note
Heb. 12:16 where Esau is said to have sold his “first-born status” or “birthright” — the
Greek word prototokia is cognate to the term prototokos, “first-born” in Col. 1:15.) So
Colossians 1:15 means that Christ has the privileges of authority and rule, the privileges
belonging to the “first-born,” but with respect to the whole creation. The NIV translates
it helpfully, “the firstborn over all creation.”
As for the texts that say that Christ was God’s “only begotten Son,” the early church
felt so strongly the force of many other texts showing that Christ was fully and completely
God, that it concluded that, whatever “only begotten” meant, it did not mean “created.”*
Therefore the Nicene Creed in 325 affirmed that Christ was “begotten, not made”:
24 Prov. 8:22 was also used by the Arians, who gained support
from the fact that the Septuagint misleadingly translated it, “The
Lord created me” (Gk. ktizo) rather than “The Lord acquired me
or possessed me” (Gk. ktaomai ). See discussion on this verse
above, pp. 229-30.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses, who are modern-day Arians,
also point to Rev. 3:14, where Jesus calls himself “the begin-
ning of Gods creation,” and take it to mean that “Jesus was
created by God as the beginning of God’s invisible creations”
(no author named, Should You Believe in the Trinity? [Brooklyn,
N.Y. : Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, 1989] , p. 14) . But this
verse does not mean that Jesus was the first being created, for the
same word for “beginning” (Gk. archem) is used by Jesus when he
says that he is “the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the
beginning and the end” (Rev. 22:13), and “beginning” here is a
synonym for “Alpha” and “first.” God the Father similarly says of
himself, “I am the Alpha and the Omega” (Rev. 1 :8). In both cases,
to be “the Alpha” or “the beginning” means to be the one who was
there before anything else existed. The word does not imply that
the Son was created or that there was a time when he began to be,
for both the Father and the Son have always been “the Alpha and
the Omega” and “the beginning and the end,” since they have
existed eternally. (The Jewish historian Josephus uses this same
word to call God the “beginning (archem)” of “all things,” but
certainly he does not think that God himself was created: see
Against Apion 2.190.)
The NIV translates this verse differently: “the ruler of
God’s creation.” This is an acceptable alternative sense for
arche: see the same meaning in Luke 12:11; Titus 3:1.
"See appendix 6, pp. 1233-34
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
244
We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and
invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father,
the only-begotten; that is, of the essence of the Father, God of God, Light of Light,
very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance ( homoousion )
with the Father 25
This same phrase was reaffirmed at the Council of Constantinople in 381. In addition,
the phrase “before all ages” was added after “begotten of the Father,” to show that this
“begetting” was eternal. It never began to happen, but is something that has been eter-
nally true of the relationship between the Father and the Son. However, the nature of
that “begetting” has never been defined very clearly, other than to say that it has to do
with the relationship between the Father and the Son, and that in some sense the Father
has eternally had a primacy in that relationship.
In further repudiation of the teaching of Arius, the Nicene Creed insisted that Christ
was “of the same substance as the Father.” The dispute with Arius concerned two words
that have become famous in the history of Christian doctrine, homoousios (“of the same
nature”) and homoiousios (“of a similar nature”). 26 The difference depends on the dif-
ferent meaning of two Greek prefixes, homo-, meaning “same,” and homoi-, meaning
“similar.” Arius was happy to say that Christ was a supernatural heavenly being and that
he was created by God before the creation of the rest of the universe, and even that he
was “similar” to God in his nature. Thus, Arius would agree to the word homoiousios.
But the Council of Nicea in 325 and the Council of Constantinople in 381 realized that
this did not go far enough, for if Christ is not of exactly the same nature as the Father,
then he is not fully God. So both councils insisted that orthodox Christians confess
Jesus to be homoousios, of the same nature as God the Father. The difference between
the two words was only one letter, the Greek letter iota, and some have criticized the
church for allowing a doctrinal dispute over a single letter to consume so much atten-
tion for most of the fourth century A.D. Some have wondered, “Could anything be more
foolish than arguing over a single letter in a word?” But the difference between the two
words was profound, and the presence or absence of the iota really did mark the differ-
ence between biblical Christianity, with a true doctrine of the Trinity, and a heresy that
did not accept the full deity of Christ and therefore was nontrinitarian and ultimately
destructive to the whole Christian faith.
b. Subordinationism: In affirming that the Son was of the same nature as the Father, the
early church also excluded a related false doctrine, subordinationism. While Arianism
held that the Son was created and was not divine, subordinationism held that the Son
was eternal (not created) and divine, but still not equal to the Father in being or attri-
butes — the Son was inferior or “subordinate” in being to God the Father. 27 The early
25 This is the original form of the Nicene Creed, but it was
later modified at the Council of Constantinople in 381 and there
took the form that is commonly called the “Nicene Creed” by
churches today. This text is taken from Philip Schaff, Creeds of
Christendom, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1983 reprint of 1931
edition), 1:28-29.
26 01der translations of homoousios sometimes use the
term “consubstantial,” an uncommon English word simply
meaning “of the same substance or nature.”
27 The heresy of subordinationism, which holds that the
Son is inferior in being to the Father, should be clearly distin-
guished from the orthodox doctrine that the Son is eternally
CHAPTER 14 ♦ THE TRINITY
church father Origen (c. 185 — c. A.D. 254) advocated a form of subordinationism by
holding that the Son was inferior to the Father in being, and that the Son eternally
derives his being from the Father. Origen was attempting to protect the distinction of
persons and was writing before the doctrine of the Trinity was clearly formulated in the
church. The rest of the church did not follow him but clearly rejected his teaching at the
Council of Nicea.
Although many early church leaders contributed to the gradual formulation of a
correct doctrine of the Trinity, the most influential by far was Athanasius. He was only
twenty-nine years old when he came to the Council of Nicea in A.D. 325, not as an
official member but as secretary to Alexander, the Bishop of Alexandria. Yet his keen
mind and writing ability allowed him to have an important influence on the outcome
of the Council, and he himself became Bishop of Alexandria in 328. Though the Arians
had been condemned at Nicea, they refused to stop teaching their views and used their
considerable political power throughout the church to prolong the controversy for most
of the rest of the fourth century. Athanasius became the focal point of Arian attack,
and he devoted his entire life to writing and teaching against the Arian heresy. “He was
hounded through five exiles embracing seventeen years of flight and hiding,” but, by
his untiring efforts, “almost single-handedly Athanasius saved the Church from pagan
intellectualism. 28 The Athanasian Creed” which bears his name is not today thought
to stem from Athanasius himself, but it is a very clear affirmation of trinitarian doctrine
that gained increasing use in the church from about A.D. 400 onward and is still used in
Protestant and Catholic churches today. (See appendix 1.)
c. Adoptionism: Before we leave the discussion of Arianism, one related false teaching
needs to be mentioned. “Adoptionism” is the view that Jesus lived as an ordinary man
until his baptism, but then God “adopted” Jesus as his “Son” and conferred on him
supernatural powers. Adoptionists would not hold that Christ existed before he was
born as a man; therefore, they would not think of Christ as eternal, nor would they think
of him as the exalted, supernatural being created by God that the Arians held him to be.
Even after Jesus’ “adoption” as the “Son” of God, they would not think of him as divine
in nature, but only as an exalted man whom God called his “Son” in a unique sense.
Adoptionism never gained the force of a movement in the way Arianism did, but
there were people who held adoptionist views from time to time in the early church,
though their views were never accepted as orthodox. Many modern people who think of
Jesus as a great man and someone especially empowered by God, but not really divine,
would fall into the adoptionist category. We have placed it here in relation to Arianism
because it, too, denies the deity of the Son (and, similarly, the deity of the Holy Spirit).
The controversy over Arianism was drawn to a close by the Council of Constanti-
nople in A.D. 381. This council reaffirmed the Nicene statements and added a statement
on the deity of the Holy Spirit, which had come under attack in the period since Nicea.
subordinate to the Father in role or function: without this truth, tion D. below on the differences between the Father, Son, and
we would lose the doctrine of the Trinity, for we would not have Holy Spirit.)
any eternal personal distinctions between the Father and the 28 S. J. Mikolaski, “Athanasius,” NIDCC, 81.
Son, and they would not eternally be Father and Son. (See sec-
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
After the phrase, “And in the Holy Spirit,” Constantinople added, “the Lord and Giver
of Life; who proceeds from the Father; who with the Father and the Son together is wor-
shipped and glorified; who spake by the Prophets.” The version of the creed that includes
the additions at Constantinople is what is commonly known as the Nicene Creed today
(See p. 1169 for the text of the Nicene Creed.)
d. The Filioque Clause: In connection with the Nicene Creed, one unfortunate chapter
in the history of the church should be briefly noted, namely the controversy over the
insertion of the filioque clause into the Nicene Creed, an insertion that eventually led to
the split between western (Roman Catholic) Christianity and eastern Christianity (con-
sisting today of various branches of eastern orthodox Christianity, such as the Greek
Orthodox Church, the Russian Orthodox Church, etc.) in A.D. 1054.
The word filioque is a Latin term that means “and from the Son.” It was not included
in the Nicene Creed in either the first version of A.D. 325 or the second version of A.D.
381. Those versions simply said that the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father.” But in
A.D. 589, at a regional church council in Toledo (in what is now Spain), the phrase “and
the Son” was added, so that the creed then said that the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the
Father and the Son (filioque)” In the light of John 15:26 and 16:7, where Jesus said that he
would send the Holy Spirit into the world, it seems there could be no objection to such
a statement if it referred to the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son at a
point in time (particularly at Pentecost). But this was a statement about the nature of
the Trinity, and the phrase was understood to speak of the eternal relationship between
the Holy Spirit and the Son, something Scripture never explicitly discusses. 29 The form
of the Nicene Creed that had this additional phrase gradually gained in general use and
received an official endorsement in A.D. 1017. The entire controversy was complicated
by ecclesiastical politics and struggles for power, and this apparently very insignificant
doctrinal point was the main doctrinal issue in the split between eastern and western
Christianity in A.D. 1054. (The underlying political issue, however, was the relation of
the Eastern church to the authority of the Pope.) The doctrinal controversy and the split
between the two branches of Christianity have not been resolved to this day.
Is there a correct position on this question? The weight of evidence (slim though it is)
seems clearly to favor the western church. In spite of the fact that John 15:26 says that the
Spirit of truth “proceeds from the Father,” this does not deny that he proceeds also from
the Son (just as John 14:26 says that the Father will send the Holy Spirit, but John 16:7
says that the Son will send the Holy Spirit). In fact, in the same sentence in John 15:26
Jesus speaks of the Holy Spirit as one “whom I shall send to you from the Father.” And
if the Son together with the Father sends the Spirit into the world, by analogy it would
seem appropriate to say that this reflects eternal ordering of their relationships. This is
not something that we can clearly insist on based on any specific verse, but much of our
understanding of the eternal relationships among the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit comes
by analogy from what Scripture tells us about the way they relate to the creation in time.
29 The word proceeds was not understood to refer to a ere- Father and Son, but to indicate the way the Holy Spirit eternally
ating of the Holy Spirit, or any deriving of his being from the relates to the Father and Son.
CHAPTER 14 • THE TRINITY
247
Moreover, the eastern formulation runs the danger of suggesting an unnatural distance
between the Son and the Holy Spirit, leading to the possibility that even in personal
worship an emphasis on more mystical, Spirit-inspired experience might be pursued to
the neglect of an accompanying rationally understandable adoration of Christ as Lord.
Nevertheless, the controversy was ultimately over such an obscure point of doctrine
(essentially, the relationship between the Son and Spirit before creation) that it certainly
did not warrant division in the church.
e. The Importance of the Doctrine of the Trinity: Why was the church so concerned
about the doctrine of the Trinity? Is it really essential to hold to the full deity of the Son
and the Holy Spirit? Yes it is, for this teaching has implications for the very heart of the
Christian faith. First, the atonement is at stake. If Jesus is merely a created being, and
not fully God, then it is hard to see how he, a creature, could bear the full wrath of God
against all of our sins. Could any creature, no matter how great, really save us? Second,
justification by faith alone is threatened if we deny the full deity of the Son. (This is seen
today in the teaching of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who do not believe in justification
by faith alone.) If Jesus is not fully God, we would rightly doubt whether we can really
trust him to save us completely. Could we really depend on any creature fully for our
salvation? Third, if Jesus is not infinite God, should we pray to him or worship him?
Who but an infinite, omniscient God could hear and respond to all the prayers of all
God s people? And who but God himself is worthy of worship? Indeed, if Jesus is merely
a creature, no matter how great, it would be idolatry to worship him — yet the New Tes-
tament commands us to do so (Phil. 2:9-11; Rev. 5:12-14). Fourth, if someone teaches
that Christ was a created being but nonetheless one who saved us, then this teaching
wrongly begins to attribute credit for salvation to a creature and not to God himself.
But this wrongfully exalts the creature rather than the Creator, something Scripture
never allows us to do. Fifth, the independence and personal nature of God are at stake:
If there is no Trinity, then there were no interpersonal relationships within the being of
God before creation, and, without personal relationships, it is difficult to see how God
could be genuinely personal or be without the need for a creation to relate to. Sixth, the
unity of the universe is at stake: If there is not perfect plurality and perfect unity in God
himself, then we have no basis for thinking there can be any ultimate unity among the
diverse elements of the universe either. Clearly, in the doctrine of the Trinity, the heart
of the Christian faith is at stake. Herman Bavinck says that “Athanasius understood bet-
ter than any of his contemporaries that Christianity stands or falls with the confession of
the deity of Christ and of the Trinity.” 30 He adds, “In the confession of the Trinity throbs
the heart of the Christian religion: every error results from, or upon deeper reflection
may be traced to, a wrong view of this doctrine.” 31
3. Tritheism Denies That There Is Only One God. A final possible way to attempt an
easy reconciliation of the biblical teaching about the Trinity would be to deny that there is
only one God. The result is to say that God is three persons and each person is fully God.
Therefore, there are three Gods. Technically this view would be called “tritheism.”
30 Bavinck, The Doctrine of God, p. 281.
31 Ibid., p. 285.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
248
Few persons have held this view in the history of the church. It has similarities to
many ancient pagan religions that held to a multiplicity of gods. This view would result
in confusion in the minds of believers. There would be no absolute worship or loyalty or
devotion to one true God. We would wonder to which God we should give our ultimate
allegiance. And, at a deeper level, this view would destroy any sense of ultimate unity in
the universe: even in the very being of God there would be plurality but no unity.
Although no modern groups advocate tritheism, perhaps many evangelicals today
unintentionally tend toward tritheistic views of the Trinity, recognizing the distinct
personhood of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, but seldom being aware of the
unity of God as one undivided being.
D. What Are the Distinctions Between the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Spirit?
After completing this survey of errors concerning the Trinity, we may now go on to
ask if anything more can be said about the distinctions between the Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit. If we say that each member of the Trinity is fully God, and that each person
fully shares in all the attributes of God, then is there any difference at all among the
persons? We cannot say, for example, that the Father is more powerful or wiser than the
Son, or that the Father and Son are wiser than the Holy Spirit, or that the Father existed
before the Son and Holy Spirit existed, for to say anything like that would be to deny the
full deity of all three members of the Trinity. But what then are the distinctions between
the persons?
1. The Persons of the Trinity Have Different Primary Functions in Relating to the
World. When Scripture discusses the way in which God relates to the world, both in
creation and in redemption, the persons of the Trinity are said to have different func-
tions or primary activities. Sometimes this has been called the “economy of the Trinity,”
using economy in an old sense meaning “ordering of activities.” (In this sense, people
used to speak of the “economy of a household” or “home economics,” meaning not just
the financial affairs of a household, but all of the “ordering of activities” within the
household.) The “economy of the Trinity” means the different ways the three persons
act as they relate to the world and (as we shall see in the next section) to each other for
all eternity.
We see these different functions in the work of creation. God the Father spoke the
creative words to bring the universe into being. But it was God the Son, the eternal Word
of God, who carried out these creative decrees. “All things were made through him, and
without him was not anything made that was made” (John 1:3). Moreover, “in him all
things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or
dominions or principalities or authorities — all things were created through him and for
him” (Col. 1:16; see also Ps. 33:6, 9; 1 Cor. 8:6; Heb. 1:2). The Holy Spirit was active as
well in a different way, in “moving” or “hovering” over the face of the waters (Gen. 1:2),
apparently sustaining and manifesting Gods immediate presence in his creation (cf. Ps.
33:6, where “breath” should perhaps be translated “Spirit”; see also Ps. 139:7).
CHAPTER 14 • THE TRINITY
In the work of redemption there are also distinct functions. God the Father planned
redemption and sent his Son into the world (John 3:16; Gal. 4:4; Eph. 1:9- 10). The Son
obeyed the Father and accomplished redemption for us (John 6:38; Heb. 10:5-7, et al.).
God the Father did not come and die for our sins, nor did God the Holy Spirit. That was
the particular work of the Son. Then, after Jesus ascended back into heaven, the Holy
Spirit was sent by the Father and the Son to apply redemption to us. Jesus speaks of “the
Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name” (John 14:26), but also says that he
himself will send the Holy Spirit, for he says, “If I go, I will send him to you” (John 16:7),
and he speaks of a time “when the Counselor comes, whom I shall send to you from the
Father, even the Spirit of truth” (John 15:26). It is especially the role of the Holy Spirit
to give us regeneration or new spiritual life (John 3:5-8), to sanctify us (Rom. 8:13;
15:16; 1 Peter 1:2), and to empower us for service (Acts 1:8; 1 Cor. 12:7-11). In general,
the work of the Holy Spirit seems to be to bring to completion the work that has been
planned by God the Father and begun by God the Son. (See chapter 30, on the work of
the Holy Spirit.)
So we may say that the role of the Father in creation and redemption has been to plan
and direct and send the Son and Holy Spirit. This is not surprising, for it shows that the
Father and the Son relate to one another as a father and son relate to one another in a
human family: the father directs and has authority over the son, and the son obeys and
is responsive to the directions of the father. The Holy Spirit is obedient to the directives
of both the Father and the Son.
Thus, while the persons of the Trinity are equal in all their attributes, they nonethe-
less differ in their relationships to the creation. The Son and Holy Spirit are equal in
deity to God the Father, but they are subordinate in their roles.
Moreover, these differences in role are not temporary but will last forever: Paul tells
us that even after the final judgment, when the “last enemy,” that is, death, is destroyed
and when all things are put under Christ’s feet, “then the Son himself will also be sub-
jected to him who put all things under him, that God may be everything to every one”
(1 Cor. 15:28).
2. The Persons of the Trinity Eternally Existed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But
why do the persons of the Trinity take these different roles in relating to creation? Was
it accidental or arbitrary? Could God the Father have come instead of God the Son to
die for our sins? Could the Holy Spirit have sent God the Father to die for our sins, and
then sent God the Son to apply redemption to us?
No, it does not seem that these things could have happened, for the role of command-
ing, directing, and sending is appropriate to the position of the Father, after whom all
human fatherhood is patterned (Eph. 3:14-15). And the role of obeying, going as the
Father sends, and revealing God to us is appropriate to the role of the Son, who is also
called the Word of God (cf. John 1:1-5, 14, 18; 17:4; Phil. 2:5-11). These roles could not
have been reversed or the Father would have ceased to be the Father and the Son would
have ceased to be the Son. And by analogy from that relationship, we may conclude that
the role of the Holy Spirit is similarly one that was appropriate to the relationship he had
with the Father and the Son before the world was created.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
250
Second, before the Son came to earth, and even before the world was created, for all
eternity the Father has been the Father, the Son has been the Son, and the Holy Spirit has
been the Holy Spirit. These relationships are eternal, not something that occurred only
in time. We may conclude this first from the unchangeableness of God (see chapter 11):
if God now exists as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, then he has always existed as Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit. We may also conclude that the relationships are eternal from other
verses in Scripture that speak of the relationships the members of the Trinity had to one
another before the creation of the world. For instance, when Scripture speaks of God’s
work of election (see chapter 32) before the creation of the world, it speaks of the Father
choosing us “in” the Son: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ . . .
he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blame-
less before him” (Eph. 1:3-4). The initiatory act of choosing is attributed to God the
Father, who regards us as united to Christ or “in Christ” before we ever existed. Simi-
larly, of God the Father, it is said that “those whom he foreknew he also predestined to
be conformed to the image of his Son” (Rom. 8:29). We also read of the “foreknowledge
of God the Father” in distinction from particular functions of the other two members
of the Trinity (1 Peter 1:2 NASB; cf. 1:20). 32 Even the fact that the Father “gave his only
Son” (John 3:16) and “sent the Son into the world” (John 3:17) indicate that there was a
Father-Son relationship before Christ came into the world. The Son did not become the
Son when the Father sent him into the world. Rather, the great love of God is shown in
the fact that the one who was always Father gave the one who was always his only Son:
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son . . .” (John 3:16). “But when the
time had fully come, God sent forth his Son” (Gal. 4:4).
When Scripture speaks of creation, once again it speaks of the Father creating through
the Son, indicating a relationship prior to when creation began (see John 1:3; 1 Cor.
8:6; Heb. 1:2; also Prov. 8:22-31). But nowhere does it say that the Son or Holy Spirit
created through the Father. These passages again imply that there was a relationship of
Father (as originator) and Son (as active agent) before creation, and that this relation-
ship made it appropriate for the different persons of the Trinity to fulfill the roles they
actually did fulfill.
Therefore, the different functions that we see the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit per-
forming are simply outworkings of an eternal relationship between the three persons,
one that has always existed and will exist for eternity. God has always existed as three
distinct persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. These distinctions are essential to the very
nature of God himself, and they could not be otherwise.
Finally, it may be said that there are no differences in deity, attributes, or essential
nature between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Each person is fully God and has all
the attributes of God. The only distinctions between the members of the Trinity are in the
ways they relate to each other and to the creation. In those relationships they carry out
roles that are appropriate to each person.
32 Another passage that may suggest such a distinction Father’s right to give glory to whom he will and that this glory
in function is John 17:5: When Jesus asks the Father, “glorify had been given to the Son by the Father because the Father loved
me in your own presence with the glory which I had with you the Son before the foundation of the world,
before the world was made” (John 17:5), he suggests that it is the
CHAPTER 14 * THE TRINITY
This truth about the Trinity has sometimes been summarized in the phrase “ontologi-
cal equality but economic subordination,” where the word ontological means “being.” 33
Another way of expressing this more simply would be to say “equal in being but subor-
dinate in role.” Both parts of this phrase are necessary to a true doctrine of the Trinity:
If we do not have ontological equality, not all the persons are fully God. But if we do not
have economic subordination, 34 then there is no inherent difference in the way the three
persons relate to one another, and consequently we do not have the three distinct persons
existing as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for all eternity. For example, if the Son is not eter-
nally subordinate to the Father in role, then the Father is not eternally “Father” and the
Son is not eternally “Son.” This would mean that the Trinity has not eternally existed.
This is why the idea of eternal equality in being but subordination in role has been
essential to the church’s doctrine of the Trinity since it was first affirmed in the Nicene
Creed, which said that the Son was “begotten of the Father before all ages” and that the
Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father and the Son.” Surprisingly, some recent evangelical
writings have denied an eternal subordination in role among the members of the Trinity, 35
but it has clearly been part of the church’s doctrine of the Trinity (in Catholic, Protestant,
and Orthodox expressions), at least since Nicea (A.D. 325). So Charles Hodge says:
The Nicene doctrine includes, (1) the principle of the subordination of the
Son to the Father, and of the Spirit to the Father and the Son. But this subordi-
nation does not imply inferiority. . . . The subordination intended is only that
which concerns the mode of subsistence and operation. . . .
The creeds are nothing more than a well-ordered arrangement of the facts
of Scripture which concern the doctrine of the Trinity. They assert the dis-
tinct personality of the Father, Son, and Spirit . . . and their consequent perfect
equality; and the subordination of the Son to the Father, and of the Spirit to
the Father and the Son, as to the mode of subsistence and operation. These are
scriptural facts, to which the creeds in question add nothing; and it is in this
sense they have been accepted by the Church universal 36
33 See section D.l, above, where economy was explained to
refer to different activities or roles.
34 Economic subordination should be carefully distin-
guished from the error of “subordinationism,” which holds
that the Son or Holy Spirit are inferior in being to the Father
(see section C.2, above, p. 245.)
35 See, for example, Richard and Catherine Kroeger, in the
article “Subordinationism” in EDT: They define subordina-
tionism as “a doctrine which assigns an inferiority of being,
status, or role to the Son or the Holy Spirit within the Trin-
ity. Condemned by numerous church councils, this doctrine
has continued in one form or another throughout the history
of the church” (p. 1058, emphasis mine). When the Kroegers
speak of “inferiority of . . . role” they apparently mean to say
that any affirmation of eternal subordination in role belongs
to the heresy of subordinationism. But if this is what they are
saying, then they are condemning all orthodox Christology
from the Nicene Creed onward and thereby condemning a
teaching that Charles Hodge says has been a teaching of “the
Church universal.”
Similarly, Millard Erickson, in his Christian Theology
(Grand Rapids: Baker, 1983-85), pp. 338 and 698, is willing
only to affirm that Christ had a temporary subordination in
function for the period of ministry on earth, but nowhere
affirms an eternal subordination in role of the Son to the
Father or the Holy Spirit to the Father and the Son. (Similarly,
his Concise Dictionary of Christian Theology y p. 161.)
Robert Letham, in “The Man-Woman Debate: Theologi-
cal Comment,” WTJ 52:1 (Spring 1990), pp. 65-78, sees this
tendency in recent evangelical writings as the outworking of
an evangelical feminist claim that a subordinate role necessar-
ily implies lesser importance or lesser personhood. Of course,
if this is not true among members of the Trinity, then it is not
necessarily true between husband and wife either.
36 Systematic Theology (3 vols.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970
[reprint; first published 1871-73]), 1:460-62 (italics mine).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
252
Similarly, A. H. Strong says:
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, while equal in essence and dignity, stand to each
other in an order of personality, office, and operation. . . .
The subordination of the person of the Son to the person of the Father, or in
other words an order of personality, office, and operation which permits the
Father to be officially first, the Son second, and the Spirit third, is perfectly
consistent with equality. Priority is not necessarily superiority. . . . We frankly
recognize an eternal subordination of Christ to the Father , but we maintain at the
same time that this subordination is a subordination of order, office, and opera-
tion, not a subordination of essence. 37
3. What Is the Relationship Between the Three Persons and the Being of God? After
the preceding discussion, the question that remains unresolved is, What is the differ-
ence between “person” and “being” in this discussion? How can we say that God is one
undivided being, yet that in this one being there are three persons?
First, it is important to affirm that each person is completely and fully God; that is,
that each person has the whole fullness of Gods being in himself. The Son is not partly
God or just one-third of God, but the Son is wholly and fully God, and so is the Father
and the Holy Spirit. Thus, it would not be right to think of the Trinity according to
figure 14.1, with each person representing only one-third of God’s being.
Rather, we must say that the person of the Father possesses the whole being of God
in himself. Similarly, the Son possesses the whole being of God in himself, and the Holy
Spirit possesses the whole being of God in himself. When we speak of the Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit together we are not speaking of any greater being than when we speak of the
Father alone, or the Son alone, or the Holy Spirit alone. The Father is all of Gods being.
The Son also is all of God’s being. And the Holy Spirit is all of God’s being.
GOD'S BEING IS NOT DIVIDED INTO THREE EQUAL PARTS
BELONGING TO THE THREE MEMBERS OF THE TRINITY
Figure 14,1
37 Systematic Theology (Valley Forge, Pa.: Judson, 1907),
p. 342 (third italics mine).
CHAPTER 14 ■ THE TRINITY
This is what the Athanasian Creed affirmed in the following sentences:
And the Catholic Faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity, and
Trinity in Unity; Neither confounding the Persons: nor dividing the Substance
[Essence] . For there is one Person of the Father: another of the Son: and another
of the Holy Spirit. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy
Spirit, is all one: the Glory equal, the Majesty coeternal. Such as the Father is:
such is the Son: and such is the Holy Spirit. . . . For like as we are compelled by
the Christian verity: to acknowledge every Person by himself to be God and
Lord: So are we forbidden by the Catholic Religion: to say, There be [are] three
Gods, or three Lords.
But if each person is fully God and has all of Gods being, then we also should not
think that the personal distinctions are any kind of additional attributes added on to the
being of God, something after the pattern of figure 14.2.
THE PERSONAL DISTINCTIONS IN THE TRINITY ARE NOT
SOMETHING ADDED ONTO GOD'S REAL BEING
Figure 14.2
Rather, each person of the Trinity has all of the attributes of God, and no one person
has any attributes that are not possessed by the others.
On the other hand, we must say that the persons are real, that they are not just differ-
ent ways of looking at the one being of God. (This would be modalism or Sabellianism,
as discussed above.) So figure 14.3 would not be appropriate.
Rather, we need to think of the Trinity in such a way that the reality of the three
persons is maintained, and each person is seen as relating to the others as an “I” (a first
person) and a “you” (a second person) and a “he” (a third person).
The only way it seems possible to do this is to say that the distinction between the
persons is not a difference in “being” but a difference in “relationships.” This is some-
thing far removed from our human experience, where every different human “person” is
a different being as well. Somehow Gods being is so much greater than ours that within
his one undivided being there can be an unfolding into interpersonal relationships, so
that there can be three distinct persons.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
254
THE PERSONS OF THE TRINITY ARE NOT JUST THREE DIFFERENT
WAYS OF LOOKING ATTHE ONE BEING GOD
Figure 14.3
What then are the differences between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? There is no dif-
ference in attributes at all. The only difference between them is the way they relate to
each other and to the creation. The unique quality of the Father is the way he relates as
Father to the Son and Holy Spirit. The unique quality of the Son is the way he relates as
Son. And the unique quality of the Holy Spirit is the way he relates as Spirit . 38
While the three diagrams given above represented erroneous ideas to be avoided, the
following diagram may be helpful in thinking about the existence of three persons in
the one undivided being of God.
In this diagram, the Father is represented as the section of the circle designated by
F, and also the rest of the circle, moving around clockwise from the letter F; the Son is
represented as the section of the circle designated by S, and also the rest of the circle,
moving around clockwise from the letter S; and the Holy Spirit is represented as the
section of the circle marked HS and also the rest of the circle, moving around clockwise
from the HS. Thus, there are three distinct persons, but each person is fully and wholly
God. Of course the representation is imperfect, for it cannot represent God’s infinity, or
personality, or indeed any of his attributes. It also requires looking at the circle in more
than one way in order to understand it: the dotted lines must be understood to indicate
personal relationship, not any division in the one being of God. Thus, the circle itself
represents God’s being while the dotted lines represent a form of personal existence
other than a difference in being. But the diagram may nonetheless help guard against
some misunderstanding.
38 Some systematic theologies give names to these differ- and “relating as Spirit/’ In an attempt to avoid the proliferation
ent relationships: “paternity” (or “generation”) for the Father, of technical terms that do not exist in contemporary English, or
“begottenness” (or “filiation”) for the Son, and “procession” (or whose meaning differs from their ordinary English sense, I have
“spiration”) for the Holy Spirit, but the names do not mean any- not used these terms in this chapter,
thing more than “relating as a Father,” and “relating as a Son,”
CHAPTER 14 - THE TRINITY
255
THERE ARE THREE DISTINCT PERSONS, AND THE BEING OF
EACH PERSON IS EQUAL TO THE WHOLE BEING OF GOD
Figure 14.4
Our own human personalities provide another faint analogy that can provide some
help in thinking about the Trinity. A man can think about different objects outside of
himself, and when he does this he is the subject who does the thinking. He can also
think about himself, and then he is the object who is being thought about: then he is
both subject and object. Moreover, he can reflect on his ideas about himself as a third
thing, neither subject nor object, but thoughts that he as a subject has about himself as
an object. When this happens, the subject, object, and thoughts are three distinct things.
Yet each thing in a way includes his whole being: All of the man is the subject, and all
of the man is the object, and the thoughts (though in a lesser sense) are thoughts about
all of himself as a person. 39
But if the unfolding of human personality allows this kind of complexity, then the
unfolding of God's personality must allow for far greater complexity than this. Within
the one being of God the “unfolding” of personality must allow for the existence of
three distinct persons, while each person still has the whole of God's being in himself.
The difference in persons must be one of relationship, not one of being, and yet each
person must really exist. This tri-personal form of being is far beyond our ability to
comprehend. It is a kind of existence far different from anything we have experienced, and
far different from anything else in the universe.
Because the existence of three persons in one God is something beyond our under-
standing, Christian theology has come to use the word person to speak of these dif-
ferences in relationship, not because we fully understand what is meant by the word
person when referring to the Trinity, but rather so that we might say something instead
of saying nothing at all.
4. Can We Understand the Doctrine of the Trinity? We should be warned by the errors
that have been made in the past. They have all come about through attempts to simplify
the doctrine of the Trinity and make it completely understandable, removing all mystery
39 We said above that no analogy teaches the Trinity per- ogy is helpful in hinting at something of the complexity even
fectly, and this one has several shortcomings as well: this of human personality and suggesting that the complexity of
man remains as one person; he is not three persons. And his divine personality is something far greater than this,
“thoughts” do not equal all of him as a person. But the anal-
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
256
from it. This we can never do. However, it is not correct to say that we cannot under-
stand the doctrine of the Trinity at all. Certainly we can understand and know that God
is three persons, and that each person is fully God, and that there is one God. We can
know these things because the Bible teaches them. Moreover, we can know some things
about the way in which the persons relate to each other (see the section above). But what
we cannot understand fully is how to fit together those distinct biblical teachings. We
wonder how there can be three distinct persons, and each person have the whole being of
God in himself, and yet God is only one undivided being. This we are unable to under-
stand. In fact, it is spiritually healthy for us to acknowledge openly that God’s very being
is far greater than we can ever comprehend. This humbles us before God and draws us to
worship him without reservation.
But it should also be said that Scripture does not ask us to believe in a contradic-
tion. A contradiction would be “There is one God and there is not one God,” or “God is
three persons and God is not three persons,” or even (which is similar to the previous
statement) “God is three persons and God is one person.” But to say that “God is three
persons and there is one God” is not a contradiction. It is something we do not under-
stand, and it is therefore a mystery or a paradox, but that should not trouble us as long
as the different aspects of the mystery are clearly taught by Scripture, for as long as we
are finite creatures and not omniscient deity, there will always (for all eternity) be things
that we do not fully understand. Louis Berkhof wisely says:
The Trinity is a mystery . . . man cannot comprehend it and make it intelli-
gible. It is intelligible in some of its relations and modes of manifestation, but
unintelligible in its essential nature. . . . The real difficulty lies in the relation
in which the persons in the Godhead stand to the divine essence and to one
another; and this is a difficulty which the Church cannot remove, but only try
to reduce to its proper proportion by a proper definition of terms. It has never
tried to explain the mystery of the Trinity but only sought to formulate the
doctrine of the Trinity in such a manner that the errors which endangered it
were warded off. 40
Berkhof also says, “It is especially when we reflect on the relation of the three persons
to the divine essence that all analogies fail us and we become deeply conscious of the fact
that the Trinity is a mystery far beyond our comprehension. It is the incomprehensible
glory of the Godhead.” 41
E. Application
Because God in himself has both unity and diversity, it is not surprising that unity and
diversity are also reflected in the human relationships he has established. We see this first
in marriage. When God created man in his own image, he did not create merely isolated
individuals, but Scripture tells us, “male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:27). And
in the unity of marriage (see Gen. 2:24) we see, not a triunity as with God, but at least a
40 Berkhof, Systematic Theology» p. 89.
41 Ibid., p. 88.
CHAPTER 14 • THE TRINITY
remarkable unity of two persons, persons who remain distinct individuals yet also become
one in body, mind, and spirit (cf. 1 Cor. 6:16-20; Eph. 5:31). In fact, in the relationship
between man and woman in marriage we see also a picture of the relationship between
the Father and Son in the Trinity. Paul says, “But I want you to understand that the head
of every man is Christ, the head of a woman is her husband, and the head of Christ is God”
(1 Cor. 11:3). Here, just as the Father has authority over the Son in the Trinity, so the
husband has authority over the wife in marriage. The husband’s role is parallel to that
of God the Father and the wife’s role is parallel to that of God the Son. Moreover, just
as Father and Son are equal in deity and importance and personhood, so the husband
and wife are equal in humanity and importance and personhood. And, although it is
not explicitly mentioned in Scripture, the gift of children within marriage, coming from
both the father and the mother, and subject to the authority of both father and mother,
is analogous to the relationship of the Holy Spirit to the Father and Son in the Trinity.
But the human family is not the only way in which God has ordained that there would
be both diversity and unity in the world that reflect something of his own excellence.
In the church we have “many members” yet “one body” (1 Cor. 12:12). Paul reflects on
the great diversity among members of the human body (1 Cor. 12:14-26) and says that
the church is like that: We have many different members in our churches with different
gifts and interests, and we depend on and help each other, thereby demonstrating great
diversity and great unity at the same time. When we see different people doing many dif-
ferent things in the life of a church we ought to thank God that this allows us to glorify
him by reflecting something of the unity and diversity of the Trinity.
We should also notice that God’s purpose in the history of the universe has frequently
been to display unity in diversity, and thus to display his glory. We see this not only in
the diversity of gifts in the church (1 Cor. 12:12-26), but also in the unity of Jews and
Gentiles, so that all races, diverse as they are, are united in Christ (Eph. 2:16; 3:8-10; see
also Rev. 7:9). Paul is amazed that God’s plans for the history of redemption have been
like a great symphony so that his wisdom is beyond finding out (Rom. 11:33-36). Even
in the mysterious unity between Christ and the church, in which we are called the bride
of Christ (Eph. 5:31 - 32) , we see unity beyond what we ever would have imagined, unity
with the Son of God himself. Yet in all this we never lose our individual identity but
remain distinct persons always able to worship and serve God as unique individuals.
Eventually the entire universe will partake of this unity of purpose with every diverse
part contributing to the worship of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, for one day, at the
name of Jesus every knee will bow “in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every
tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:10-11).
On a more everyday level, there are many activities that we carry out as human beings
(in the labor force, in social organizations, in musical performances, and in athletic
teams, for example) in which many distinct individuals contribute to a unity of purpose
or activity. As we see in these activities a reflection of the wisdom of God in allowing us
both unity and diversity, we can see a faint reflection of the glory of God in his trinitar-
ian existence. Though we will never fully comprehend the mystery of the Trinity, we can
worship God for who he is both in our songs of praise, and in our words and actions as
they reflect something of his excellent character.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
258
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. Why is God pleased when people exhibit faithfulness, love, and harmony within a
family? What are some ways in which members of your family reflect the diversity
found in the members of the Trinity? How does your family reflect the unity found
among members of the Trinity? What are some ways in which your family relation-
ships could reflect the unity of the Trinity more fully? How might the diversity of
persons in the Trinity encourage parents to allow their children to develop differ-
ent interests from each other, and from their parents, without thinking that the
unity of the family will be damaged?
2. Have you ever thought that if your church allows new or different kinds of minis-
tries to develop, that it might hinder the unity of the church? Or have you thought
that encouraging people to use other gifts for ministry than those that have been
used in the past might be divisive in the church? How might the fact of unity and
diversity in the Trinity help you to approach those questions?
3. Do you think that the trinitarian nature of God is more fully reflected in a church
in which all the members have the same racial background, or one in which the
members come from many different races (see Eph. 3:1-10)?
4. In addition to our relationships within our families, we all exist in other relation-
ships to human authority in government, in employment, in voluntary societies, in
educational institutions, and in athletics, for example. Sometimes we have author-
ity over others, and sometimes we are subject to the authority of others. Whether
in the family or one of these other areas, give one example of a way in which your
use of authority or your response to authority might become more like the pattern
of relationships in the Trinity.
5. If we see the trinitarian existence of God as the fundamental basis for all combi-
nations of unity and diversity in the universe, then what are some other parts of
creation that show both unity and diversity (for example: the interdependency of
environmental systems on the earth, or the fascinating activity of bees in a hive, or
the harmonious working of the various parts of the human body)? Do you think
God has made us so that we take spontaneous delight in demonstrations of unity
in diversity, such as a musical composition that manifests great unity and yet great
diversity of various parts at the same time, or in the skillful execution of some
planned strategy by members of an athletic team working together?
6. In the being of God we have infinite unity combined with the preservation of distinct
personalities belonging to the members of the Trinity. How can this fact reassure
us if we ever begin to fear that becoming more united to Christ as we grow in the
Christian life (or becoming more united to one another in the church) might tend to
obliterate our individual personalities? In heaven, do you think you will be exactly
like everyone else, or will you have a personality that is distinctly your own? How do
eastern religions (such as Buddhism) differ from Christianity in this regard?
CHAPTER 14 * THE TRINITY
259
SPECIAL TERMS
adoptionism
Arianism
economic subordination
eternal begetting of the Son
eternal generation of the Son
filioque
homoiousios
homoousios
modalism
modalistic monarchianism
only-begotten
ontological equality
Sabellianism
subordinationism
Trinity
tritheism
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter 1,
pp. 38-39. Complete bibliographical data maybe found on pp. 1224-30.)
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1882-92 Litton, 91 -108
1930 Thomas, 20-31, 90-99
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1875-76
Pope, 1:253-87; 2:101-5
1892-94
Miley, 1:223-75
1940
Wiley, 1:394-439
1960
Purkiser, 143-44, 199-203
1983
Carter, 1:127-29, 375-414
1983-
Cottrell, 3:117-74
1987-90
Oden, 1:181-224
3. Baptist
1767
Gill, 1:187-245
1887
Boyce, 125-66
1907
Strong, 304-52
1917
Mullins, 203-13
1976 - 83
Henry, 5:165-213
1983-85
Erickson, 321-42
1987-94
Lewis/Demarest, 1:251-88
4. Dispensational
1947
Chafer, 1:272-347; 5:7-38; 6:7-46
1949
Thiessen, 89-99
1986
Ryrie, 51-59
5. Lutheran
1917-24
Pieper, 1:381-404
1934
Mueller, 147-60
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
6. Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1559
Calvin, 1:120-59 (1.13)
1861
Heppe, 105-32
1871-73
Hodge, 1:442- 534
1878
Dabney, 174-211
1887-1921
Warfield, BTS, 22- 156; SSW, 1:88-92; BD, 133-74
1889
Shedd, 1:249-332
1937 -66
Murray, CW, 4:58-81
1938
Berkhof, 82-99
1962
Buswell, 1:103-29
Renewal (or charismatic/Pentecostal)
1988-92
Williams, 1:83-94
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
1. Roman Catholic: Traditional
1955 Ott, 50-75
2. Roman Catholic: Post-Vatican II
1980 McBrien, 1:343-66
Other Works
Augustine. On the Trinity. NPNF, First Series, 3:1-228. (This is considered the most thor-
ough development of the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity in the history of the
church.)
Bavinck, Herman. The Doctrine of God. Trans, by William Hendriksen (Edinburgh and
Carlisle, Pa.: Banner of Truth, 1977 [reprint of 1951 edition]), pp. 255-334. (This is
one of the most thorough modern discussions of the Trinity.)
Beisner, Calvin. God in Three Persons. Wheaton, 111.: Tyndale Press, 1984.
Bickersteth, Edward H. The Trinity. Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1957 reprint.
Bloesch, Donald G. The Battle for the Trinity: The Debate Over Inclusive God-Language.
Ann Arbor, Mich.: Servant, 1985.
Bowman, Robert M., Jr. Why You Should Believe in the Trinity: An Answer to Jehovah's
Witnesses. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1989.
Bray, G. L. “Trinity.” In NDT, pp. 691-94.
. “Tritheism.” In NDT, p. 694.
Brown, Harold O. J. Heresies: The Image of Christ in the Mirror of Heresy and Orthodoxy
From the Apostles to the Present. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1984, pp. 95-157.
Davis, Stephen T. Logic and the Nature of God. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983,
pp. 132-44.
Gruenler, Royce Gordon. The Trinity in the Gospel of John. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1986.
Harris, Murray. Jesus as God. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992.
Kaiser, Christopher B. The Doctrine of God: An Historical Survey. Westchester, 111.: Cross-
way, 1982, pp. 23-71.
CHAPTER 14 • THE TRINITY
261
McGrath, Alister E. Understanding the Trinity. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1988.
Mikolaski, S. J. ‘ The Triune God.” In Fundamentals of the Faith. Ed. by C. F. H. Henry.
Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1969, pp. 59-76.
Packer, J. I. “God.” NDT, 274-77.
• Knowing God. Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press, 1973, pp. 57-63.
Wright, D. F. “Augustine.” In NDT, pp. 58-61.
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
Matthew 3:16-17: And when Jesus was baptized, he went up immediately from the water,
and behold, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove,
and alighting on him; and lo, a voice from heaven, saying, “This is my beloved Son, with
whom I am well pleased”
HYMN
“Holy, Holy, Holy”
Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty!
Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee;
Holy, holy, holy! Merciful and mighty!
God in three persons, blessed Trinity!
Holy, holy, holy! All the saints adore thee,
Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea;
Cherubim and seraphim falling down before thee,
Who wert, and art, and evermore shalt be.
Holy, holy, holy! Though the darkness hide thee,
Though the eye of sinful man thy glory may not see,
Only thou art holy; there is none beside thee
Perfect in powr, in love, and purity.
Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
All thy works shall praise thy name, in earth and sky and sea;
Holy, holy, holy! Merciful and mighty!
God in three persons, blessed Trinity!
AUTHOR: REGINALD HEBER, 1826
Chapter
CREATION
Why, how, and when did God
create the universe?
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS 1
How did God create the world? Did he create every different kind of plant and animal
directly, or did he use some kind of evolutionary process, guiding the development of liv-
ing things from the simplest to the most complex? And how quickly did God bring about
creation? Was it all completed within six twenty-four-hour days, or did he use thousands
or perhaps millions of years? How old is the earth, and how old is the human race?
These questions face us when we deal with the doctrine of creation. Unlike most of the
earlier material in this book, this chapter treats several questions on which evangelical
Christians have differing viewpoints, sometimes very strongly held ones.
This chapter is organized to move from those aspects of creation that are most clearly
taught in Scripture, and on which almost all evangelicals would agree (creation out of
nothing, special creation of Adam and Eve, and the goodness of the universe), to other
aspects of creation about which evangelicals have had disagreements (whether God used
a process of evolution to bring about much of creation, and how old the earth and the
human race are).
We may define the doctrine of creation as follows: God created the entire universe out
of nothing; it was originally very good; and he created it to glorify himself
A. God Created the Universe Out of Nothing
1. Biblical Evidence for Creation Out of Nothing. The Bible clearly requires us to
believe that God created the universe out of nothing. (Sometimes the Latin phrase ex
nihilo, “out of nothing” is used; it is then said that the Bible teaches creation ex nihilo.)
am grateful for many helpful comments on this chap- aspects of it, especially Steve Figard, Doug Brandt, and Terry
ter made by friends with specialized knowledge about some Mortenson.
262
CHAPTER 15 ■ CREATION
This means that before God began to create the universe, nothing else existed except
God himself. 2
This is the implication of Genesis 1:1, which says, “In the beginning God created
the heavens and the earth.” The phrase “the heavens and the earth” includes the entire
universe. Psalm 33 also tells us, “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all
their host by the breath of his mouth. . . . For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded,
and it stood forth” (Ps. 33:6, 9). In the New Testament, we find a universal statement at
the beginning of Johns gospel: “A/Z things were made through him, and without him was
not anything made that was made” (John 1:3). The phrase “all things” is best taken to
refer to the entire universe (cf. Acts 17:24; Heb. 11:3). Paul is quite explicit in Colossians
1 when he specifies all the parts of the universe, both visible and invisible things: “For in
him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible , whether thrones
or dominions or principalities or authorities — all things were created through him and
for him” (Col. 1:16). The song of the twenty- four elders in heaven likewise affirms this
truth:
“You are worthy, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things ,
and by your will they existed and were created.” (Rev. 4:11)
In the last phrase God’s will is said to be the reason why things even “existed” at all and
why they “were created.”
That God created both the heavens and the earth and everything in them is affirmed
several other times in the New Testament. For instance, Acts 4:24 speaks of God as the
Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them.”
One of the first ways of identifying God is to say that he is the one who created all things.
Barnabas and Paul explain to the pagan audience at Lystra that they are messengers of
“a living God who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them”
(Acts 14:15). Similarly, when Paul is speaking to pagan Greek philosophers in Athens, he
identifies the true God as “The God who made the world and everything in it” and says
that this God “gives to all men life and breath and everything” (Acts 17:24-25; cf. Isa.
45:18; Rev. 10:6).
Hebrews 11:3 says, “By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word
of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible” (NASB). This
translation (as well as the NIV) most accurately reflects the Greek text. 3 Though the
text does not quite teach the doctrine of creation out of nothing, it comes close to doing
2 When we say that the universe was created “out of noth-
ing ” it is important to guard against a possible misunderstand-
ing. The word nothing does not imply some kind of existence,
as some philosophers have taken it to mean. We mean rather
that God did not use any previously existing materials when he
created the universe.
3 The RSV translation (“so that what is seen was made out
of things which do not appear”) apparently affirms that God
made the universe out of invisible matter of some sort, but the
word order of the Greek text (me ek phenomenon) shows that
the word “not” negates the phrase “out of appearing things.”
The RSV translation reads as if the word “not” negated the
participle “appearing,” but it would need to appear imme-
diately before it in order to do that. See discussion in Philip
Hughes, A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977), pp. 443-52.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
264
so, since it says that God did not create the universe out of anything that is visible. The
somewhat strange idea that the universe might have been created out of something that
was invisible is probably not in the author’s mind. He is contradicting the idea of creation
out of previously existing matter, and for that purpose the verse is quite clear.
Romans 4:17 also implies that God created out of nothing, even if it does not exactly
state it. The Greek text literally speaks of God as one who “calls things not existing as
existing.” The RSV translation, “calls into existence the things that do not exist” (simi-
larly NASB) is unusual but possible grammatically, 4 and it makes an explicit affirmation
of creation out of nothing. Yet even if we translate it so that the Greek word hos takes
its common sense “as,” the verse says that God “calls the things which do not exist as
existing” (NASB mg.) . But if God speaks to or calls something that does not exist, as if in
fact it did exist, then what is implied? If he calls things that do not exist as though they
existed, it must mean that they will soon exist, irresistibly called into existence.
Because God created the entire universe out of nothing there is no matter in the uni-
verse that is eternal. All that we see — the mountains, the oceans, the stars, the earth
itself — all came into existence when God created them. There was a time when they did
not exist:
“Before the mountains were brought forth,
or ever you had formed the earth and the world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.” (Ps. 90:2)
This reminds us that God rules over all the universe and that nothing in creation is to be
worshiped instead of God or in addition to him. However, were we to deny creation out
of nothing, we would have to say that some matter has always existed and that it is eternal
like God. This idea would challenge God’s independence, his sovereignty, and the fact
that worship is due to him alone: if matter existed apart from God, then what inherent
right would God have to rule over it and use it for his glory? And what confidence could
we have that every aspect of the universe will ultimately fulfill God’s purposes, if some
parts of it were not created by him?
The positive side of the fact that God created the universe out of nothing is that it has
meaning and a purpose. God, in his wisdom, created it for something. We should try to
understand that purpose and use creation in ways that fit that purpose, namely, to bring
glory to God himself. 5 Moreover, whenever the creation brings us joy (cf. 1 Tim. 6:17),
we should give thanks to the God who made it all.
2. The Creation of the Spiritual Universe. This creation of the entire universe includes
the creation of an unseen, spiritual realm of existence: God created the angels and other
kinds of heavenly beings as well as animals and man. He also created heaven as a place
where his presence is especially evident. The creation of the spiritual realm is certainly
implied in all the verses above that speak of God creating not only the earth but also
“heaven and what is in it” (Rev. 10:6; cf. Acts 4:24), but it is also explicitly affirmed in
4 See C. E. B. Cranfield, A Critical and Exegetical Commen- 5 See section C below (pp. 271-72) on God's purpose for
tary on the Epistle to the Romans t ICC, vol. 1 (Edinburgh: T. Sc T. creation.
Clark, 1975), p. 244: Greek hos as expressing consequence.
CHAPTER 15 • CREATION
a number of other verses. The prayer of Ezra says very clearly: “You are the Lord, you
alone; you have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all
that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host
of heaven worships you” (Neh. 9:6). The “host of heaven” in this verse seems to refer to
the angels and other heavenly creatures, since Ezra says that they engage in the activity
of worshiping God (the same term host is used to speak of angels who worship God in
Ps. 103:21 and 148:2). 6
In the New Testament, Paul specifies that in Christ “all things were created, in heaven
and on earth, visible and invisible , whether thrones or dominions or principalities
or authorities — all things were created through him and for him” (Col. 1:16; cf. Ps.
148:2—5). Here the creation of invisible heavenly beings is also explicitly affirmed.
3. The Direct Creation of Adam and Eve. The Bible also teaches that God created Adam
and Eve in a special, personal way. The Lord God formed man of dust from the ground,
and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being” (Gen.
2:7). After that, God created Eve from Adam’s body: “So the Lord God caused a deep
sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place
with flesh; and the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a
woman and brought her to the man (Gen. 2:21—22). God apparently let Adam know
something of what had happened, for Adam said,
“This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man.” (Gen. 2:23)
As we shall see below, Christians differ on the extent to which evolutionary develop-
ments may have occurred after creation, perhaps (according to some) leading to the devel-
opment of more and more complex organisms. While there are sincerely held differences
on that question among some Christians with respect to the plant and animal kingdoms,
these texts are so explicit that it would be very difficult for someone to hold to the com-
plete truthfulness of Scripture and still hold that human beings are the result of a long
evolutionary process. This is because when Scripture says that the Lord “formed man of
dust from the ground (Gen. 2:7), it does not seem possible to understand that to mean
that he did it over a process that took millions of years and employed the random develop-
ment of thousands of increasingly complex organisms. 7 Even more impossible to reconcile
with an evolutionary view is the fact that this narrative clearly portrays Eve as having no
female parent: she was created directly from Adam’s rib while Adam slept (Gen. 2:21). But
on a purely evolutionary view, this would not be possible, for even the very first female
6 The word translated “host” (Heb. tsaba) is sometimes used
to refer to the planets and stars (Deut. 4:19; Isa. 34:4; 40:26), but
none of the examples cited in BDB, p. 839 (l.c) speak of the stars
worshiping God, and most speak of the heavenly bodies as “the
host of heaven” who are wrongly worshiped by pagans (Deut.
17:3; 2 Kings 17:16; 21:3; Jer. 8:2, et al.).
7 In spite of this explicit statement in Gen. 2:7, Derek Kidner
(who holds a view of the truthfulness of Scripture compatible
with that advocated in this book), does advocate the possibil-
ity of evolutionary development of a long line of pre-Adamite
creatures into one of whom God finally “breathed human life”
( Genesis : An Introduction and Commentary , TOTC [London
and Chicago: InterVarsity Press, 1967], p. 28). But he then
affirms a special creation of Eve (p. 29).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
266
“human being” would have been descended from some nearly human creature that was
still an animal. The New Testament reaffirms the historicity of this special creation of Eve
from Adam when Paul says, “For man was not made from woman, but woman from man.
Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man” (1 Cor. 11:8-9).
The special creation of Adam and Eve shows that, though we may be like animals in
many respects in our physical bodies, nonetheless we are very different from animals.
We are created “in God’s image,” the pinnacle of God’s creation, more like God than any
other creature, appointed to rule over the rest of creation. Even the brevity of the Genesis
account of creation places a wonderful emphasis on the importance of man in distinction
from the rest of the universe. It thus resists modern tendencies to see man as meaningless
against the immensity of the universe. Derek Kidner notes that Scripture stands
against every tendency to empty human history of meaning. ... in present-
ing the tremendous acts of creation as a mere curtain-raiser to the drama that
slowly unfolds throughout the length of the Bible. The prologue is over in a
page; there are a thousand to follow.
By contrast, Kidner notes that the modern scientific account of the universe, true though
it may be,
overwhelms us with statistics that reduce our apparent significance to a
vanishing-point. Not the prologue, but the human story itself, is now the single
page in a thousand, and the whole terrestrial volume is lost among uncataloged
millions. 8
Scripture gives us the perspective on human significance that God intends us to have.
(This fact will be discussed in more detail in chapter 21, below.)
4. The Creation of Time. One other aspect of God’s creation is the creation of time
(the succession of moments one after another). This idea was discussed with respect to
God’s attribute of eternity in chapter ll, 9 and we need only summarize it here. When
we speak of God’s existence “before” the creation of the world, we should not think of
God as existing in an unending extension of time. Rather, God’s eternity means that
he has a different kind of existence, an existence without the passage of time, a kind of
existence that is difficult for us even to imagine. (See Job 36:26; Ps. 90:2, 4; John 8:58;
2 Peter 3:8; Rev. 1:8). The fact that God created time reminds us of his lordship over it
and our obligation to use it for his glory.
5. The Work of the Son and of the Holy Spirit in Creation. God the Father was the
primary agent in initiating the act of creation. But the Son and the Holy Spirit were also
active. The Son is often described as the one “through” whom creation came about. “All
things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made”
(John 1:3). Paul says there is “one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and
through whom we exist” (1 Cor. 8:6), and, “all things were created through him and for
him” (Col. 1:16). We read also that the Son is the one “through whom” God “created the
'Kidner, Genesis, p. 57.
9 See p. 199.
CHAPTER 15 • CREATION
world” (Heb. 1:2). These passages give a consistent picture of the Son as the active agent
carrying out the plans and directions of the Father.
The Holy Spirit was also at work in creation. He is generally pictured as completing,
filling, and giving life to God s creation. In Genesis 1:2, “the Spirit of God was moving
over the face of the waters,” indicating a preserving, sustaining, governing function. Job
says, The spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life” (Job
33:4). In a number of Old Testament passages, it is important to realize that the same
Hebrew word ( ruach ) can mean, in different contexts, “spirit,” or “breath,” or “wind.”
But in many cases there is not much difference in meaning, for even if one decided to
translate some phrases as the “breath of God” or even the “wind of God,” it would still
seem to be a figurative way of referring to the activity of the Holy Spirit in creation. So
the psalmist, in speaking of the great variety of creatures on the earth and in the sea, says,
“When you send forth your Spirit, they are created” (Ps. 104:30; note also, on the Holy
Spirits work, Job 26:13; Isa. 40:13; 1 Cor. 2:10). However, the testimony of Scripture to
the specific activity of the Holy Spirit in creation is scarce. The work of the Holy Spirit is
brought into much greater prominence in connection with the inspiring of the authors of
Scripture and the applying of Christ’s redemptive work to the people of God. 10
Creation Is Distinct From God Yet Always Dependent on God
The teaching of Scripture about the relationship between God and creation is unique
among the religions of the world. The Bible teaches that God is distinct from his cre-
ation. He is not part of it, for he has made it and rules over it. The term often used to say
that God is much greater than creation is the word transcendent. Very simply, this means
that God is far “above” the creation in the sense that he is greater than the creation and
he is independent of it.
God is also very much involved in creation, for it is continually dependent on him
for its existence and its functioning. The technical term used to speak of God’s involve-
ment in creation is the word immanent, meaning “remaining in” creation. The God of
the Bible is no abstract deity removed from, and uninterested in his creation. The Bible
is the story of God’s involvement with his creation, and particularly the people in it.
Job affirms that even the animals and plants depend on God: “In his hand is the life of
every living thing and the breath of all mankind” (Job 12:10). In the New Testament,
Paul affirms that God gives to all men life and breath and everything” and that “in
him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:25, 28). Indeed, in Christ “all things
hold together (Col. 1:17), and he is continually “upholding the universe by his word of
power” (Heb. 1:3). God’s transcendence and immanence are both affirmed in a single
verse when Paul speaks of “one God and Father of us all, who is above all and through
all and in all” (Eph. 4:6).
The fact that creation is distinct from God yet always dependent on God, that God is
far above creation yet always involved in it (in brief, that God is both transcendent and
immanent), may be represented as in figure 15.1.
l0 See chapter 30, pp. 634-53, on the work of the Holy
Spirit.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
268
CREATION IS DISTINCT FROM GOD YET ALWAYS DEPENDENT ON GOD
(GOD IS BOTH TRANSCENDENT AND IMMANENT)
Figure 15.1
This is dearly distinct from materialism, which is the most common philosophy of
unbelievers today, and which denies the existence of God altogether. Materialism would
say that the material universe is all there is. It may be represented as in figure 15.2.
MATERIALISM
Figure 15.2
Christians today who focus almost the entire effort of their lives on earning more
money and acquiring more possessions become “practical” materialists in their activity,
since their lives would be not much different if they did not believe in God at all.
The scriptural account of God’s relation to his creation is also distinct from pantheism.
The Greek word pan means “all” or “every,” and pantheism is the idea that everything, the
w ho le universe, is God, or is part of God. This can be pictured as in figure 15.3.
Pantheism denies sevefaTessential aspects of God’s character. If the whole universe is
God, then God has no distinct personality. God is no longer unchanging, because as the
universe changes, God also changes. Moreover, God is no longer holy, because the evil
in the universe is also part of God. Another difficulty is that ultimately most panthe-
CHAPTER 15
PANTHEISM
Figure 15.3
istic systems (such as Buddhism and many other eastern religions) end up denying the
importance of individual human personalities: since everything is God, the goal of an
individual should be to blend in with the universe and become more and more united
with it, thus losing his or her individual distinctiveness. If God himself (or itself) has no
distinct personal identity separate from the universe, then we should certainly not strive
to have one either. Thus, pantheism destroys not only the personal identity of God, but
also, ultimately, of human beings as well.
Any philosophy that sees creation as an “emanation” out of God (that is, something
that comes out of God but is still part of God and not distinct from him) would be similar
to pantheism in most or all of the ways in which aspects of God's character are denied.
The biblical account also rules out dualism. This is the idea that both God and the
material universe have eternally existed side by side. Thus, there are two ultimate forces
in the universe, God and matter. This may be represented as in figure 15.4.
DUALISM
Figure 15.4
CREATION
269
The problem with dualism is that it indicates an eternal conflict between God and
the evil aspects of the material universe. Will God ultimately triumph over evil in the
universe? We cannot be sure, because both God and evil have apparently always existed
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
side by side. This philosophy would deny both God’s ultimate lordship over creation
and also that creation came about because of God’s will, that it is to be used solely for
his purposes, and that it is to glorify him. This viewpoint would also deny that all of the
universe was created inherently good (Gen. 1:31) and would encourage people to view
material reality as somewhat evil in itself, in contrast with a genuine biblical account of
a creation that God made to be good and that he rules over for his purposes.
One recent example of dualism in modern culture is the series of Star Wars movies,
which postulate the existence of a universal “Force” that has both a good and an evil
side. There is no concept of one holy and transcendent God who rules over all and will
certainly triumph over all. When non- Christians today begin to be aware of a spiritual
aspect to the universe, they often become dualists, merely acknowledging that there are
good and evil aspects to the supernatural or spiritual world. Most “New Age” religion is
dualistic. Of course, Satan is delighted to have people think that there is an evil force in
the universe that is perhaps equal to God himself.
The Christian view of creation is also distinct from the viewpoint of deism. Deism is
the view that God is not now directly involved in the creation. It may be represented as
in figure 15.5.
DEISM
Figure 15.5
Deism generally holds that God created the universe and is far greater than the uni-
verse (God is “transcendent”). Some deists also agree that God has moral standards
and will ultimately hold people accountable on a day of judgment. But they deny God’s
present involvement in the world, thus leaving no place for his immanence in the cre-
ated order. Rather, God is viewed as a divine dock maker who wound up the “clock” of
creation at the beginning but then left it to run on its own.
While deism does affirm God’s transcendence in some ways, it denies almost the
entire history of the Bible, which is the history of God’s active involvement in the world.
Many “lukewarm” or nominal Christians today are, in effect, practical deists, since
CHAPTER 15 • CREATION
they live lives almost totally devoid of genuine prayer, worship, fear of God, or moment-
by-moment trust in God to care for needs that arise.
C. God Created the Universe to Show His Glory
It is clear that God created his people for his own glory, for he speaks of his sons and
daughters as those “whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made” (Isa. 43:7).
But it is not only human beings that God created for this purpose. The entire creation is
intended to show God’s glory. Even the inanimate creation, the stars and sun and moon
and sky, testify to God’s greatness, “The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the
firmament proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night
declares knowledge” (Ps. 19:1-2). The song of heavenly worship in Revelation 4 connects
God’s creation of all things with the fact that he is worthy to receive glory from them:
“You are worthy, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you have created all things,
and by your will they existed and were created.” (Rev. 4:11)
What does creation show about God? Primarily it shows his great power and wisdom,
far above anything that could be imagined by any creature. 11 “It is he who made the
earth by his power, who established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding
stretched out the heavens (Jer. 10:12). In contrast to ignorant men and the “worthless”
idols they make, Jeremiah says, “Not like these is he who is the portion of Jacob, for he is
the one who formed all things ... the Lord of hosts is his name” (Jer. 10:16). One glance
at the sun or the stars convinces us of God’s infinite power. And even a brief inspection
of any leaf on a tree, or of the wonder of the human hand, or of any one living cell, con-
vinces us of God’s great wisdom. Who could make all of this? Who could make it out
of nothing? Who could sustain it day after day for endless years? Such infinite power,
such intricate skill, is completely beyond our comprehension. When we meditate on it,
we give glory to God.
When we affirm that God created the universe to show his glory, it is important that
we realize that he did not need to create it. We should not think that God needed more
glory than he had within the Trinity for all eternity, or that he was somehow incomplete
without the glory that he would receive from the created universe. This would be to deny
God’s independence and imply that God needed the universe in order to be fully God. 12
Rather, we must affirm that the creation of the universe was a totally free act of God. It
was not a necessary act but something that God chose to do. “You created all things,
and by your will they existed and were created” (Rev. 4:11). God desired to create the
universe to demonstrate his excellence. The creation shows his great wisdom and power,
and ultimately it shows all of his other attributes as well. 13 It seems that God created the
"See chapter 7, pp. 119-23, for a discussion of the necessity l3 See the discussion in chapter 11, pp. 158-60, on the
of Scripture if we are to interpret creation rightly. ways in which all of creation reveals various aspects of God’s
See the discussion of God’s independence in chapter 11, character,
pp. 160-63.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
272
universe, then, to take delight in his creation, for as creation shows forth various aspects
of God’s character, to that extent he takes delight in it.
This explains why we take spontaneous delight in all sorts of creative activities our-
selves. People with artistic or musical or literary skills enjoy creating things and seeing,
hearing, or pondering their creative work. God has so made us to enjoy imitating, in a
creaturely way, his creative activity. And one of the amazing aspects of humanity — in
distinction from the rest of creation — is our ability to create new things. This also
explains why we take delight in other kinds of “creative” activity: many people enjoy
cooking, or decorating their home, or working with wood or other materials, or produc-
ing scientific inventions, or devising new solutions to problems in industrial production.
Even children enjoy coloring pictures or building houses out of blocks. In all of these
activities we reflect in small measure the creative activity of God, and we should delight
in it and thank him for it.
D. The Universe God Created Was “Very Good”
This point follows from the previous point. If God created the universe to show his
glory, then we would expect that the universe would fulfill the purpose for which he cre-
ated it. In fact, when God finished his work of creation, he did take delight in it. At the
end of each stage of creation God saw that what he had done was “good” (Gen. 1:4, 10,
12, 18, 21, 25). Then at the end of the six days of creation, “God saw everything that he
had made, and behold, it was very good” (Gen. 1:31). God delighted in the creation that
he had made, just as he had purposed to do.
Even though there is now sin in the world, the material creation is still good in God’s
sight and should be seen as “good” by us as well. This knowledge will free us from a false
asceticism that sees the use and enjoyment of the material creation as wrong. Paul says
that those who “forbid marriage,” and “enjoin abstinence from foods which God created
to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth” (1 Tim. 4:1-3)
are giving heed to “doctrines of demons.” The apostle takes such a firm line because he
understands that “everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it
is received with thanksgiving; for then it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer”
(1 Tim. 4:4-5). Paul’s mention of “the word of God” that consecrates or “sanctifies” the
foods and other things we enjoy in the material creation is probably a reference to the
blessing of God spoken in Genesis 1:31, “It was very good.”
Though the created order can be used in sinful or selfish ways and can turn our
affections away from God, nonetheless we must not let the danger of the abuse of God’s
creation keep us from a positive, thankful, joyful use of it for our own enjoyment and
for the good of his kingdom. Shortly after Paul has warned against the desire to be
rich and the “love of money” (1 Tim. 6:9-10), he affirms that it is God himself “who
richly furnishes us with everything to enjoy” (1 Tim. 6:17). This fact gives warrant for
Christians to encourage proper industrial and technological development (together
with care for the environment), and joyful and thankful use of all the products of the
abundant earth that God has created — both by ourselves and by those with whom we
are to share generously of our possessions (note 1 Tim. 6:18). Yet in all of this we are to
CHAPTER 15 • CREATION
remember that material possessions are only temporary, not eternal. We are to set our
hopes on God (see Ps. 62:10; 1 Tim. 6:17) and on receiving a kingdom that cannot be
shaken (Col. 3:1-4; Heb. 12:28; 1 Peter 1:4).
E. The Relationship Between Scripture and the Findings
of Modern Science
At various times in history, Christians have found themselves dissenting from the
accepted findings of contemporary science. In the vast majority of cases, sincere Chris :
tian faith and strong trust in the Bible have led scientists to the discovery of new facts
about God s universe, and these discoveries have changed scientific opinion for all of
subsequent history. The lives of Isaac Newton, Galileo Galilei, Johannes Kepler, Blaise
Pascal, Robert Boyle, Michael Faraday, James Clerk Maxwell, and many others are exam-
ples of this. 14
On the other hand, there have been times when accepted scientific opinion has been
in conflict with people s understanding of what the Bible said. For example, when the
Italian astronomer Galileo (1564- 1642) began to teach that the earth was not the center
of the universe but that the earth and other planets revolved around the sun (thus fol-
lowing the theories of the Polish astronomer Copernicus [1472—1543]), he was criticized,
and eventually his writings were condemned by the Roman Catholic Church. This was
because many people thought that the Bible taught that the sun revolved about the earth.
In fact, the Bible does not teach that at all, but it was Copernican astronomy that made
people look again at Scripture to see if it really taught what they thought it taught. In
fact, descriptions of the sun rising and setting (Eccl. 1:5, et al.) merely portray events
as they appear from the perspective of the human observer, and, from that perspective,
they give an accurate description. But they imply nothing about the relative motion of the
earth and the sun, and nowhere does the Bible explain what makes the sun go “down”
in the viewpoint of a human observer. Scripture says nothing at all about whether the
earth or the sun or some other body is the “center” of the universe or the solar sys-
tem— that is not a question Scripture addresses. Yet the lesson of Galileo, who was forced
to recant his teachings and who had to live under house arrest for the last few years of
his life, should remind us that careful observation of the natural world can cause us to
go back to Scripture and reexamine whether Scripture actually teaches what we think
it teaches. Sometimes, on closer examination of the text, we may find that our previous
interpretations were incorrect.
Scientific investigation has helped Christians reevaluate what earlier generations
thought about the age of the earth, for example, so that no evangelical scholar today
would hold that the world was created in 4004 B.C. Yet that date was once widely believed
to be the date of the creation because of the writings of Irish Archbishop James Ussher
(1581-1656), one of the great scholars of his day, who carefully added together the
dates in the genealogies of the Bible to find when Adam was created. Today it is widely
14 See August J. Kling, “Men of Science/ Men of Faith,” HIS ,
May 1976, pp. 26-31, for a brief survey of the life and work of
several of these scientists.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
274
acknowledged that the Bible does not tell us the precise date of the creation of the earth
or of the human race (see below).
On the other hand, many people in the Christian community have steadfastly refused
to agree with the dominant opinion of scientists today regarding evolution. On this mat-
ter, thousands of Christians have examined Scripture again and again in great detail, and
many have concluded that Scripture is not silent on the process by which living organ-
isms came into being. Moreover, careful observation of the facts of the created universe
has produced widespread disagreement regarding theories of evolution (both from sci-
entists who are Christians and from a number of non-Christian scientists as well). 15 So
on both biblical and scientific grounds, theories of evolution have been challenged by
Christians.
We should also remember that the question of the creation of the universe is unlike
many other scientific questions because creation is not something that can be repeated
in a laboratory experiment, nor were there any human observers of it. Therefore pro-
nouncements by scientists about creation and the early history of the earth are at best
educated speculation. If we are convinced, however, that the only observer of these events
(God himself) has told us about them in the reliable words of the Bible, then we should
pay careful attention to the biblical account.
In the following section, we have listed some principles by which the relationship
between creation and the findings of modern science can be approached.
1. When All the Facts Are Rightly Understood, There Will Be “No Final Conflict”
Between Scripture and Natural Science. The phrase “no final conflict” is taken from a
very helpful book by Francis Schaeffer, No Final Conflict . 16 Regarding questions about the
creation of the universe, Schaeffer lists several areas where, in his judgment, there is room
for disagreement among Christians who believe in the total truthfulness of Scripture:
1. There is a possibility that God created a “grown-up” universe.
2. There is a possibility ofa break between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 or between 1:2
and 1:3.
3. There is a possibility of a long day in Genesis 1.
4. There is a possibility that the flood affected the geological data.
5. The use of the word “kinds” in Genesis 1 may be quite broad.
6. There is a possibility of the death of animals before the fall.
7. Where the Hebrew word barn ’ is not used there is the possibility of sequence
from previously existing things. 17
Schaeffer makes clear that he is not saying that any of those positions is his own; only
that they are theoretically possible. Schaeffer’s major point is that in both our under-
standing of the natural world and our understanding of Scripture, our knowledge is not
perfect. But we can approach both scientific and biblical study with the confidence that
15 For analysis of the increasingly large body of scientific chapter and discussed on pp. 280-84 below,
evidence against evolution, see especially the books by Michael 16 Downers Grove, 111. : InterVarsity Press, 1975.
Denton and Phillip E. Johnson cited in the bibliography to this 17 Ibid., pp. 25 - 33.
CHAPTER 15 • CREATION
when all the facts are correctly understood, and when we have understood Scripture
rightly, our findings will never be in conflict with each other: there will be “no final
conflict.” This is because God, who speaks in Scripture, knows all facts, and he has not
spoken in a way that would contradict any true fact in the universe.
This is a very helpful perspective with which the Christian should begin any study
of creation and modern science. We should not fear to investigate scientifically the facts
of the created world but should do so eagerly and with complete honesty, confident that
when facts are rightly understood, they will always turn out to be consistent with God’s
inerrant words in Scripture. Similarly, we should approach the study of Scripture eagerly
and with confidence that, when rightly understood, Scripture will never contradict facts
in the natural world. 18
Someone may object that this whole discussion is inappropriate, for the Bible is given
to us to teach religious and ethical matters; it is not intended to teach “science.” However,
as we noted in chapter 5 above. Scripture itself places no such restriction on the subjects
to which it can speak. Although the Bible is of course not a “textbook” of science in a for-
mal sense, it does nonetheless contain many affirmations about the natural world — its
origin, its purposes, its ultimate destiny— and many statements about how it functions
from day to day. If we take seriously the idea that it is God himself (as well as the human
authors) who speaks all the words of Scripture, then we must take these statements seri-
ously and believe them as well. Indeed, Scripture says that our understanding of some
scientific facts is a matter of our faith! Hebrews 11:3 tells us, “By faith we understand
that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out
of things which are visible” (NASB).
2. Some Theories About Creation Seem Clearly Inconsistent With the Teachings of
Scripture. In this section we will examine three types of explanation of the origin of the
universe that seem clearly inconsistent with Scripture.
a. Secular Theories: For the sake of completeness we mention here only briefly that any
purely secular theories of the origin of the universe would be unacceptable for those who
believe in Scripture. A “secular” theory is any theory of the origin of the universe that
does not see an infinite-personal God as responsible for creating the universe by intel-
ligent design. Thus, the “big bang” theory (in a secular form in which God is excluded),
or any theories that hold that matter has always existed, would be inconsistent with the
teaching of Scripture that God created the universe out of nothing, and that he did so for
his own glory. (When Darwinian evolution is thought of in a totally materialistic sense,
as it most often is, it would belong in this category also.) 19
b. Theistic Evolution: Ever since the publication of Charles Darwin’s book Origin of
Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859), some Christians have proposed that living
organisms came about by the process of evolution that Darwin proposed, but that God
guided that process so that the result was just what he wanted it to be. This view is called
18 See the discussion in chapter 4, pp. 83-84, on the relation- 19 See pp. 279-87 below, for a discussion of Darwinian
ship between Scripture 3.nd nstursl revelation. evolution
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
276
theistic evolution because it advocates belief in God (it is “theistic”) and in evolution too.
Many who hold to theistic evolution would propose that God intervened in the process at
some crucial points, usually (1) the creation of matter at the beginning, (2) the creation
of the simplest life form, and (3) the creation of man. But, with the possible exception of
those points of intervention, theistic evolutionists hold that evolution proceeded in the
ways now discovered by natural scientists, and that it was the process that God decided
to use in allowing all of the other forms of life on earth to develop. They believe that the
random mutation of living things led to the evolution of higher life forms through the
fact that those that had an “adaptive advantage” (a mutation that allowed them to be
better fitted to survive in their environment) lived when others did not.
Theistic evolutionists are quite prepared to change their views of the way evolution
came about, because, according to their standpoint, the Bible does not specify how it hap-
pened. It is therefore up to us to discover this through ordinary scientific investigation.
They would argue that as we learn more and more about the way in which evolution came
about, we are simply learning more and more about the process that God used to bring
about the development of life forms.
The objections to theistic evolution are as follows:
L The clear teaching of Scripture that there is purposefulness in God’s work of cre-
ation seems incompatible with the randomness demanded by evolutionary theory. When
Scripture reports that God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to
their kinds: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds”
(Gen. 1:24), it pictures God as doing things intentionally and with a purpose for each
thing he does. But this is the opposite of allowing mutations to proceed entirely randomly ;
with no purpose for the millions of mutations that would have to come about, under
evolutionary theory, before a new species could emerge.
The fundamental difference between a biblical view of creation and theistic evolution
lies here: the driving force that brings about change and the development of new species
in all evolutionary schemes is randomness . Without the random mutation of organisms
you do not have evolution in the modern scientific sense at all. Random mutation is the
underlying force that brings about eventual development from the simplest to the most
complex life forms. But the driving force in the development of new organisms according
to Scripture is God’s intelligent design . God created “the great creatures of the sea and
every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and
every winged bird according to its kind” (Gen. 1:21 NIV). “God made the wild animals
according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that
move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good” (Gen.
1:25 NIV). These statements seem inconsistent with the idea of God creating or direct-
ing or observing millions of random mutations, none of which were “very good” in the
way he intended, none of which really were the kinds of plants or animals he wanted to
have on the earth. Instead of the straightforward biblical account of God’s creation, the
theistic evolution view has to understand events to have occurred something like this:
And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds.”
And after three hundred eighty-seven million four hundred ninety-two thousand
eight hundred seventy-one attempts, God finally made a mouse that worked.
CHAPTER 15 * CREATION
That may seem a strange explanation, but it is precisely what the theistic evolutionist
must postulate for each of the hundreds of thousands of different kinds of plants and
animals on the earth: they all developed through a process of random mutation over
millions of years, gradually increasing in complexity as occasional mutations turned out
to be advantageous to the creature.
A theistic evolutionist may object that God intervened in the process and guided it at
many points in the direction he wanted it to go. But once this is allowed then there is pur-
pose and intelligent design in the process— we no longer have evolution at all, because
there is no longer random mutation (at the points of divine interaction). No secular
evolutionist would accept such intervention by an intelligent, purposeful Creator. But
once a Christian agrees to some active, purposeful design by God, then there is no longer
any need for randomness or any development emerging from random mutation. Thus
we may as well have God immediately creating each distinct creature without thousands
of attempts that fail.
2. Scripture pictures Gods creative word as bringing immediate response. When the
Bible talks about God’s creative word it emphasizes the power of his word and its ability
to accomplish his purpose.
By the word of the Lord the heavens were made,
and all their host by the breath of his mouth.
. . . For he spoke, and it came to be;
he commanded, and it stood forth. (Ps. 33:6, 9)
This kind of statement seems incompatible with the idea that God spoke and after mil-
lions of years and millions of random mutations in living things his power brought about
the result that he had called for. Rather, as soon as God says, “Let the earth put forth
vegetation,” the very next sentence tells us, “And it was so” (Gen. 1:11).
3. When Scripture tells us that God made plants and animals to reproduce “ according
to their kinds ” (Gen. 1:11, 24), it suggests that God created many different types of plants
and animals and that, though there would be some differentiation among them (note
many different sizes, races, and personal characteristics among human beings!), none-
theless there would be some narrow limits to the kind of change that could come about
through genetic mutations. 20
4. God’s present active role in creating or forming every living thing that now comes
into being is hard to reconcile with the distant “hands off” kind of oversight of evolution
20 We do not need to insist that the Hebrew word min
(“kind”) corresponds exactly with the biological category
“species,” for that is simply a modern means of classifying
different living things. But the Hebrew word does seem to
indicate a narrow specification of various types of living
things. It is used, for example, to speak of several very spe-
cific types of animals that bear young and are distinguished
according to their “kind.” Scripture speaks of “the falcon
according to its kind,” “every raven according to its kind,”
“the hawk according to its kind,” “the heron according to its
kind,” and “the locust according to its kind” (Lev. 11:14, 15,
16, 19, 22). Other animals that exist according to an indi-
vidual “kind” are the cricket, grasshopper, great lizard, buz-
zard, kite, sea gull, and stork (Lev. 11:22, 29; Deut. 14:13, 14,
15, 18). These are very specific kinds of animals, and God
created them so that they would reproduce only according
to their own “kinds.” It seems that this would allow only for
diversification within each of these types of animals (larger
or smaller hawks, hawks of different color and with different
shapes of beaks, etc.), but certainly not any “macroevolu-
tionary” change into entirely different kinds of birds. (Frair
and Davis, A Case for Creation , p. 129, think that “kind” may
correspond to family or order today, or else to no precise
twentieth-century equivalent.)
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
278
that is proposed by theistic evolution. David is able to confess, “You formed my inward
parts, you knit me together in my mother’s womb” (Ps. 139:13). And God said to Moses,
“Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him dumb, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it
not I, the Lord?” (Ex. 4:11). God makes the grass grow (Ps. 104:14; Matt. 6:30) and feeds
the birds (Matt. 6:26) and the other creatures of the forest (Ps. 104:21, 27-30). If God
is so involved in causing the growth and development of every step of every living thing
even now, does it seem consistent with Scripture to say that these life forms were origi-
nally brought about by an evolutionary process directed by random mutation rather
than by God’s direct, purposeful creation, and that only after they had been created did
he begin his active involvement in directing them each moment?
5. The special creation of Adam, and Eve from him, is a strong reason to break with
theistic evolution. Those theistic evolutionists who argue for a special creation of Adam
and Eve because of the statements in Genesis 1-2 have really broken with evolutionary
theory at the point that is of most concern to human beings anyway. But if, on the basis
of Scripture, we insist upon God’s special intervention at the point of the creation of
Adam and Eve, then what is to prevent our allowing that God intervened, in a similar
way, in the creation of living organisms?
We must realize that the special creation of Adam and Eve as recorded in Scripture
shows them to be far different from the nearly animal, just barely human creatures that
evolutionists would say were the first humans, creatures who descended from ances-
tors that were highly developed nonhuman apelike creatures. Scripture pictures the
first man and woman, Adam and Eve, as possessing highly developed linguistic, moral,
and spiritual abilities from the moment they were created. They can talk with each
other. They can even talk with God. They are very different from the nearly animal first
humans, descended from nonhuman apelike creatures, of evolutionary theory.
Some may object that Genesis 1-2 does not intend to portray Adam and Eve as literal
individuals, but (a) the historical narrative in Genesis continues without a break into
the obviously historical material about Abraham (Gen. 12), showing that the author
intended the entire section to be historical, 21 and (b) in Romans 5:12-21 and 1 Corin-
thians 15:21-22, 45-49, Paul affirms the existence of the “one man” Adam through
whom sin came into the world, and bases his discussion of Christ’s representative work
of earning salvation on the previous historical pattern of Adam being a representative
for mankind as well. Moreover, the New Testament elsewhere clearly understands Adam
and Eve to be historical figures (cf. Luke 3:38; Acts 17:26; 1 Cor. 11:8-9; 2 Cor. 11:3;
1 Tim. 2:13- 14). The New Testament also assumes the historicity of the sons of Adam
and Eve, Cain (Heb. 11:4; 1 John 3:12; Jude 11) and Abel (Matt. 23:35; Luke 11:51; Heb.
11:4; 12:24).
21 Note the phrase “These are the generations of ” intro-
ducing successive sections in the Genesis narrative at Gen. 2:4
(heavens and the earth); 5:1 (Adam); 6:9 (Noah); 10:1 (the sons
of Noah); 11:10 (Shem); 11:27 (Terah, the father of Abraham);
25:12 (Ishmael); 25:19 (Isaac); 36:1 (Esau); and 37:2 (Jacob).
The translation of the phrase may differ in various English
versions, but the Hebrew expression is the same and literally
says, “These are the generations of. . . .” By this literary device
the author has introduced various sections of his historical nar-
rative, tying it all together in a unified whole, and indicating
that it is to be understood as history-writing of the same sort
throughout. If the author intends us to understand Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob as historical figures, then he also intends us to
understand Adam and Eve as historical figures.
CHAPTER 15 • CREATION
6. There are many scientific problems with evolutionary theory (see the following sec-
tion). The increasing number of questions about the validity of the theory of evolution
being raised even by non- Christians in various scientific disciplines indicates that anyone
who claims to be forced to believe in evolution because the “scientific facts” leave no other
option has simply not considered all the evidence on the other side. The scientific data do
not force one to accept evolution, and if the scriptural record argues convincingly against
it as well, it does not seem to be a valid theory for a Christian to adopt.
It seems most appropriate to conclude in the words of geologist Davis A. Young,
“The position of theistic evolutionism as expressed by some of its proponents is not a
consistently Christian position. It is not a truly biblical position, for it is based in part on
principles that are imported into Christianity.” 22 According to Louis Berkhof “theistic
evolution is really a child of embarrassment, which calls God in at periodic intervals to
help nature over the chasms that yawn at her feet. It is neither the biblical doctrine of
creation, nor a consistent theory of evolution.” 23
c. Notes on the Darwinian Theory of Evolution: The word evolution can be used in
different ways. Sometimes it is used to refer to “micro-evolution” — small developments
within one species, so that we see flies or mosquitoes becoming immune to insecticides,
or human beings growing taller, or different colors and varieties of roses being devel-
oped. Innumerable examples of such “micro-evolution” are evident today, and no one
denies that they exist. 24 But that is not the sense in which the word evolution is usually
used when discussing theories of creation and evolution.
The term evolution is more commonly used to refer to “macro-evolution” — that
is, the “general theory of evolution” or the view that “nonliving substance gave rise to
the first living material, which subsequently reproduced and diversified to produce all
extinct and extant organisms.” 25 In this chapter, when we use the word evolution it is
used to refer to macro-evolution or the general theory of evolution.
(1) Current Challenges to Evolution: Since Charles Darwin first published his Origin
of Species by Means of Natural Selection in 1859, there have been challenges to his theory
by Christians and non-Christians alike. Current neo-Darwinian theory is still founda-
tionally similar to Darwin’s original position, but with refinements and modifications
due to over a hundred years of research. In modern Darwinian evolutionary theory, the
22 Davis A. Young, Creation and the Flood: An Alternative
to Flood Geology and Theistic Evolution (Grand Rapids: Baker,
1977), p. 38. Young includes a discussion of the views of Rich-
ard H. Bube, one of the leading proponents of theistic evolution
today (pp. 33-35).
23 Berkhof, Systematic Theology, pp. 139-40.
24 Phillip E. Johnson, Darwin on Trial (Downers Grove,
111.: InterVarsity Press, 1991), points out that some studies
frequently claimed as evidence of evolution are really just
temporary population differences with no genetic change.
For example, he mentions Kettlewells observation of “indus-
trial melanism” in the peppered moth, whereby the prevailing
color of the moths changed from white to black and back to
white again when leaves on trees were light colored, then cov-
ered with soot from pollution, then again light colored when
the pollution ended. But at every stage, both black and white
moths were present, even though in differing proportions
(moths that did not match the leaf color were more easily seen
and eaten by predators). No evolutionary change occurred at
all, for both black and white moths were still industrial moths,
just as black and white horses are both still horses. In fact, the
moth functioned to preserve its genetic identity in differing
circumstances, rather than evolving or becoming extinct (see
pp. 26-28, 160-61).
25 Wayne Frair and Percival Davis, A Case for Creation
(Norcross, Ga.: CRS Books, 1983), p. 25.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
280
history of the development of life began when a mix of chemicals present on the earth
spontaneously produced a very simple, probably one-celled life form. This living cell
reproduced itself, and eventually there were some mutations or differences in the new
cells produced. These mutations led to the development of more complex life forms.
A hostile environment meant that many of them would perish, but those that were
better suited to their environment would survive and multiply. Thus, nature exercised
a process of “natural selection” in which the differing organisms most fitted to the
environment survived. More and more mutations eventually developed into more and
more varieties of living things, so that from the very simplest organism all the complex
life forms on earth eventually developed through this process of mutation and natural
selection.
The most recent, and perhaps most devastating, critique of current Darwinian theory
comes from Phillip E. Johnson, a law professor who specializes in analyzing the logic of
arguments. In his book Darwin on Trial, 26 he quotes extensively from current evolutionary
theorists to demonstrate that:
1. After more than one hundred years of experimental breeding of various kinds of
animals and plants, the amount of variation that can be produced (even with intentional,
not random, breeding) is extremely limited, due to the limited range of genetic variation
in each type of living thing: dogs who are selectively bred for generations are still dogs,
fruit flies are still fruit flies, etc. And when allowed to return to the wild state, “the most
highly specialized breeds quickly perish and the survivors revert to the original wild
type.” He concludes that “natural selection,” claimed by Darwinists to account for the
survival of new organisms, is really a conservative force that works to preserve the genetic
fitness of a population, not to change its characteristics. 27
2. In current evolutionary arguments, the idea of “survival of the fittest” (or “natural
selection”) is popularly thought to mean that those animals whose different character-
istics give them a comparative advantage will survive, and others will die out. But in
actual practice almost any characteristic can be argued to be either an advantage or a
disadvantage. 28 So how do Darwinists know which characteristics have given an advan-
tage in survival to certain animals? By observing which kinds survive. But this means
that natural selection is often at bottom not a powerful new insight into what happens
in nature but simply a tautology (a meaningless repetition of the same idea), since it
boils down to saying that the “fittest” animals are those who have the most offspring. In
this sense, natural selection means: animals who have the most offspring have the most
26 Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press, 1991.
27 Johnson, pp. 15-20 (quotation from p. 18). Johnson
notes that in a few cases new “species” have been produced,
in the sense of a part of a population that is incapable of inter-
breeding with another part: this has happened with fruit flies
and with some plant hybrids (p. 19). But even though inca-
pable of interbreeding with some other fruit flies, the new
fruit flies still are fruit flies, not some other kind of creature:
the amount of variation the fruit fly is capable of is inherently
limited by the range of variability in its gene pool.
28 Johnson notes (pp. 29-30) that Darwinists have even
accounted for obviously disadvantageous characteristics by
invoking pleiotropy, the idea that several genetic changes may
occur all at once, so that the negative ones come along with
the positive ones. On this basis no existing characteristic in
any animal could be cited to disprove the claim that the fit-
test survive, for it really becomes a claim that those that have
survived have survived. But then how do we really know that
survival of the fittest has been the mechanism that has led to
current diversity of life forms?
CHAPTER 15 ■ CREATION
281
offspring. 29 But this proves nothing about any supposed mutations to produce different,
more fit offspring over the course of many generations.
3. The vast and complex mutations required to produce complex organs such as an
eye or a bird’s wing (or hundreds of other organs) could not have occurred in tiny
mutations accumulating over thousands of generations, because the individual parts
of the organ are useless (and give no “advantage”) unless the entire organ is function-
ing. But the mathematical probability of such random mutations happening together in
one generation is effectively zero. Darwinists are left saying that it must have happened
because it happened. 30
An amusing example of the need for all the parts of a complex organic system to be
put in place at once is pointed out by Robert Kofahl and Kelly Segraves in their book, The
Creation Explanation: A Scientific Alternative to Evolution . 31 They describe the “Bombar-
dier beetle,” which repels enemies by firing a hot charge of chemicals from two swivel
tubes in its tail. The chemicals fired by this beetle will spontaneously explode when
mixed together in a laboratory, but apparently the beetle has an inhibitor substance that
blocks the explosive reaction until the beetle squirts some of the liquid into its “combus-
tion chambers,” where an enzyme is added to catalyze the reaction. An explosion takes
place and the chemical repellent is fired at a temperature of 212°F at the beetle’s enemies.
Kofahl and Segraves rightly ask whether any evolutionary explanation can account for
this amazing mechanism:
Note that a rational evolutionary explanation for the development of this crea-
ture must assign some kind of adaptive advantage to each of the millions of
hypothetical intermediate stages in the construction process. But would the
stages of one-fourth, one-half, or two -thirds completion, for example, have
conferred any advantage? After all, a rifle is useless without all of its parts func-
tioning. . . . Before this defensive mechanism could afford any protection to the
beetle, all of its parts, together with the proper explosive mixture of chemicals,
plus the instinctive behavior required for its use, would have to be assembled
in the insect. The partially developed set of organs would be useless. Therefore,
according to the principles of evolutionary theory, there would be no selective
pressure to cause the system to evolve from a partially completed stage toward
the final completed system. ... If a theory fails to explain the data in any sci-
ence, that theory should be either revised or replaced with a theory that is in
agreement with the data. 32
In this case, of course, the amusing question is, What would happen if the explosive
chemical mixture developed in the beetle without the chemical inhibitor?
4. The fossil record was Darwin’s greatest problem in 1859, and it has simply become a
greater problem since then. In Darwin’s time, hundreds of fossils were available showing
29 Johnson does not say that all evolutionists argue this way, 111. : Harold Shaw, 1975) . This book is a fascinating collection
but he quotes several who do (pp. 20-23). of scientific evidence favoring creation by intelligent
30 Johnson, pp. 32-44. design.
31 Robert E. Kofahl and Kelly L. Segraves, The Creation 32 Kofahl and Segraves, The Creation Explanation pp. 2-3.
Explanation: A Scientific Alternative to Evolution (Wheaton, They give many other similar examples.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
282
the existence of many distinct kinds of animals and plants in the distant past. But Dar-
win was unable to find any fossils from “intermediate types” to fill in the gaps between
distinct kinds of animals — fossils showing some characteristics of one animal and a
few characteristics of the next developmental type, for example. In fact, many ancient
fossils exactly resembled present-day animals — showing that (according to the chrono-
logical assumptions of his view) numerous animals have persisted for millions of years
essentially unchanged. Darwin realized that the absence of “transitional types” in the
fossil record weakened his theory, but he thought it was due to the fact that not enough
fossils had been discovered, and was confident that further discoveries would unearth
many transitional types of animals. However, the subsequent 130 years of intensive
archaeological activity has still failed to produce one convincing example of a needed
transitional type. 33
Johnson quotes noted evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould of Harvard as saying that there
are two characteristics of the fossil record that are inconsistent with the idea of gradual
change through generations:
1. Stasis. Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure
on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking pretty much the same
as when they disappear; morphological change is usually limited and
directionless.
2. Sudden appearance. In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by
the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and “fully
formed.” 34
So difficult is this problem for Darwinian evolution that many evolutionary scientists
today propose that evolution came about in sudden jumps to new life forms — so that
each of the thirty-two known orders of mammals, for example, appeared quite suddenly
in the history of Europe. 35
But how could hundreds or thousands of genetic changes come about all at once?
No explanation has been given other than to say that it must have happened, because
it happened. (A glance at the dotted lines in any current biology textbook, showing the
supposed transitions from one kind of animal to another, will indicate the nature of the
gaps still unfilled after 130 years of investigation.) The significance of this problem is
33 Johnson, pp. 73-85, discusses the two examples some- fact that “on the whole, the discontinuities have been emphasized
times claimed out of perhaps 100 million fossils that have been with increased collecting. There appears to be little question that
discovered, Archaeopteryx (a bird with some characteristics the gaps are real, and it seems increasingly less likely that they
that resemble reptiles), and some ape-like examples thought to will be filled” (p. 57).
be prehuman hominids. Archaeopteryx is still very much a bird, 34 Johnson, p. 50, apparently quoting a paper by Gould and
not a near-reptile, and studies of the characteristics of the sup- Niles Eldredge, “Punctuated Equilibria, an Alternative to Phy-
posedly prehuman fossils include large amounts of subjective letic Gradualism,” printed as a appendix to Eldredge ’s book,
speculation, resulting in strong differences among experts who Time Frames (Johnson, p. 167).
have examined them. 35 This view is called “punctuated equilibrium,” meaning
A helpful discussion of the gaps that remain in the fossil that the ordinary equilibrium of the natural world was occa-
record is found in Frair and Davis, A Case for Creation , sionally interrupted (punctuated) by the sudden appearance
pp. 55-65. They note that the continued discovery and of new life forms,
classification of fossils since Darwin’s time has resulted in the
CHAPTER 15 • CREATION
283
demonstrated forcefully in a recent book by a non-Christian writer, Michael Denton,
Evolution: A Theory in Crisis. 56 Denton himself proposes no alternative explanation for
the emergence of life in its present form upon the earth, but he notes that since Darwin’s
time,
neither of the two fundamental axioms of Darwin’s macroevolutionary
theory — the concept of the continuity of nature, that is the idea of a func-
tional continuum of all life forms linking all species together and ultimately
leading back to a primeval cell, and the belief that all the adaptive design of life
has resulted from a blind random process — have been validated by one single
empirical discovery or scientific advance since 1859. 37
5. The molecular structures of living organisms do show relationships, but Darwin-
ists simply assume that relationships imply common ancestry, a claim that certainly
has not been proven. Moreover, there are amazing molecular differences between liv-
ing things, and no satisfactory explanation for the origin of those differences has been
given. 38
Of course, similarity of design at any level (including levels above the molecular level)
has often been used as a argument for evolution. The assumption of evolutionists is that
similarity of design between two species implies that the “lower” species evolved into
the “higher” species, but the proof for that assumption has never been given. Gleason
Archer illustrates this well by supposing that one visits a museum of science and indus-
try and finds a display of how human beings evolved from earlier apelike creatures into
progressively more human-looking beings and finally into modern man. But he rightly
notes that
a continuity of basic design furnishes no evidence whatever that any “lower”
species phased into the next “higher” species by any sort of internal dynamic,
as evolution demands. For if the museum visitor were to go to another part of
that museum of science and industry, he would find a completely analogous
series of automobiles, commencing with 1900 and extending up until the pres-
ent decade. Stage by stage, phase by phase, he could trace the development of
the Ford from its earliest Model-T prototype to the large and luxurious LTD
of the 1970’s. 39
Of course, a much better explanation for the similarities in various models of Ford
automobiles is the fact that an intelligent designer (or group of designers) used similar
structures in successively more complex automobiles — if a steering mechanism works
well in one model, there is no need to invent a different kind of steering mechanism
for another model. In the same way, similarities in design among all living things can
equally well be taken as evidence of the work of an intelligent master craftsman, the
Creator himself.
36 Bethesda, Md.: Adler and Adler, 1986. 1960). This is a very technical study pointing out numerous
37 Denton, p. 345. An earlier analysis of evolution by a remaining difficulties in the theory of evolution,
respected British biologist who is himself an evolutionist is 38 Johnson, pp. 86-99.
G. A. Kerkut, Implications of Evolution (New York: Pergamon, 39 Gleason L. Archer, Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, p. 57.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
284
6. Probably the greatest difficulty of all for evolutionary theory is explaining how
any life could have begun in the first place. The spontaneous generation of even the
simplest living organism capable of independent life (the prokaryote bacterial cell)
from inorganic materials on the earth could not happen by random mixing of chemi-
cals: it requires intelligent design and craftsmanship so complex that no advanced
scientific laboratory in the world has been able to do it. Johnson quotes a now- famous
metaphor: “That a living organism emerged by chance from a pre-biotic soup is about
as likely as that c a tornado sweeping through a junkyard might assemble a Boeing
747 from the materials therein.’ Chance assembly is just a naturalistic way of saying
‘miracle.’” 40
At a common-sense level, a simple illustration will show this. If I were to take my
digital watch, hand it to someone, and say that I found it near an iron mine in northern
Minnesota, and that it was my belief that the watch had come together by itself sim-
ply through the operation of random movement and environmental forces (plus some
energy from a few bolts of lightning, perhaps), I would quickly be written off as mad. Yet
any one living cell on the leaf of any tree, or any one cell in the human body, is thousands
of times more complex than my digital watch. Even given 4.5 billion years the “chance”
of even one living cell arising spontaneously is, for all practical purposes, zero.
In fact, some attempts have been made to calculate the probability of life arising
spontaneously in this way. Kofahl and Segraves give a statistical model in which they
begin with a very generous assumption: that every square foot of the earth’s surface was
somehow covered with 95 pounds of protein molecules that could mix freely, and that
are all replaced with fresh protein every year for one billion years. They then estimate
the probability that even one enzyme molecule would develop in each one billion years
of the earth’s history. The probability is 1.2 times 10" 11 or one chance in 80 billion. They
note, however, that even with the generous assumptions and starting with fresh protein
every year for a billion years, finding one enzyme molecule — for all practical purposes
an impossible task — would not solve the problem at all:
The probability of finding two of the active molecules would be about 10 22 , and
the probability that they would be identical would be 10 70 . And could life start
with just a single enzyme molecule? Furthermore, what is the possibility that
an active enzyme molecule, once formed, could find its way through thousands
of miles and millions of years to that randomly formed RNA or DNA mol-
ecule which contains the code for that particular enzyme molecule’s amino acid
sequence, so that new copies of itself could be produced? Zero for all practical
purposes. 41
Kofahl and Segraves report a study by an evolutionary scientist who formulates a
model to calculate the probability for the formation, not just of one enzyme molecule but
the smallest likely living organism by random processes. He comes up with a probability
40 Johnson, p. 104, quoting Fred Hoyle. In fact, one could they have not been able to make one living cell,
argue that the 747 is more likely to occur accidentally, because 41 Kofahl and Segraves, The Creation Explanation ,
intelligent human designers have been able to make a 747, but pp. 99- 100.
CHAPTER 15 ■ CREATION
of one chance in io 340 > 000 ’ 000 — that is, one chance in 10 with 340 million zeros after it!
But Kofahl and Segraves note, “Yet Dr. Morowitz and his fellow evolutionary scientists
still believe that it happened!” 42
If someone were to ask me to entrust my life to ride on an airplane, and then explained
that the airline company completed its flights safely once in every io 340 ’ 000 ’ 000 times — or
even one in every 80 billion flights — I certainly would not get on board, nor would any-
one else in his or her right mind. Yet it is tragic that the common opinion, perpetuated
in many science textbooks today, that evolution is an established “fact,” has continued
to persuade many people that they should not consider the total truthfulness of the Bible
to be an intellectually acceptable viewpoint for responsible, thinking individuals to hold
today. The myth that “evolution has disproved the Bible” persists and keeps many from
considering Christianity as a valid option.
But what if some day life were actually “created” in the laboratory by scientists? Here
it is important to understand what is meant. First, this would not be “creation” in the
pure sense of the word, since all laboratory experiments begin with some kinds of previ-
ously existing matter. It would not give an explanation of the origin of matter itself, nor
would it be the kind of creating that the Bible says God did. Second, most contemporary
attempts to “create life” are really just very small steps in the gigantic process of moving
from nonliving materials to an independently living organism, even one consisting of only
one cell. The construction of a protein molecule or an amino acid nowhere approaches the
complexity of a single living cell. But most importantly, what would it demonstrate if the
collective work of thousands of the most intelligent scientists in the world, with the most
expensive and complex laboratory equipment available, working over the course of several
decades, actually did produce a living organism? Would that “prove” that God did not
create life? Quite the opposite: it would demonstrate that life simply does not come about
by chance but must be intentionally created by an intelligent designer. In theory at least,
it is not impossible that human beings, created in the image of God and using their God-
given intelligence could someday create a living organism out of nonliving substances
(though the complexity of the task far surpasses any technology that exists today). But
that would only show that God made us to be “God-like” — that in biological research
as in many other areas of life we in a very small way can imitate God’s activity. All such
scientific research in this direction really ought to be done out of reverence for God and
with gratitude for the scientific capability with which he has endowed us.
Many unbelieving scientists have been so influenced by the cumulative force of the
objections brought against evolution that they have openly advocated novel positions for
one part or another of the proposed evolutionary development of living things. Francis
Crick, who won the Nobel Prize for helping to discover the structure of DNA molecules,
proposed in 1973 that life may have been sent here by a spaceship from a distant planet,
42 Ibid., p. 101, quoting Harold J. Morowitz, Energy Flow in
Biology (New York: Academic Press, 1968), p. 99. The classic
study of the mathematical improbability of evolution is P. S.
Moorehead and M. M. Kaplan, eds., Mathematical Challenges
to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution (Philadelphia:
The Wistar Institute Symposium Monograph, no. 5, 1967). See
also the article “Heresy in the Halls of Biology: Mathemati-
cians Question Darwinism,” Scientific Research (November
1987), pp. 59-66, and I. L. Cohen, Darwin Was Wrong — A
Study in Probabilities (Greenvale, N.Y.: New Research Publi-
cations, 1984).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
286
a theory that Crick calls “Directed Panspermia/* 43 To the present author, it seems ironic
that brilliant scientists could advocate so fantastic a theory without one shred of evi-
dence in its favor, all the while rejecting the straightforward explanation given by the
one book in the history of the world that has never been proven wrong, that has changed
the lives of millions of people, that has been believed completely by many of the most
intelligent scholars of every generation, and that has been a greater force for good than
any other book in the history of the world. Why will otherwise intelligent people com-
mit themselves to beliefs that seem so irrational? It seems as though they will believe
in anything, so long as it is not belief in the personal God of Scripture, who calls us to
forsake our pride, humble ourselves before him, ask his forgiveness for failure to obey
his moral standards, and submit ourselves to his moral commands for the rest of our
lives. To refuse to do this is irrational, but, as we shall see in the chapter on sin, all sin is
ultimately irrational at its root.
Other challenges to the theory of evolution have been published in the last twenty or
thirty years, and no doubt many more will be forthcoming. One only hopes it will not
be too long before the scientific community publicly acknowledges the implausibility of
evolutionary theory, and textbooks written for high school and college students openly
acknowledge that evolution simply is not a satisfactory explanation for the origin of life
on the earth.
(2) The Destructive Influences of Evolutionary Theory in Modern Thought: It is
important to understand the incredibly destructive influences that evolutionary theory
has had on modern thinking. If in fact life was not created by God, and if human beings
in particular are not created by God or responsible to him, but are simply the result of
random occurrences in the universe, then of what significance is human life? We are
merely the product of matter plus time plus chance, and so to think that we have any
eternal importance, or really any importance at all in the face of an immense universe,
is simply to delude ourselves. Honest reflection on this notion should lead people to a
profound sense of despair.
Moreover, if all of life can be explained by evolutionary theory apart from God, and if
there is no God who created us (or at least if we cannot know anything about him with
certainty), then there is no supreme Judge to hold us morally accountable. Therefore
there are no moral absolutes in human life, and people’s moral ideas are only subjective
preferences, good for them perhaps but not to be imposed on others. In fact, in such a
case the only thing forbidden is to say that one knows that certain things are right and
certain things are wrong.
There is another ominous consequence of evolutionary theory: If the inevitable pro-
cesses of natural selection continue to bring about improvement in life forms on earth
through the survival of the fittest, then why should we hinder this process by caring
for those who are weak or less able to defend themselves? Should we not rather allow
them to die without reproducing so that we might move toward a new, higher form of
45 Time, September 10, 1973, p. 53, summarizing the article
“Directed Panspermia,” by F. H. C. Crick and L. E. Orgel in I
cams 19 { 1973): 341-46.
CHAPTER 15 • CREATION
humanity, even a “master race”? In fact, Marx, Nietzsche, and Hitler all justified war
on these grounds. 44
Moreover, if human beings are continually evolving for the better, then the wisdom
of earlier generations (and particularly of earlier religious beliefs) is not likely to be
as valuable as modern thought. In addition, the effect of Darwinian evolution on the
people s opinions of the trustworthiness of Scripture has been a very negative one.
Contemporary sociological and psychological theories that see human beings as sim-
ply higher forms of animals are another outcome of evolutionary thought. And the
extremes of the modern “animal rights” movement that oppose all killing of animals
(for food, or for leather coats, or for medical research, for example) also flow naturally
out of evolutionary thought.
d. The Theory of a “Gap” Between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2: Some evangelicals have pro-
posed that there is a gap of millions of years between Genesis 1:1 (“In the beginning
God created the heavens and the earth”) and Genesis 1:2 (“The earth was without form
and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep”). According to this theory, God
made an earlier creation, but there was eventually a rebellion against God (probably in
connection with Satan’s own rebellion), and God judged the earth so that “it became
without form and void” (an alternative, but doubtful, translation proposed for Gen.
1:2). 45 What we read of in Genesis 1:3— 2:3 is really the second creation of God, in six
literal twenty-four-hour days, which occurred only recently (perhaps 10,000 to 20,000
years ago). The ancient fossils found on the earth, many of which are said to be millions
of years old, stem from the first creation (4,500,000,000 years ago), which is mentioned
only in Genesis 1:1.
The primary biblical argument for this theory is that the words ‘without form and
void and darkness” in Genesis 1:2 picture an earth that has suffered the effects of
judgment by God: darkness elsewhere in the Old Testament is frequently a sign of God s
judgment, and the Hebrew words tohii (“without form”) and bohu (“void, empty”) in
verses such as Isaiah 34:11 and Jeremiah 4:23 refer to places such as deserts that have
suffered the desolating consequences of God's judgment.
But these arguments do not seem strong enough to persuade us that Genesis 1:2
pictures the earth as desolate after Gods judgment. If God first forms the earth (v.
1) and then later creates light (v. 3), there would have to be darkness over the earth in
44 See NIDCC, p. 283.
45 This “gap theory” is given as one possible interpretation
of Gen. 1:1-2 in The New Scofield Reference Bible (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1967), in notes to Gen. 1:2 and Isa.
45:18. It also remains commonplace in much popular Bible
teaching. An extensive defense of this theory is found in Arthur
C. Custance, Without Form and Void: A Study of the Meaning
of Genesis 1:2 (Brockville, Ontario: Doorway Papers, 1970).
An extensive critique is in Weston W. Fields, Unformed and
Unfilled (Nutley, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1976). A
substantial critique of the lexical and grammatical arguments
used in the gap theory is also found in Oswald T. Allis, God
Spake by Moses (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed,
1951), pp. 153-59.
Some readers may wonder why I have classified this view
along with secular views and theistic evolution as a theory that
seems “clearly inconsistent with the teachings of Scripture.”
I should note here that I am doing this only because the argu-
ments for this position seem to me to be based on highly
unlikely interpretations of the biblical text, and I do not wish
to imply that those who hold to the gap theory are unbeliev-
ers, or that they are like many theistic evolutionists who think
the Bible cannot teach us about science. On the contrary,
advocates of the gap theory have uniformly been believers
in the total truthfulness of Scripture on whatever subject it
speaks to.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
288
verse 2 — this indicates that creation is in progress, not that any evil is present. In addi-
tion, each day there is an “evening,” and there is “darkness” present during the six days
of creation (w. 5, 8, 13, 18-19, et al), with no suggestion of evil or of God’s disapproval
(cf. Ps. 104:20). As far as the phrase “without form and void,” the sense is just that it is not
yet fit for habitation: Gods preparatory work has not yet been done. Of course, when God
curses a desert, it does become unfit for habitation, but we should not read the cause of that
unfitness in one case (Gods curse on a desert) into another case, the creation, where the
cause of unfitness for habitation is simply that God’s work is still in progress; the prepara-
tion for man is not yet complete. 46 (It is not proper to read the circumstances that surround
a word in one place into the use of that word in another place when the meaning of the word
and its use in the second context do not require those same circumstances.)
In addition to the fact that Genesis 1:2 does not give support to this view, there are
some other arguments that weigh strongly against the gap theory:
1. There is no verse in Scripture that explicitly talks about an earlier creation. So this
theory is lacking even one verse of Scripture to give it explicit support.
2. In Genesis 1:31, when God finished his work of creation, we read, “And God saw
everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.” But according to the gap
theory, God would be looking at an earth full of the results of rebellion, conflict, and
terrible divine judgment. He would also be looking at all the demonic beings, the hosts
of Satan who had rebelled against him, and yet be calling everything “very good.” It is
difficult to believe that there was so much evil and so many evidences of rebellion and
judgment on the earth, and that God could still say that creation was very good.
Moreover, Genesis 2:1 says, in an apparent summary of all that has happened in Gene-
sis 1, “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.” Here it
is not just God’s work on the earth, but all that he made in the heavens, that is said to
have been completed in the narrative in Genesis 1. This would not allow for large parts
of heaven and earth to have been finished long before the six creation days.
3. In a later description of God’s work of creation found in the Ten Commandments,
we read, “for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth , the sea, and all that is in them,
and rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it”
(Ex. 20:11). Here the creation of both the heaven and the earth, and the making of “all
that is in them,” is attributed to God’s work in the six days of creation. Whether we take
these to be twenty-four-hour days or longer periods of time, on either view the making of
the entire heavens and earth and everything in them is put within these six days. But the
proponents of the gap theory would have to say that there are many things in the earth
(such as fossil remains of dead animals, and the earth itself) and in the heavens (such as
46 The second word, bohtl , “void,” only occurs two other
times in Scripture (Isa. 34:11; Jer. 4:23), both picturing desolate
lands that have experienced Gods judgment. But the first word,
tohu t which can mean “formlessness, confusion, unreality,
emptiness” ( BDB , p. 1062), occurs nineteen other times, some-
times to refer to a desolate place resulting from judgment (Isa.
34:1 1 and Jer. 4:23, both with bohu ), and sometimes just to refer
to an empty place, with no sense of evil or judgment implied
(Job 26:7, of “space” over which God stretches the north, paral-
lel to the “nothingness” in which he hangs the earth; also Deut.
32:10; Job 12:24; Ps. 107:40). The sense “uninhabitable” is espe-
cially appropriate in Isa. 45:18, speaking of God’s creation of
the earth: “He did not create it to be empty [tohu ] , but formed
it to be inhabited” (NIV). (The fact that God did not create the
earth to be “empty” but “formed it to be inhabited” [Isa. 45: 18]
speaks of God’s completed work of creation and does not deny
that it was “without form and void” at the earliest stage of
creation.)
CHAPTER 15 * CREATION
the stars) that God did not make in the six days specified in Exodus 20:11, a view that
seems exactly contrary to what is affirmed in the verse.
Moreover, while some passages of Scripture do speak of God’s judgment on rebellious
angels or his judgment on the earth at various times (see Isa. 24:1; Jer. 4:23-26; 2 Peter
2:4), none of the passages places this judgment at a time before the creation narrative in
Genesis 1:2-31.
4. This theory must assume that all of the fossils of animals from millions of years
ago that resemble very closely animals from today indicate that God’s first creation
of the animal and plant kingdom resulted in a failure. These animals and plants did
not fulfill God s original purpose, so he destroyed them, but in the second creation he
made others that were exactly like them. Moreover, since Adam and Eve were the first
man and woman, this theory must assume that there was a prior creation of God that
existed for millions of years but lacked the highest aspect of God’s creative work, namely,
man himself. But both the failure of God to accomplish his purposes with the original
plant and animal kingdoms, and the failure of God to crown creation with his highest
creature, man, seem inconsistent with the biblical picture of God as one who always
accomplishes his purposes in whatever he does. So the gap theory does not seem an
acceptable alternative for evangelical Christians today.
3. The Age of the Earth: Some Preliminary Considerations. Up to this point, the dis-
cussions in this chapter have advocated conclusions that we hope will find broad assent
among evangelical Christians. But now at last we come to a perplexing question about
which Bible-believing Christians have differed for many years, sometimes very sharply.
The question is simply this: How old is the earth?
It is appropriate to treat this question after all the earlier matters, because it is really
much less important than the doctrines considered above. These earlier matters may
be summarized as follows: (1) God created the universe out of nothing; (2) creation is
distinct from God, yet always dependent on God; (3) God created the universe to show
his glory; (4) the universe God created was very good; (5) there will be no final conflict
between Scripture and science; (6) secular theories that deny God as Creator, including
Darwinian evolution, are clearly incompatible with belief in the Bible.
The question of the age of the earth is also less important than matters to be treated
in subsequent chapters, that is (7) the creation of the angelic world and (8) the creation
of man in the image of God (chapters 19, 21, and 22). It is important to keep these things
in mind, because there is a danger that Christians will spend too much time arguing
over the age of the earth and neglect to focus on much more important and much clearer
aspects of the overall teaching of the Bible on creation.
The two options to choose from for a date of the earth are the “old earth” position,
which agrees with the consensus of modern science that the earth is 4,500,000,000 years
old, and the “young earth” position, which says that the earth is 10,000 to 20,000 years
old, and that secular scientific dating schemes are incorrect. The difference between
these two views is enormous: 4,499,980,000 years!
Before considering the specific arguments for both positions, we will examine some
preliminary questions about the genealogies in the Bible, current estimates for the age
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
290
of the human race, differing views on the date of dinosaurs, and the length of the six
creation days in Genesis 1.
a. There Are Gaps in the Genealogies of the Bible: When one reads the list of names
in Scripture together with their ages, it might seem as though we could add together
the ages of all the people in the history of redemption from Adam to Christ and come
up with an approximate date for the creation of the earth. Certainly this would give a
very recent date for creation (such as Archbishop Ussher s date of 4004 B.C.). But closer
inspection of the parallel lists of names in Scripture will show that Scripture itself indi-
cates the fact that the genealogies list only those names the biblical writers thought it
important to record for their purposes. In fact, some genealogies include names that are
left out by other genealogies in Scripture itself.
For instance, Matthew 1:8-9 tells us that Asa was “the father of Jehoshaphat, and
Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah, and Uzziah the father
of Jotham, and Jotham the father of Ahaz.” But from 1 Chronicles 3:10-12 (which uses
the alternate name Ahaziah for Uzziah), we learn that three generations have been omit-
ted by Matthew: Joash, Amaziah, and Azariah. So these texts can be compared in the
following table:
Example of gaps in
genealogies
1 Chronicles 3:10-12
Matthew 1:8-9
Asa
Asa
Jehoshaphat
Jehoshaphat
Joram
Joram
Ahaziah (Uzziah)
Uzziah
Joash
Amaziah
Azariah
Jotham
Jotham
Ahaz
Ahaz
Hezekiah
Hezekiah
(etc.)
(etc.)
Therefore, when Matthew says that Uzziah was “the father of Jotham,” it can mean
that he was the father of someone who led to Jotham. Matthew has selected those names
that he wants to emphasize for his own purposes. 47 A similar phenomenon is evident in
Matthew 1:20 where the angel of the Lord speaks to Joseph and calls him, “Joseph, son of
David.” Now Joseph is not directly the son of David (for David lived around 1000 B.C.),
but Joseph is the descendant of David and is therefore called his “son.”
Another example is found in 1 Chronicles 26:24 in a list of officers appointed by King
David near the end of his life. We read that “Shebuel the son of Gershom, son of Moses,
was chief officer in charge of the treasuries” (1 Chron. 26:24). Now we know from Exodus
47 See a fuller discussion of the gaps in genealogies in Francis
Schaeffer, No Final Conflict , pp. 37-43.
CHAPTER 15 * CREATION
2:22 that Gershom was the son born to Moses before the Exodus, sometime around 1480
B.C. (or, on a late date for the exodus, around 1330 B.C.). But these officials mentioned
in 1 Chronicles 26 were appointed at the time that David made Solomon king over Israel,
around 970 B.C. (see 1 Chron. 23:1). That means that in 1 Chronicles 26:24 Shebuel is
said to be “the son of Gershom,” who was born 510 (or at least 360) years earlier. Ten or
more generations have been omitted in this designation “son of.” 48
It seems only fair to conclude that the genealogies of Scripture have some gaps in
them, and that God only caused to be recorded those names that were important for his
purposes. How many gaps there are and how many generations are missing from the
Genesis narratives, we do not know. The life of Abraham maybe placed at approximately
2000 B.C., because the kings and places listed in the stories of Abraham’s life (Gen. 12ff.)
can be correlated with archaeological data that can be dated quite reliably, 49 but prior
to Abraham the setting of dates is very uncertain. In view of the exceptionally long life
spans reported for people prior to the flood, it would not seem unreasonable to think
that a few thousand years have been passed over in the narrative. This gives us some
flexibility in our thinking about the date that man first appeared on the earth. (It would
seem to be quite another thing, however, and quite foreign to the sense of continuity
in the narrative, to think that millions of years have been omitted, but that names and
details of the lives of key persons have been remembered and passed down over such a
long period of time.)
b. The Age of the Human Race: While current scientific estimates say that man first
appeared on the earth about 2.5 million years ago, it is important to recognize what kind
of man this is claimed to be. The following table is a rough guide to current scientific
opinion: 50
homo habilis (“skillful man”)
stone tools
homo erectus
variety of stone tools,
used fire by 500,000 B.C.,
hunted large animals
homo sapiens (“wise man” or
“thinking man”)
buried their dead
(example: Neanderthal man)
2-3.5 million years B.C.
1.5 million years B.C.
40,000-150,000 B.C.
(or perhaps 300,000 B.C.)
291
48 The NIV translates the verse, “Shubael, a descendant of
Gershom,” but this is simply an interpretation, for the Hebrew
text simply has the word ben y “son.” It should not be objected
that Gershom may have lived over 500 years, for such long life
spans are not found after the flood (note Gen. 6:3); in fact,
Abraham was miraculously given a son when he was almost
100 (cf. Rom. 4:19; Heb. 11:12); and Moses, long before David
or Solomon, counted man’s life as 70 or 80 years: “The years of
our life are threescore and ten, or even by reason of strength
fourscore” (Ps. 90:10).
49 See “Chronology of the Old Testament” in IBD, esp.
pp. 268-70.
50 This table was adapted from Frair and Davis, A Case
for Creation , pp. 122-26, and Karl W. Butzer, “Prehistoric
People,” in World Book Encyclopedia (Chicago: World Book,
1974), 15:666-74.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
292
homo sapiens sapiens 90,000 B.C.
(“wise, wise man”)
(example: Cro-Magnon man) 18,000-35,000 B.C.
cave paintings
(example: Neolithic man) 19,000 B.C.
cattle raising, agriculture,
metalwork
Whether Christians hold to a young earth or old earth view, they will agree that man
is certainly on the earth by the time of the cave paintings by Cro-Magnon man, paintings
which date from about 10,000 B.C. There is some variation in the date of Cro-Magnon
man, however, since the dating of a Cro-Magnon burial site in Siberia is approximately
20,000 to 35,000 B.C. according to the geological evidence found there, but the Carbon-
14 dating method gives a date of only 9,000 B.C., or 11,000 years ago. 51 Earlier than
the paintings by Cro-Magnon man, there is disagreement. Was Neanderthal man really
a man, or just a human-like creature? 52 How human were earlier man-like creatures?
(Higher forms of animals, such as chimpanzees, can use tools, and burial of one’s dead
is not necessarily a uniquely human trait.) Moreover, dating methods used for earlier
periods are very approximate with results that often conflict. 53
So how long ago did man first appear on the earth? Certainly by 10,000 B.C., if the
Cro-Magnon cave paintings have been dated correctly. But before that it is difficult to say.
c. Did Animals Die Before the Fall? For young earth advocates, there is no need to ask
whether animals died before the fall, because animals and man were both created on the
sixth day, and there may have been only a short time before Adam and Eve sinned. This
could have introduced death into the animal kingdom as well, as part of the curse of the
fall (Gen. 3:17- 19; Rom. 8:20-23).
But for old earth advocates, this is an important question. There are millions of appar-
ently ancient fossils in the earth. Might they have come from animals who lived and
died for long ages before Adam and Eve were created? Might God have created an animal
kingdom that was subject to death from the moment of creation? This is quite possible.
There was no doubt death in the plant world, if Adam and Eve were to eat plants; and
if God had made an original creation in which animals would reproduce and also live
forever, the earth would soon be overcrowded with no hope of relief. The warning to
Adam in Genesis 2:17 was only that he would die if he ate of the forbidden fruit, not that
animals would also begin to die. When Paul says, “Sin came into the world through one
man and death through sin” (Rom. 5:12a), the following phrase makes clear that he is
talking about death for human beings, not for plants and animals, for he immediately
adds, “and so death spread to all men because all men sinned” (Rom. 5:12b).
51 Kofahl and Segraves, The Creation Explanation p. 207.
52 Two helpful discussions of the various proposed human
ancestors are found in Frair and Davis, A Case for Creation,
pp. 122-26, and Davis A. Young, Creation and the Flood, pp.
146-55. Frair and Davis think that Neanderthal man was
“entirely human” although “racially distinct” (p. 125).
53 Philip Johnson notes that a recent theory that has
received support from several molecular biologists is that all
humans descended from a “mitochondrial Eve” who lived in
Africa less than 200,000 years ago ( Darwin on Trial, pp. 83,
177-78).
CHAPTER 15 • CREATION
From the information we have in Scripture, we cannot now know whether God created
animals subject to aging and death from the beginning, but it remains a real possibility.
d. What About Dinosaurs?: Current scientific opinion holds that dinosaurs became
extinct about 65 million years ago, millions of years before human beings appeared on
the earth. But those who hold to six twenty-four-hour days of creation and a young earth
would say that dinosaurs were among the creatures created by God on the same day he
created man (the sixth day). They would therefore say that dinosaurs and human beings
lived on the earth at the same time and that dinosaurs subsequently became extinct
(perhaps in the flood). Young earth advocates of course would differ with the methods
used to arrive at such ancient dates for dinosaurs.
Among those who hold to an old earth view, some would want to say that dino-
saurs were among the creatures that Adam named in Genesis 2:19-20, and that they
subsequently perished (perhaps in the flood). They would admit that dinosaurs may
have existed earlier, but would say that they did not become extinct until after the time
of Adam and Eve. Others would say that the sixth day of creation was millions of years
long, and that dinosaurs had already become extinct by the time Adam was created and
named the animals. In this case, Adam did not name dinosaurs (the Bible does not say
that he did), but he only named all the creatures that were living at the time God brought
him all the animals to name (Gen. 2:19—20; see NIV). Of course, this view would require
that there was death in the animal world before there was sin (see previous section).
e. Are the Six Days of Creation Twenty-four-Hour Days?: Much of the dispute between
“young earth” and “old earth” advocates hinges on the interpretation of the length of
“days” in Genesis 1. Old earth supporters propose that the six “days” of Genesis 1 refer
not to periods of twenty-four hours, but rather to long periods of time, millions of years,
during which God carried out the creative activities described in Genesis 1. This pro-
posal has led to a heated debate with other evangelicals, which is far from being settled
decisively one way or another.
In favor of viewing the six days as long periods of time is the fact that the Hebrew
word yom, “day,” is sometimes used to refer not to a twenty-four-hour literal day, but to a
longer period of time. We see this when the word is used in Genesis 2:4, for example: “In
the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens,” a phrase that refers to the
entire creative work of the six days of creation. Other examples of the word day to mean
a period of time are Job 20:28 (“the day of God’s wrath”); Psalm 20:1 (“The Lord answer
you in the day of trouble!”); Proverbs 11:4 (“Riches do not profit in the day of wrath”);
21:31 (“The horse is made ready for the day of battle”); 24:10 (“If you faint in the day of
adversity, your strength is small”); 25:13 (“the time [yom] of harvest”); Ecclesiastes 7:14
(“In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider; God has made
the one as well as the other”); many passages referring to “the day of the Lord” (such
as Isa. 2:12; 13:6, 9; Joel 1:15; 2:1; Zeph. 1:14); and many other Old Testament passages
predicting times of judgment or blessing. A concordance will show that this is a frequent
sense for the word day in the Old Testament.
An additional argument for a long period of time in these “days” is the fact that the
sixth day includes so many events that it must have been longer than twenty-four hours.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
294
The sixth day of creation (Gen. 1:24-31) includes the creation of animals and the cre-
ation of man and woman both (“male and female he created them,” Gen. 1:27). It was
also on the sixth day that God blessed Adam and Eve and said to them, “Be fruitful and
multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and
over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth” (Gen.
1:28). But that means that the sixth day included God’s creation of Adam, God’s putting
Adam in the Garden of Eden to till it and keep it, and giving Adam directions regarding
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:15- 17), his bringing all the animals
to man for them to be named (Gen. 2:18-20), finding no helper fit for Adam (Gen.
2:20), and then causing a deep sleep to fall upon Adam and creating Eve from his rib
(Gen. 2:21-25). The finite nature of man and the incredibly large number of animals
created by God would by itself seem to require that a much longer period of time than
part of one day would be needed to include so many events — at least that would be an
“ordinary” understanding of the passage for an original reader, a consideration that is
not unimportant in a debate that often emphasizes what an ordinary reading of the
text by the original readers would lead them to conclude. 54 If the sixth day is shown by
contextual considerations to be considerably longer than an ordinary twenty-four-hour
day, then does not the context itself favor the sense of day as simply a “period of time” of
unspecified length?
Related to this is one more consideration. The seventh day, it should be noted, is not
concluded with the phrase “and there was evening and there was morning, a seventh
day.” The text just says that God “rested on the seventh day from all his work which he
had done” and that “God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it” (Gen. 2:2-3). The
possibility, if not the implication, suggested by this is that the seventh day is still continu-
ing. It never ended but is also a “day” that is really a long period of time (cf. lohn 5:17;
Heb. 4:4,9-10).
Some have objected that whenever the word day refers to a period of time other than a
twenty-four-hour day in the Old Testament the context makes it clear that this is the case,
but since the context does not make this clear in Genesis 1 we must assume that normal
days are meant. But to this we may answer that whenever the word day means a twenty-
four-hour day, the context makes this clear as well. Otherwise, we could not know that
a twenty-four-hour day is meant in that context. So this is not a persuasive objection. It
simply affirms what everyone agrees to, namely, that the context enables us to determine
which sense a word will take when it has various possible meanings.
Another objection is that the Bible could have used other words if a period longer
than a twenty-four-hour day was intended. However, if (as is clearly the case) the origi-
nal readers knew that the word day could mean a long period of time, then there was no
need to use some other word, for the word ydm conveyed the intended meaning quite
well. Furthermore, it was a very appropriate word to use when describing six successive
periods of work plus a period of rest that would set the pattern for the seven days of the
week in which people would live.
54 Advocates of a twenty-four-hour day can give scenarios or abilities, but both suggestions are much less likely interpreta-
whereby Adam only named representative types of animals or tions in view of the importance attached to naming in the Old
named them rapidly without any observation of their activities Testament.
CHAPTER 15 • CREATION
295
That brings us back to the original question, namely, what does the word day mean
in the context of Genesis 1? The fact that the word must refer to a longer period of time
just a few verses later in the same narrative (Gen. 2:4) should caution us against mak-
ing dogmatic statements that the original readers would have certainly known that the
author was talking about twenty-four-hour days. In fact, both senses were commonly
known meanings in the minds of the original readers of this narrative. 55
It is important to realize that those who advocate long periods of time for the six
“days” of creation are not saying that the context requires that these be understood as
periods of time. They are simply saying that the context does not clearly specify for us one
meaning of day or another, and if convincing scientific data about the age of the earth,
drawn from many different disciplines and giving similar answers, convinces us that the
earth is billions of years old, then this possible interpretation of day as a long period of
time may be the best interpretation to adopt. In this way, the situation is something like
that faced by those who first held that the earth rotates on its axis and revolves about the
sun. They would not say that the passages about the sun “rising” or “going down” require
us, in their contexts, to believe in a heliocentric (sun-centered) solar system, but that this
is a possible understanding of the texts, seeing them as only speaking from the standpoint
of the observer. Observational evidence taken from science informs us that this is in fact
the correct way to interpret those texts.
On the other side of this question are the arguments in favor of understanding “day”
as a twenty-four-hour day in Genesis 1:
1. It is significant that each of the days of Genesis 1 ends with an expression such as,
“And there was evening, and there was morning — the first day” (Gen. 1:5 NIV). The
phrase “And there was evening, and there was morning” is repeated in verses 8, 13, 19,
23, and 31. This seems to imply the sequence of events marking a literal twenty-four-hour
day and suggests that the readers should understand it in that way.
This is a strong argument from context, and many have found it persuasive. Yet those
who hold to a long period of time for these “days” could respond (a) that even evening
and morning do not constitute an entire day, but only the end of one day and the begin-
ning of another, so the expression itself may be simply part of the author's way of telling
us that the end of the first creative day (that is, long period of time) occurred, and the
beginning of the next creative “day” had come; 56 and also (b) that the first three creative
“days” could not have been marked by evening and morning as caused by the sun shin-
ing on the earth, for the sun was not created until the fourth day (Gen. 1:14-19); thus,
the very context shows that “evening and morning” in this chapter does not refer to the
ordinary evening and morning of days as we know them now. So the argument from
“evening and morning,” though it may give some weight to the twenty-four-hour view,
does not seem to tip the balance decisively in its favor.
2. The third day of creation cannot be very long, because the sun does not come into
being until the fourth day, and plants cannot live long without light. In response to this, it
55 I am assuming here that Moses wrote both Genesis and was morning” is never elsewhere used in the Hebrew Old Tes-
Exodus, and that the original readers were the people of Israel tament, so it cannot be said to be a common expression used
in the wilderness around 1440 B.C. to designate a normal day.
56 In fact, the expression “and there was evening and there
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
296
might be said that the light that God created on the first day energized the plants for mil-
lions of years. But that would suppose God to have created a light that is almost exactly
like sunlight in brightness and power, but still not sunlight — an unusual suggestion.
3. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that in the Ten Commandments the word day is
used to mean a twenty-four-hour day:
Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all
your work; but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; ... for in
six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and
rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and hallowed
it.” (Ex. 20:8-11)
Certainly in that text the sabbath “day” is a twenty-four-hour day. And must we not say
that verse 11, which in the same sentence says that the Lord made heaven and earth in “six
days,” uses “day” in the same sense? This is again a weighty argument, and on balance it
gives additional persuasiveness to the twenty-four-hour day position. But once again it
is not quite conclusive in itself, for one could respond that the readers were aware (from
a careful reading of Gen. 1-2) that the days there were unspecified periods of time, and
that the sabbath commandment merely told Gods people that, just as he followed a six-
plus-one pattern in creation (six periods of work followed by a period of rest), so they
were to follow a six-plus-one pattern in their lives (six days of work followed by a day of
rest; also six years of work followed by a sabbath year of rest, as in Ex. 23:10- 11). In fact,
in the very next sentence of the Ten Commandments, “day” means “a period of time”:
“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which the
Lord your God gives you” (Ex. 20:12). Certainly here the promise is not for “long” literal
days (such as twenty-five- or twenty-six-hour days!), but rather that the period of one’s
life may be lengthened upon the earth. 57
4. Those who argue for “day” as a twenty-four-hour day also ask whether anywhere
else in the Hebrew Bible the word “days” in the plural, especially when a number is
attached (such as “six days”), ever refers to anything but twenty-four-hour days. This
argument is not compelling, however, because (a) a plural example of “days” to mean
periods of time is found in Exodus 20:12, discussed in the previous paragraph and (b)
if the word clearly takes the sense “period of time” in the singular (which it does, as all
admit), then to speak of six such “periods” of time would certainly be understandable to
the readers, even if the Old Testament did not elsewhere have examples of such a mean-
ing. The fact that such an expression does not appear elsewhere may mean nothing more
than that there was no occasion to use it elsewhere.
5. When Jesus says, “But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and
female’” (Mark 10:6), he implies that Adam and Eve were not created billions of years
after the beginning of creation, but at the beginning of creation. This argument also has
57 The Hebrew text does not say “that your days may be many long ” (Heb. ’ arak , “be long,” used also as physical length in
(Heb.rab)” which is a common Hebrew expression (Gen. 21:34; 1 Kings 8:8; Ps. 129:3; Isa. 54:2 [“lengthen your cords”];
37:34; Ex. 2:23; Num. 9:19, et al.), but “that your days may be Ezek. 31:5).
CHAPTER 15 • CREATION
some force, but old earth advocates may respond that Jesus is just referring to the whole
of Genesis 1 - 2 as the “beginning of creation,” in contrast to the argument from the laws
given by Moses that the Pharisees were depending on (v. 4).
I have given an answer to each of the five arguments for a twenty-four-hour day, but
these answers may not persuade its advocates. They would respond to the “period of
time position as follows: (1) Of course, it is true that day may mean “period of time”
in many places in the Old Testament, but that does not demonstrate that day must have
that meaning in Genesis 1. (2) The sixth day of creation need not have been longer than
twenty-four hours, especially if Adam only named major representative kinds of birds
and of every beast of the field” (Gen. 2:20). (3) Though there was no sun to mark
the first three days of creation, nonetheless, the earth was still rotating on its axis at
a fixed speed, and there was “light” and “darkness” that God created on the first day
(Gen. 1:3-4), and he called the light “day” and the darkness “night” (Gen. 3:5). So God
in some way caused an alternation between day and night from the very first day of
creation, according to Genesis 1:3-5.
What shall we conclude about the length of days in Genesis 1? It does not seem at all
easy to decide with the information we now have. It is not simply a question of “believing
the Bible or not believing the Bible, ’ nor is it a question of “giving in to modern sci-
ence or rejecting the clear conclusions of modern science.” Even for those who believe
in the complete truthfulness of Scripture (such as the present author), and who retain
some doubt about the exceptionally long periods of time scientists propose for the age of
the earth (such as the present author), the question does not seem to be easy to decide.
At present, considerations of the power of God’s creative word and the immediacy with
which it seems to bring response, the fact that “evening and morning” and the number-
ing of days still suggest twenty-four-hour days, and the fact that God would seem to have
no purpose for delaying the creation of man for thousands or even millions of years, seem
to me to be strong considerations in favor of the twenty-four-hour day position. But even
here there are good arguments on the other side: To the one who lives forever, for whom
“one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Peter 3:8), who
delights in gradually working out all his purposes over time, perhaps 15 billion years is
just the right amount of time to take in preparing the universe for man’s arrival and 4.5
billion years in preparing the earth. The evidence of incredible antiquity in the universe
would then serve as a vivid reminder of the even more amazing nature of God’s eternity,
just as the incredible size of the universe causes us to wonder at God’s even greater
omnipresence and omnipotence.
Therefore, with respect to the length of days in Genesis 1, the possibility must be left
open that God has chosen not to give us enough information to come to a clear decision
on this question, and the real test of faithfulness to him may be the degree to which we
can act charitably toward those who in good conscience and full belief in God’s Word
hold to a different position on this matter.
4. Both Old Earth” and “Young Earth” Theories Are Valid Options for Christians
Who Believe the Bible Today. After discussing several preliminary considerations
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
298
regarding the age of the earth, we come finally to the specific arguments for old earth
and young earth views.
a. “Old Earth” Theories of Creation: In this first category we list two viewpoints held
by those who believe in an old earth with an age of about 4.5 billion years and a universe
about 15 billion years old.
(1) Day-Age View: Many who believe that the earth is many millions of years old main-
tain that the days of Genesis 1 are extremely long “ages” of time. 58 The arguments given
above for long days in Genesis 1 will apply here, and, as we argued above, the words of
the Hebrew text do allow for the days to be long periods of time. The evident advantage
of this view is that, if the current scientific estimate for an earth 4.5 billion years old is
correct, it explains how the Bible is consistent with this fact. Among evangelicals who
hold to an old earth view, this is a common position. This view is sometimes called
a “concordist” view because it seeks agreement or “concord” between the Bible and
scientific conclusions about dating.
Many have been attracted to this position because of scientific evidence regarding
the age of the earth. A very helpful survey of the views of theologians and scientists
regarding the age of the earth, from ancient Greece to the twentieth century, is found in
a book by a professional geologist who is also an evangelical Christian, Davis A. Young,
Christianity and the Age of the Earth, 59 Young demonstrates that in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries, many Christian geologists, under the weight of apparently over-
whelming evidence, have concluded that the earth is about 4.5 billion years old. Although
some “young earth” proponents (see discussion below) have claimed that radiometric
dating techniques are inaccurate because of changes that occurred on the earth at the
time of the flood, Young notes that radiometric dating of rocks from the moon and of
meteorites recently fallen to the earth, which could not have been affected by Noah’s
flood, coincide with many other radiometric evidences from various materials on the
earth, and that the results of these tests are “remarkably consistent in pointing to about
4.5-4.7 billion years.” 60
Some of Young’s most forceful arguments for an old earth, in addition to those from
radiometric dating, include the time required for liquid magma to cool (about 1 million
years for a large formation in southern California), the time and pressure required for
the formation of many metamorphic rocks that contain small fossils (some apparently
could only be formed by the pressure of being buried twelve to eighteen miles under
ground and later brought to the surface — but when could this have happened on a young
earth view?), continental drift (fossil-bearing rock fields near the coasts of Africa and
South America were apparently previously joined together, then separated by continental
58 One variation of this view would say that the six days were
twenty-four-hour days, but there were millions of years between
each day and the following one. This is certainly possible, but
the difficulty with this view is that it seems to be importing
“gaps” between all the days simply to account for scientific
chronology, with no clear evidence in the text to support it.
This view is defended by Robert C. Newman and Herman
J. Eckelmann, Jr., Genesis One and the Origin of the Earth
(Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press, 1977).
59 Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982, pp. 13-67.
60 Christianity and the Age of the Earthy p. 63; see also the
detailed discussion on pp. 93-116, and Creation and theFlood y
pp. 185-93.
CHAPTER 15 • CREATION
drift, something that could not have happened in 20,000 years at the present rate of two
centimeters per year),® 1 and coral reefs (some of which apparently would have required
hundreds of thousands ofyears of gradual deposits to attain their present state). 62 Several
other arguments, especially from astronomy, have been summarized by Robert C. New-
man and Herman J. Eckelmann, Jr., in Genesis One and the Origin of the Earth. 63 These
arguments favor an old earth view, and the day-age theory is an attractive position for
old earth advocates.
The day-age view is certainly possible, but it has several difficulties: (1) The sequence
of events in Genesis 1 does not exactly correspond to current scientific understanding of
the development of life, which puts sea creatures (Day 5) before trees (Day 3), and insects
and other land animals (Day 6), as well as fish (Day 5), before birds (Day 5). 64 (2) The
greatest difficulty for this view is that it puts the sun, moon, and stars (Day 4) millions of
years after the creation of plants and trees (Day 3). That makes no sense at all according
to current scientific opinion, which sees the stars as formed long before the earth or any
living creatures on the earth. It also makes no sense in terms of the way the earth now
operates, for plants do not grow without sunlight, and there are many plants (Day 3) that
do not pollinate without birds or flying insects (Day 5), and there are many birds (Day 5)
that live offereeping insects (Day 6). Moreover, how would the waters on the earth keep
from freezing for millions of years without the sun?
In response, those who hold the concordist view say that the sun, moon, and stars
were created on Day 1 (the creation of light) or before Day 1, when "in the beginning
God created the heavens and the earth ’ (Gen. 1:1), and that the sun, moon, and stars
were only made visible or revealed on Day 4 (Gen. 1:14—19). But this argument is not very
convincing, because all the other five days of creation involve not revealing something
that was previously created but actually creating things for the first time. Moreover, the
creative statements are similar to those of other days, “And God said, ‘Let there be lights
in the firmament of the heavens to separate the day from the night ... to give light upon
the earth. And it was so (Gen. 1:14— 15). This is the form of language used in verses 3,
6, 11, 20, and 24 for creating things, not revealing them. Furthermore, the creation (not
the revealing) of the sun, moon, and stars is made explicit in the next sentence: “And
61 See Creation and the Flood, pp. 171—210, for these exam-
ples. A continental drift of 2 cm. per year x 20,000 years = 40,000
cm. or 400 m. (about 437 yd. or 1/4 mile). This hardly accounts
for the present distance between South America and Africa.
62 Christianity and the Age of the Earth, pp. 84-86. Coral
reefs are not formed by the immense pressure of a flood, but
by tiny sea creatures (called coral polyps) who attach them-
selves to each other and build colorful limestone formations
by removing calcium carbonate from seawater and depositing
it around the lower half of their body. When they die, their
limestone “skeletons” remain behind, and, over tens of thou-
sands ofyears, huge coral reefs are formed. This can only hap-
pen in water warmer than 65° F (18° C), and in water clear and
shallow enough for photosynthesis to occur in algae, which
the coral polyps need to produce their skeletons. (See Rob-
ert D. Barnes, “Coral,” in World Book Encyclopedia [Chicago:
World Book, 1983], 4:828.)
63 Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press, 1977, pp. 15-34,
89- 103. They show that the length of time required for light to
reach the earth is not the only astronomical evidence for a very
old universe: measurements of star movements show the uni-
verse has apparently been expanding for over 15 billion years;
background radiation in the universe gives a similar age; and
the kind of light coming from certain stars shows that many
stars have an age consistent with this estimate. Young earth
proponents (see below) may say that God created the light rays
in place so Adam and Eve could see stars, but it is much harder
to explain why God would have created these other evidences
so consistent with a universe about 15 billion years old.
64 Of course, current scientific hypotheses of these
sequences may be incorrect.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule
the night; he made the stars also” (Gen. 1:16). Here the word “made” (Heb. ‘asah) is the
same word used when God made the firmament, the beasts of the earth, and man (Gen.
1:7, 25, 26) — in none of these cases is it used to speak of revealing something previously
made. The Hebrew ‘ dsdh is also the word used in the summary in verse 31: “And God saw
everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.” This frequent use through-
out Genesis 1 makes it very unlikely that Genesis 1:16 merely refers to the revealing of
the sun, moon, and stars.
But a modification of the day-age view in response to these objections seems pos-
sible. The verbs in Genesis 1:16 can be taken as perfects, indicating something that God
had done before: “And God had made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the
day, and the lesser light to rule the night; he had made 65 the stars also.” Grammatically
this is possible (this is how the NIV translates the same verb form in 2:8 and 2:19, for
example). This view would imply that God had made the sun, moon, and stars earlier
(in v. 1, the creation of heavens and earth, or in v. 3, the creation of light) but only placed
them near the earth on Day 4, or allowed them to be seen from the earth on Day 4 (vv.
14-15, 17-18). This allows the word made ( c dsah ) to mean “created” and thus avoids
the difficulty mentioned above with the view that it means “revealed” in verse 16. This
option remains as a genuine possibility for the day-age view, and in fact this view is the
one that seems most persuasive to the present author, if an old earth position is to be
adopted. With regard to light needed for the plants and warmth needed for the waters,
there was light available from Day 1 — even if we are not sure whether this light was light
from the sun and stars or the light of God’s glory (which will replace the sun in the New
Jerusalem, Rev. 21:23). 66
Another answer from the day-age view might be that the fourth day is not exactly
in sequence, though an overall outline of progressive work of God is given. Yet once we
begin changing the sequence of events that is so prominent in this progression of six
creative days, it is doubtful that we need to allow the text to tell us anything other than
the bare fact that God created things — but in that case, the whole inquiry about the age
of the earth is unnecessary. (Further discussion of disruption in the sequence of days is
given in the next section.)
(2) Literary Framework View: Another way of interpreting the days of Genesis 1 has
gained a significant following among evangelicals. Since it argues that Genesis 1 gives
us no information about the age of the earth, it would be compatible with current scien-
tific estimates of a very old earth. This view argues that the six days of Genesis 1 are not
intended to indicate a chronological sequence of events, but are rather a literary “frame-
work,” which the author uses to teach us about God’s creative activity. The framework is
65 The second verb is implied by the direct object marker but
is not expressed in the Hebrew text; it would take the same form
as the First verb in the sentence.
66 The question of pollination without birds and insects
remains a difficulty for this view, though it should be noted
that even today many plants self-pollinate or are cross-
pollinated by the wind, and we cannot be sure that pollina-
tion by flying insects was required before the fall and before
creation was complete. Similarly, the need for some birds to
live off creeping insects is a difficulty, but they possibly ate
only plants and seeds before the fall.
CHAPTER 15 • CREATION
skillfully constructed so that the first three days and the second three days correspond
to each other. 67
Days of forming
Day 1 : Light and darkness
separated
Day 2 : Sky and waters separated
Day 3 : Dry land and seas
separated, plants and trees
In this way a parallel construction is seen. On Day 1 God separates light and darkness,
while on Day 4 he puts the sun, moon, and stars in the light and in the darkness. On Day
2 he separates the waters and the sky, while on Day 5 he puts the fish in the waters and
the birds in the sky. On Day 3 he separates the dry land and the seas and makes plants to
grow, while on Day 6 he puts the animals and man on the dry land and gives the plants
to them for food.
According to the “framework” view, Genesis 1 should not be read as though the
author wanted to inform us about the sequence of days or the order in which things
were created, nor did he intend to tell us about the length of time the creation took. The
arrangement of six “days” is a literary device the author uses to teach that God created
everything. The six days, which are neither twenty-four-hour days nor long periods of
time, give us six different “pictures” of creation, telling us that God made all aspects of
the creation, that the pinnacle of his creative activity was man, and that over all creation
is God himself, who rested on the seventh day and who calls man therefore to worship
him on the sabbath day as well. 68
In the words of a recent advocate of this position, “Chronology has no place here.” 69
The attractions in favor of this hypothesis are (1) the neat correspondence between the
pairs of days as shown in the table above, (2) the fact that it avoids any conflict with mod-
ern science over the age of the earth and the age of living creatures (since no chronology
at all is implied), (3) the way it avoids the conflict of sequence between Genesis 1 and 2
in which man (Gen. 2:7) seems to be formed before plants (Gen. 2:8) and animals (Gen.
2:1 9), a sequence different from Genesis 1, and (4) the fact that Genesis 2:5 shows that
the days of creation were not literal twenty-four-hour days, for it says that there were no
plants on the earth because it had not yet rained, something that would not make sense in
a six day creation, since plants can certainly survive three or four days without rain.
Several points may be made against the framework theory.
Days of filling
Day 4: Sun, moon, and stars
(lights in the heaven)
Day 5 : Fish and birds
Day 6: Animals and man
67 The following table is adapted from The NIV Study Bible ,
ed. by Kenneth Barker et al. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1985),
p. 6 (note to Gen. 1:11). A forceful defense of the “framework”
view is found in Henri Blocher, In the Beginning: The Open-
ing Chapters of Genesis, trans. by David G. Preston (Leicester:
Inter-Varsity Press, 1984), pp. 49-59. Blocher mentions several
other evangelical scholars who hold this position, which he calls
the “literary interpretation”: N. H. Ridderbos, Bernard Ramm,
Meredith G. Kline, D. F. Payne, and J. A. Thompson. This
framework” view is called the “pictorial day” view in Mil-
lard Erickson, Christian Theology, p. 381.
68 This framework view is also defended by Ronald Young-
blood, How It All Began (Ventura, Calif.: Regal, 1980), pp.
25-33.
69 Henri Blocher, In the Beginning, p. 52.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1. First, the proposed correspondence between the days of creation is not nearly as
exact as its advocates have supposed. The sun, moon, and stars created on the fourth day
as “ ligh ts in the firmament of the heavens” (Gen. 1:14) are placed not in any space created
on Day 1 but in the “firmament” (Heb. raqia ) that was created on the second day. In fact,
the correspondence in language is quite explicit: this “firmament” is not mentioned at all
on Day 1 but five times on Day 2 (Gen. 1:6-8) and three times on Day 4 (Gen. 1 : 14 - 19) .
Of course Day 4 also has correspondences with Day 1 (in terms of day and night, light
and darkness), but if we say that the second three days show the creation of things to fill
the forms or spaces created on the first three days, then Day 4 overlaps at least as much
with Day 2 as it does with Day 1.
Moreover, the parallel between Days 2 and 5 is not exact, because in some ways the
preparation of a space for the fish and birds of Day 5 does not come in Day 2 but in Day
3. It is not until Day 3 that God gathers the waters together and calls them “seas” (Gen.
1:10), and on Day 5 the fish are commanded to “fill the waters in the seas” (Gen. 1:22).
A gain in verses 26 and 28 the fish are called “fish of the sea” giving repeated emphasis
to the fact that the sphere the fish inhabit was specifically formed on Day 3. Thus, the
fish formed on Day 5 seem to belong much more to the place prepared for them on Day 3
than to the widely dispersed waters below the firmament on Day 2. Establishing a parallel
between Day 2 and Day 5 faces further difficulties in that nothing is created on Day 5 to
inhabit the “waters above the firmament,” and the flying things created on this day (the
Hebrew word would include flying insects as well as birds) not only fly in the sky created
on Day 2, but also live and multiply on the “earth” or “dry land” created on Day 3. (Note
God’s command on Day 5: “Let birds multiply on the earth” [Gen. 1:22].) Finally, the
parallel between Days 3 and 6 is not precise, for nothing is created on Day 6 to fill the
seas that were gathered together on Day 3. With all of these points of imprecise corre-
spondence and overlapping between places and things created to fill them, the supposed
literary “framework,” while having an initial appearance of neatness, turns out to be less
and less convincing upon closer reading of the text.
2. Since all proposals for understanding Genesis 1 attempt to provide explanations
for scientific data about the age of the earth, this is not a unique argument in favor of the
framework theory. However, we must recognize that one aspect of the attractiveness of
this theory is the fact that it relieves evangelicals of the burden of even trying to reconcile
scientific findings with Genesis 1. Yet, in the words of one advocate of this theory, “So
great is the advantage, and for some the relief, that it could constitute a temptation.” He
wisely adds, “We must not espouse the theory on grounds of its convenience but only if
the text leads us in that direction.” 70
3. Those who have not adopted the framework theory have seen no conflict in sequence
between Genesis 1 and 2, for it has been commonly understood that Genesis 2 implies
no description of sequence in the original creation of the animals or plants, but simply
recapitulates some of the details of Genesis 1 as important for the specific account of the
creation of Adam and Eve in Genesis 2. The NIV avoids the appearance of conflict by
translating, “Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the East, in Eden” (Gen. 2:8)
70 Ibid., p. 50.
CHAPTER 15 • CREATION
and “Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all
the birds of the air” (Gen. 2:19).
4. Genesis 2:5 does not really say that plants were not on the earth because the earth
was too dry to support them. If we adopt that reasoning we would also have to say there
were no plants because “there was no man to till the ground” (Gen. 2:5), for that is the
second half of the comment about no rain coming on the earth. Moreover, the remainder
of the sentence says that the earth was the opposite of being too dry to support plants:
“streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground” (Gen.
2:6 NIV). The statement in Genesis 2:5 is simply to be understood as an explanation of
the general time frame in which God created man. Genesis 2:4-6 sets the stage, telling
us that “no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung
up— for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no man
to till the ground; but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the
ground. The statements about lack of rain and no man to till the ground do not give the
physical reason why there were no plants, but only explain that God’s work of creation was
not complete. This introduction puts us back into the first six days of creation as a general
setting— into “the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens” (Gen. 2:4).
Then in that setting it abruptly introduces the main point of chapter 2— the creation of
m«m- The Hebrew text does not include the word “then” at the beginning of verse 7, but
simply begins, “And the Lord God formed man” (Gen. 2:7 KJV). 71
5. Finally, the strongest argument against the framework view, and the reason why
comparatively few evangelicals have adopted it, is that the whole of Genesis 1 strongly
suggests not just a literary framework but a chronological sequence of events. When the
narrative proceeds from the less complex aspects of creation (light and darkness, waters,
sky, and dry land) to the more complex aspects (fish and birds, animals and man) we see
a progressive build-up and an ordered sequence of events that are entirely understandable
chronologically. When a sequence of numbers (1-2-3-4-5-6) is attached to a set of days
that correspond exactly to the ordinary week human beings experience (Day 1, Day 2,
Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7, with rest on Day 7), the implication of chronological
sequence in the narrative is almost inescapable. The sequence of days seems more clearly
intended than a literary framework which is nowhere made explicit in the text, and in
which many details simply do not fit. As Derek Kidner observes:
The march of the days is too majestic a progress to carry no implication of
ordered sequence; it also seems over-subtle to adopt a view of the passage which
discounts one of the primary impressions it makes on the ordinary reader. It is
a story, not only a statement. 72
6. A sequence of days is also implied in God’s command to human beings to imitate his
pattern of work plus rest: Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall
labor, and do all your work; but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God ... for
in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested
71 For further discussion on Gen. 2:5, see Meredith G. Kline, (1966): 109- 14
“Because It Had Not Rained,” WTJ 20 (1957-58): 146-57; and, »D. Kidner, Genesis: An Introduction and Commentary,
in response, Derek Kidner, “Genesis 2:5, 6: Wet or Dry?” TB 17 TOTC (Chicago: InterVarsity Press, 1967), pp. 54-55.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
the seventh day” (Ex. 20:8 - 11). But if God did not create the earth by working for six
days and resting on the seventh, then the command to imitate him would be misleading
or make no sense.
In conclusion, while the “framework” view does not deny the truthfulness of Scrip-
ture, it adopts an interpretation of Scripture which, upon closer inspection, seems very
unlikely.
b. “Young Earth” Theories of Creation: Another group of evangelical interpreters rejects
the dating systems that currently give an age of millions of years to the earth and argue
instead that the earth is quite young, perhaps 10,000 to 20,000 years old. Young earth
advocates have produced a number of scientific arguments for a recent creation of the
earth. 73 Those who hold to a young earth generally advocate one or both of the following
positions:
(1) Creation With an Appearance of Age (Mature Creationism): Many who hold to a
young earth point out that the original creation must have had an “appearance of age”
even from the first day. (Another term for this view is “mature creationism,” since it
affirms that God created a mature creation.) The appearance of Adam and Eve as full-
grown adults is an obvious example. They appeared as though they had lived for perhaps
twenty or twenty-five years, growing up from infancy as human beings normally do, but
in fact they were less than a day old. Similarly, they probably saw the stars the first night
that they lived, but the light from most stars would take thousands or even millions of
years to reach the earth. This suggests that God created the stars with light beams already
in place. And full-grown trees would probably have had rings (Adam and Eve would not
have had to wait years before God told them which trees of the garden they could eat from
and which they could not, nor would they have had to wait weeks or months before edible
plants grew large enough to provide them food). Following this line of reasoning, might
we go further and suppose that many geological formations, when originally created, had
a similar appearance to formations that would now take thousands or even millions of
years to complete by present “slow” processes?
This suggestion has currently found many supporters, and, initially at least, it seems
to be an attractive proposal. Those who hold this position often combine it with certain
objections to current scientific dating processes. They question how we can be certain
of the reliability of radiometric dating beyond a few thousand years, for example, and
how scientists can know that the rates of decay of certain elements have been constant
73 Several scientific arguments pointing to a young earth
(about 10,000-20,000 years old) are given in Henry M.
Morris, ed.. Scientific Creationism (San Diego, Calif.: Creation-
Life, 1974), esp. pp. 131-69; also Kofahl and Segraves, The Cre-
ation Explanation, pp. 181-213.
A response to most of these arguments, from an “old
earth” perspective, is given by Davis A. Young in Christianity
and the Age of the Earth, pp. 71-131, and, specifically in
response to “flood geology,” in Creation and the Flood,
pp. 171-213. Another book, Science Held Hostage: What’s
Wrong With Creation Science and Evolutionism, by Howard J.
Van Till, Davis A. Young, and Clarence Menninga (Downers
Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press, 1988), raises serious objections
against the evaluation and use of scientific research materials
by some prominent young earth advocates (see pp. 45—125).
A preliminary young earth response to Young’s arguments is
found in a thirty-four-page pamphlet by Henry M. Morris
and John D. Morris, Science, Scripture, and the Young Earth
(El Cajon, Calif.: Institute for Creation Research, 1989).
CHAPTER 15 • CREATION
since creation. They also suggest that events such as the fall and the subsequent cursing
of nature (which altered the productivity and ecological balance of the earth, and caused
man himself to begin to age and decay, Gen. 3:17- 19), or the flood in Noah’s time (Gen.
6-9), may have brought about significant differences in the amount of radioactive mate-
rial in living things. This would mean that estimates of the age of the earth using present
methods of measurement would not be accurate.
A common objection to this “appearance of age” view is that it “makes God an appar-
ent deceiver,” 74 something that is contrary to his nature. But is God a “deceiver” if he
creates a mature man and woman in a day and then tells us explicitly that he did it? Or if
he creates mature fish and animals and full-grown trees and tells us that he did it? Or if
he allows Adam and Eve to see the stars, which he created in order that people might see
them and give glory to him, on the first night that they lived? Rather than manifesting
deception, it seems that these actions point to God’s infinite wisdom and power. This is
particularly so if God explicitly tells us that he created everything in “six days.” Accord-
ing to this position, those who are deceived are those who refuse to hear God’s own
explanation of how the creation came about.
The real problem with the appearance of age view is that there are some things in the
universe that it cannot easily account for. Everyone will agree that Adam and Eve were
created as adults, not newborn infants, and therefore had an appearance of age. Most who
hold to twenty-four-hour days in Genesis 1 would also say there was an appearance of age
with plants and trees, and with all the animals when they were first created (the chicken
came before the egg!), and probably with light from the stars. But the creation of
fossils presents a real problem, for responsible Christians would not want to suggest
that God scattered fossils throughout the earth to give an added appearance of age!
This would not be creating something in process” or in a state of maturity; it would
be creating the remains of a dead animal, not so that the animal could serve Adam
and Eve, but simply to make people think the earth was older than it really was. Further-
more, one would have to say that God created all these dead animals and called them
“very good.” 75
While the creation of stars with light beams in place or trees that are mature would
be for the purpose of enabling human beings to glorify God for the excellence of his cre-
ation, the depositing of fossils in the earth could only be for the purpose of misleading
or deceiving human beings regarding the earlier history of the world. More problematic
is that Adam, the plants, the animals, and the stars all would have appeared to have dif-
ferent ages (because they were created with mature functions in place), whereas modern
geological research gives approximately the same age estimates from radiometric dating,
astronomical estimates, rock formations, samples of moon rocks and meteorites, etc.
Why would God create so many different indications of an earth that is 4.5 billion years
old if this were not true? Would it not be better to conclude that the earth is 4.5 billion
74 Millard Erickson, Christian Theology, p. 382.
75 We should note that old earth advocates must also have
God speaking in Gen. 1:31 and calling the old fossils “very
good.” This is not a decisive objection if the death of animals
before the fall did not result from sin, but it is a difficulty.
Only flood geology advocates (see below) will say that no fos-
sils existed at Gen. 1:31, but that they were deposited suddenly
by the flood in Gen. 6-9. This perhaps is a consideration in
favor of the flood geology position.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
306
years old, and that God left many indications there to show us this fact rather than in any
way imply that he deceived us? So it seems the only credible explanations for the fossil
record that Christians can adopt are: (a) current dating methods are incorrect by colossal
proportions because of flawed assumptions or because of changes brought about by the
fall or the flood; or (b) current dating methods are approximately correct and the earth
is many millions or even billions of years old.
(2) Flood Geology: Another common view among evangelicals is what may be called
“flood geology.” This is the view that the tremendous natural forces unleashed by the
flood at the time of Noah (Gen. 6-9) significantly altered the face of the earth, caus-
ing the creation of coal and diamonds, for example, within the space of a year rather
than hundreds of millions of years, because of the extremely high pressure exerted by
the water on the earth. This view also claims that the flood deposited fossils in layers
of incredibly thick sediment all over the earth. 76 The flood geology view is also called
“neo-catastrophism” because its advocates attribute most of the present geological status
of the earth to the immense catastrophe of the flood.
The geological arguments put forth by advocates of this view are technical and diffi-
cult for the nonspecialist to evaluate. Personally, though I think the flood of Genesis 6-9
was world-wide, and that it did have a significant impact on the face of the earth, and that
all living people and animals outside the ark perished in the flood, I am not persuaded
that all of the earth’s geological formations were caused by Noah’s flood rather than by
millions of years of sedimentation, volcanic eruptions, movement of glaciers, continental
drift, and so forth. The controversy over flood geology is strikingly different from the
other areas of dispute regarding creation, for its advocates have persuaded almost no
professional geologists, even those who are Bible-believing evangelical Christians. By
contrast, the books objecting to evolution that we mentioned above chronicle 130 years of
cogent objections to Darwinian evolution that have been raised by a significant number
of biologists, biochemists, zoologists, anthropologists, and paleontologists, both Chris-
tian and non- Christian, because evolution has so many problems in explaining facts
evident from observation of the created world. If present geological formations could
only be explained as the result of a universal flood, then would this not be evident even to
non- Christians who look at the evidence? Would not the hundreds of Christians who are
professional geologists be prepared to acknowledge the evidence if it were there? It may be
that the flood geologists are right, but if they are, we would expect to see more progress
in persuading some professional geologists that their case is a plausible one. 77
5. Conclusions on the Age of the Earth. How old is the earth then? Where does this dis-
cussion leave us? Young’s arguments for an old earth based on many kinds of scientific
76 See Henry M. Morris and John C. Whitcomb, The Genesis
Flood (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1961); John
C. Whitcomb, The World That Perished (Grand Rapids: Baker,
1988); Stephen A. Austin, Catastrophes in Earth History (El
Cajon, Calif.: Institute for Creation Research, 1984). Other
studies by flood geology advocates have been published in the
CRSQ, though by no means all articles in that journal advocate
the flood geology perspective, nor do all members of the Cre-
ation Research Society hold to flood geology.
77 The arguments against flood geology have been mar-
shalled by an evangelical who is also a professional geologist;
see Davis A. Young, Creation and the Flood: An Alternative to
Flood Geology and Theistic Evolution and Christianity and the
Age of the Earth.
CHAPTER 15 • CREATION
data from different disciplines seem (to the present writer at least) to be very strong. This
is particularly true of arguments based on fossil-bearing rocks, coral reefs, continental
drift, and the similarity of results from different kinds of radiometric dating. Newman
and Eckelmann’s arguments from astronomy indicating a very old universe give signifi-
cant added weight. It is understandable, on the one hand, that God may have created a
universe in which stars appeared to have been shining for 15 billion years, Adam appeared
to have been living for 25 years, some trees appeared to have been living for 50 years, and
some animals appeared to have been living for 1 to 10 years. But, on the other hand, it is
difficult to understand why God would have created dozens or perhaps hundreds of dif-
ferent kinds of rocks and minerals on the earth, all of which actually were only one day
old, but all of which had an appearance of being exactly 4.5 billion years old — exactly the
apparent age that he also gave the moon and the meteorites when they, too, were only one
day old. And it is difficult to understand why the evidence of star life cycles and the expan-
sion of the universe would make the universe appear to be 15 billion years old if it were
not. It is possible, but it seems unlikely, almost as if God’s only purpose in giving these
uniform apparent ages was to mislead us rather than simply to have a mature, functioning
universe in place. So the old earth advocates seem to me to have a greater weight of scien-
tific evidence on their side, and it seems that the weight of evidence is increasing yearly.
On the other hand, the interpretations of Genesis 1 presented by old earth advocates,
while possible, do not seem as natural to the sense of the text. Davis Youngs own solution
of “seven successive figurative days of indeterminate duration” 78 really does not solve the
problem, for he is willing to spread God’s creative activities around on the various days
as needed in order to make the sequence scientifically possible. For example, he thinks
that some birds were created before Day 5:
We may also suggest that even though birds were created on the fifth day, never-
theless, the most primitive birds or original bird ancestors were miraculously
formed on a day prior to the fifth day. Hence the data of Genesis 1 actually allow
for some overlap of the events of the days. If such overlap exists, then all appar-
ent discrepancies between Genesis 1 and science would fall away (p. 131).
But this procedure allows us to say that the events of creation occurred at almost any
time, no matter whether Scripture says they occurred then or not. Once this procedure
is adopted, then ultimately we can know little if anything about the sequence of creation
events from Genesis 1, because any of the events narrated there may have had precursors
at previous periods of time. This can hardly be the impression the original readers were
intended to get from the text. (Much more likely, however, is the modified day- age view
presented on pp. 298-300 above.)
6. The Need for Further Understanding. Although our conclusions are tentative, at this
point in our understanding, Scripture seems to be more easily understood to suggest (but
not to require) a young earth view, while the observable facts of creation seem increasingly
to favor an old earth view. Both views are possible, but neither one is certain. And we must
7 s Creation and the Flood , p. 89.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
308
say very clearly that the age of the earth is a matter that is not directly taught in Scripture,
but is something we can think about only by drawing more or less probable inferences
from Scripture. Given this situation, it would seem best (1) to admit that God may not
allow us to find a clear solution to this question before Christ returns, and (2) to encour-
age evangelical scientists and theologians who fall in both the young earth and old earth
camps to begin to work together with much less arrogance, much more humility, and a
much greater sense of cooperation in a common purpose.
There are difficulties with both old earth and young earth viewpoints, difficulties that
the proponents of each view often seem unable to see in their own positions. Progress will
certainly be made if old earth and young earth scientists who are Christians will be more
willing to talk to each other without hostility, ad hominem attacks, or highly emotional
accusations, on the one hand, and without a spirit of condescension or academic pride on
the other, for these attitudes are not becoming to the body of Christ, nor are they character-
istic of the way of wisdom, which is “first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of
mercy and good fruits, without uncertainty or insincerity,” and full of the recognition that
“the harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace” (James 3:17- 18).
As for evangelism and apologetics done in publications designed to be read outside the
evangelical world, young earth and old earth proponents could cooperate much more in
amassing the extremely strong arguments for creation by intelligent design, and in lay-
ing aside their differences over the age of the earth. Too often young earth proponents
have failed to distinguish scientific arguments for creation by design from scientific argu-
ments for a young earth, and have therefore prevented old earth advocates from join-
ing them in a battle for the minds of an unbelieving scientific community. Moreover,
young earth proponents have sometimes failed to recognize that scientific arguments
for a young earth (which seem to them to be very persuasive) are not nearly as strong
as the overwhelming scientific arguments for creation by intelligent design. As a result,
young earth proponents have too often given the impression that the only true “creation-
ists” are those who believe not only in creation by God but also in a young earth. The
result has been unfortunate divisiveness and lack of community among scientists who are
Christians — to the delight of Satan and the grieving of God’s Holy Spirit.
Finally, we can view this controversy with some expectancy that there will be further
progress in scientific understanding of the age of the earth. It is likely that scientific
research in the next ten or twenty years will tip the weight of evidence decisively toward
either a young earth or an old earth view, and the weight of Christian scholarly opinion
(from both biblical scholars and scientists) will begin to shift decisively in one direction
or another. This should not cause alarm to advocates of either position, because the
truthfulness of Scripture is not threatened (our interpretations of Genesis 1 have enough
uncertainty that either position is possible). Both sides need to grow in knowledge of the
truth, even if this means abandoning a long-held position.
F. Application
The doctrine of creation has many applications for Christians today. It makes us real-
ize that the material universe is good in itself, for God created it good and wants us to use
CHAPTER 15 • CREATION
309
it in ways pleasing to him. Therefore we should seek to be like the early Christians, who
“partook of food with glad and generous hearts” (Acts 2:46), always with thanksgiving to
God and trust in his provisions. A healthy appreciation of creation will keep us from false
asceticism that denies the goodness of creation and the blessings that come to us through
it. It will also encourage some Christians to do scientific and technological research into
the goodness of God s abundant creation, or to support such research.^ The doctrine of
creation will also enable us to recognize more clearly that scientific and technological
study in itself glorifies God, for it enables us to discover how incredibly wise, powerful,
and skillful God was in his work of creation. “Great are the works of the Lord, studied
by all who have pleasure in them” (Ps. 111:2).
The doctrine of creation also reminds us that God is sovereign over the universe he
created. He made it all, and he is Lord of all of it. We owe all that we are and have to him,
and we may have complete confidence that he will ultimately defeat all his enemies and
be manifested as Sovereign King to be worshiped forever. In addition, the incredible size
of the universe and the amazing complexity of every created thing will, if our hearts are
right, draw us continually to worship and praise him for his greatness.
Finally, as we indicated above, we can wholeheartedly enjoy creative activities (artis-
tic, musical, athletic, domestic, literary, etc.) with an attitude of thanksgiving that our
Creator God enables us to imitate him in our creativity.
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. Are there ways in which you could be more thankful to God for the excellence
of his creation? Look around you and give some examples of the goodness of the
creation that God has allowed you to enjoy. Are there ways in which you could be a
better steward of parts of God s creation of which he has entrusted to your care?
2. Might the goodness of all that God created encourage you to try to enjoy different
kinds of foods than those you normally prefer? Can children be taught to thank
God for variety in the things God has given us to eat? Does the doctrine of creation
provide an answer to some strict animal rights advocates who say we should not eat
steak or chicken or other meat, or wear clothing made from animal skins, since we
are simply another form of animal ourselves? (See Gen. 3:21.)
3. In order to understand something of the despair felt by contemporary non-
Christians, just try to imagine for a moment that you believe that there is no God
and that you are just a product of matter plus time plus chance, the spontaneous
result of random variation in organisms over millions of years. How would you
feel differently about yourself? About other people? About the future? About right
and wrong?
79 Frair and Davis, A Case for Creation t pp. 135-40, have
many specific practical challenges to scientists who believe in
creation to do specific kinds of greatly needed research.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
310
4. Why do we feel joy when we are able to “subdue” even a part of the earth and make
it useful for serving us — whether it be in growing vegetables, developing a better
kind of plastic or metal, or using wool to knit a piece of clothing? Should we feel
joy at the accomplishment of these and other tasks? What other attitudes of heart
should we feel as we do them?
5. When you think about the immensity of the stars, and that God put them in place
to show us his power and glory, how does it make you feel about your place in the
universe? Is this different from the way a non- Christian would feel?
6. Before reading this chapter, what did you think about the theory of evolution? How
has your view changed, if at all?
7. What are some things that Christians can learn about theological discussion in
general from observing the current controversy over the age of the earth? What
significance do you see in this controversy for your own Christian faith?
SPECIAL TERMS
concordist theory
creation ex nihilo
Cro-Magnon man
day-age theory
deism
dualism
flood geology
gap theory
homo sapiens
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter 1,
pp. 38-39. Complete bibliographical data maybe found on pp. 1224-30.)
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1882-92 Litton, 74-76
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1875-76 Pope, 1:361-420
1892-94 Miley, 1:276-310
1940 Wiley, 1:440-72
1960 Purkiser, 145-48, 149-63
1983 Carter, 1:130-32, 145-94, 203-8
immanent
literary framework
theory
macro-evolution
materialism
mature creationism
micro-evolution
neo-catastrophism
old-earth theory
pantheism
pictorial-day theory
progressive creationism
theistic evolution
transcendent
twenty-four-hour day
theory
young earth theory
CHAPTER 15 • CREATION
1983-
Cottrell, 1:48-191
1987-90
Oden, 1:225-69
3. Baptist
1767
Gill, 1:366-75
1887
Boyce, 166-73
1907
Strong, 371 -410
1917
Mullins, 251-64
1976-83
Henry, 6:108-96
1983-85
Erickson, 365-86
1987-94
Lewis/Demarest, 2:17-70
4. Dispensational
1947
Chafer, 7:99-101, 146
1949
Thiessen, 111-18
1986
Ryrie, 171-94
5. Lutheran
1917-24
Pieper, 1:467-82
1934
Mueller, 179-88
6. Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1559
Calvin, 1:159-83 (1.14)
1724- 58
Edwards, 1:94-121
1861
Heppe, 190-200
1871-73
Hodge, 1:550-574; 2:3-41
1878
Dabney, 26-38, 247-63
1887-1921
Warfield, SSW, 2:132-41
1889
Shedd, 1:463 — 526; 2a:3— 94
1937-66
Murray, CW, 1:325-29; CW, 2:3-13
1938
Berkhof, 126-40, 150-64
1962
Buswell, 1:134-62, 321-43
7. Renewal (or charismatic/Pentecostal)
1988-92 Williams, 1:95-116
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
1. Roman Catholic: Traditional
1955 Ott, 79-86, 92 - 94, 100
2. Roman Catholic: Post-Vatican II
1980 McBrien, 1:224—28
311
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
312
Other Works
Several of these titles have been taken from an extensive bibliography on creation and
evolution prepared by a professional biologist, Dr. Wayne Frair of The King’s College,
Briarcliff Manor, New York.
Anderson, J. Kerby, and Harold G. Coffin. Fossils in Focus. Grand Rapids: Zondervan,
1977.
Austin, Stephen A. Catastrophes in Earth History. El Cajon, Calif.: Institute of Creation
Research, 1984. (young earth view)
Barclay, D. R. “Creation.” In NDT, pp. 177-79.
Blocher, Henri. In the Beginning: The Opening Chapters of Genesis. Trans, by David
G. Preston. Leicester: Inter- Varsity Press, 1984.
Cameron, Nigel M. de S. Evolution and the Authority of the Bible. Exeter: Paternoster,
1983.
, ed. In the Beginning. . . .: A Symposium on the Bible and Creation . Glasgow: The
Biblical Creation Society, 1980.
Clotz, J. W. Genes , Genesis and Evolution. St. Louis, Mo.: Concordia Publishing House,
1970.
. Studies in Creation. St. Louis, Mo.: Concordia Publishing House, 1985.
Custance, Arthur C. Evolution or Creation. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1976.
. Without Form and Void: A Study of the Meaning of Genesis 1:2. Brockville, Ontario:
Doorway Papers, 1970.
Davidheiser, Bolton. Evolution and the Christian Faith. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1969.
Denton, Michael. Evolution: A Theory in Crisis. Bethesda, Md.: Adler and Adler, 1986.
De Young, Donald B. Astronomy and the Bible: Questions and Answers. Grand Rapids:
Baker, 1989. (young earth view)
Fields, Weston W. Unformed and Unfilled. Nutley, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1976.
Frair, Wayne, and Percival Davis. A Case for Creation. Norcross, Ga.: CRS Books, 1983.
Gange, Robert. Origins and Destiny: A Scientist Examines God's Handiwork. Waco, Tex.:
Word, 1986.
Geisler, Norman L. and J. Kerby Anderson. Origin Science: A Proposal for the Creation-
Evolution Controversy. Foreword by Walter L. Bradley. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987.
Gentry, R. V. Creations Tiny Mystery. Knoxville, Tenn.: Earth Science Associates, 1986.
Gish, D. T. Evolution: The Challenge of the Fossil Record. El Cajon, Calif.: Master Books,
1985. (young earth view)
Houston, James. I Believe in the Creator. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980.
Hummel, Charles E. Creation or Evolution? Resolving the Crucial Issues . Downers Grove,
111.: InterVarsity Press, 1989.
Johnson, Phillip E. Darwin on Trial. Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press, 1991.
Kaiser, Christopher B. Creation and the History of Science. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1991.
Kerkut, G. A. Implications of Evolution. New York: Pergamon, 1960.
Kofahl, Robert E., and Kelly L. Segraves. The Creation Explanation: A Scientific Alternative
to Evolution. Wheaton, 111.: Harold Shaw, 1975. (young earth view)
CHAPTER 15 • CREATION
313
Lester, L. R, and R. G. Bohlin. The Natural Limits to Biological Change. Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 1984.
Maatman, Russell. The Bible , Natural Science and Evolution. Grand Rapids: Reformed
Fellowship, 1970.
Morris, Henry M., ed. Scientific Creationism . San Diego, Calif.: Creation-Life, 1974. (young
earth view)
, and John C. Whitcomb. The Genesis Flood. Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed,
1961. (young earth view)
, and John D. Morris. Science , Scripture, and the Young Earth: An Answer to Current
Arguments Against the Biblical Doctrine of Recent Creation . El Cajon, Calif.: Institute
for Creation Research, 1989. (young earth view)
Newman, Robert C., and Herman J. Eckelmann. Genesis One and the Origin of the Earth.
Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press, 1977. (argues against young earth view)
Pitman, M. Adam and Evolution. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1984.
Ramm, Bernard. The Christian View of Science and Scripture. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1954.
Ross, Hugh. Creation and Time: A Biblical and Scientific Perspective on the Creation-Date
Controversy. Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1994. (an articulate and highly trained
scientist who argues against the young earth view on the basis of recent scientific
evidence)
Rusch, W. H., Sr. The Argument — Creationism vs. Evolutionism. Norcross, Ga: CRS Books,
1984.
Schaeffer, Francis. No Final Conflict. Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press, 1975.
Thaxton, C. B., W. L. Bradley, and R. L. Olsen. The Mystery of Life's Origin: Reassessing
Current Theories. New York: Philosophical Library, 1984.
Van Till, Howard J., Davis A. Young, and Clarence Menninga. Science Held Hostage: What's
Wrong With Creation Science and Evolutionism? Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity
Press, 1988. (argues against young earth view)
Whitcomb, John C. The World That Perished. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1988. (young earth
view)
. The Early Earth. Revised edition. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1986. (young earth view)
Wilder-Smith, A. E. The Natural Sciences Know Nothing of Evolution. El Cajon, Calif.:
Master Books, 1981.
Young, Davis A. Christianity and the Age of the Earth. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982.
(argues against young earth view)
. Creation and the Flood: An Alternative to Flood Geology and Theistic Evolution.
Grand Rapids: Baker, 1977. (argues against young earth view)
Youngblood, Ronald. How It All Began. Ventura, Calif.: Regal, 1980.
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
Nehemiah 9:6: And Ezra said: “ You are the Lord, you alone; you have made heaven, the
heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is
in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
HYMN
“Hallelujah, Praise Jehovah!”
This hymn contains the entire content of Psalm 148 set to music. It summons all cre-
ation, including “things visible and things invisible,” to worship God our Creator.
Hallelujah, praise Jehovah, from the heavens praise his name;
Praise Jehovah in the highest, all his angels, praise proclaim.
All his hosts, together praise him, sun and moon and stars on high;
Praise him, O ye heav’ns of heavens, and ye floods above the sky.
Refrain:
Let them praises give Jehovah, for his name alone is high,
And his glory is exalted, and his glory is exalted, and his glory
is exalted
Far above the earth and sky.
Let them praises give Jehovah, they were made at his command;
Them for ever he established, his decree shall ever stand.
From the earth, O praise Jehovah, all ye seas, ye monsters all,
Fire and hail and snow and vapors, stormy winds that hear his call.
All ye fruitful trees and cedars, all ye hills and mountains high,
Creeping things and beasts and cattle, birds that in the heavens fly,
Kings of earth, and all ye people, princes great, earth’s judges all;
Praise his name, young men and maidens, aged men,
and children small.
AUTHOR: WILLIAM J. KIRKPATRICK, 1838-1921
Chapter
GOD'S PROVIDENCE
If God controls all things, how can our actions have real
meaning ? What are the decrees of God?
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
Once we understand that God is the all-powerful Creator (see chapter 15), it seems
reasonable to conclude that he also preserves and governs everything in the universe
as well. Though the term providence is not found in Scripture, it has been tradition-
ally used to summarize God’s ongoing relationship to his creation. When we accept the
biblical doctrine of providence, we avoid four common errors in thinking about God’s
relationship to creation. The biblical doctrine is not deism (which teaches that God cre-
ated the world and then essentially abandoned it), nor pantheism (which teaches that
the creation does not have a real, distinct existence in itself, but is only part of God),
but providence, which teaches that though God is actively related to and involved in the
creation at each moment, creation is distinct from him. Moreover, the biblical doctrine
does not teach that events in creation are determined by chance (or randomness), nor are
they determined by impersonal fate (or determinism), but by God, who is the personal
yet infinitely powerful Creator and Lord.
We may define God’s providence as follows: God is continually involved with all created
things in such a way that he (1) keeps them existing and maintaining the properties with which
he created them; (2) cooperates with created things in every action, directing their distinctive
properties to cause them to act as they do; and (3) directs them to fulfill his purposes.
Under the general category of providence we have three subtopics, according to
the three elements in the definition above: (1) Preservation, (2) Concurrence, and (3)
Government.
We shall examine each of these separately, then consider differing views and objec-
tions to the doctrine of providence. It should be noted that this is a doctrine on which
there has been substantial disagreement among Christians since the early history of the
church, particularly with respect to God’s relationship to the willing choices of moral
creatures. In this chapter we will first present a summary of the position favored in this
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
316
textbook (what is commonly called the “Reformed” or “Calvinist” position), 1 then con-
sider arguments that have been made from another position (what is commonly called
the “Arminian” position).
A. Preservation
God keeps all created things existing and maintaining the properties with which he
created them.
Hebrews 1:3 tells us that Christ is “upholding the universe by his word of power.” The
Greek word translated “upholding” is phero, “carry, bear.” This is commonly used in
the New Testament for carrying something from one place to another, such as bringing
a paralyzed man on a bed to Jesus (Luke 5:18), bringing wine to the steward of the feast
(John 2:8), or bringing a cloak and books to Paul (2 Tim. 4:13). It does not mean simply
“sustain,” but has the sense of active, purposeful control over the thing being carried
from one place to another. In Hebrews 1:3, the use of the present participle indicates
that Jesus is “ continually carrying along all things” in the universe by his word of power.
Christ is actively involved in the work of providence.
Similarly, in Colossians 1:17, Paul says of Christ that “in him all things hold together.”
The phrase “all things” refers to every created thing in the universe (see v. 16), and the
verse affirms that Christ keeps all things existing — in him they continue to exist or
“endure” (NASB mg.). Both verses indicate that if Christ were to cease his continuing
activity of sustaining all things in the universe, then all except the triune God would
instantly cease to exist. Such teaching is also affirmed by Paul when he says, “In him
we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28), and by Ezra: “You are the Lord, you
alone; you have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and
all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host
of heaven worships you” (Neh. 9:6). Peter also says that “the heavens and earth that now
exist” are “being kept until the day of judgment” (2 Peter 3:7).
One aspect of God’s providential preservation is the fact that he continues to give us
breath each moment. Elihu in his wisdom says of God, “If he should take back his spirit to
himself, and gather to himself his breath, all flesh would perish together, and man would
return to dust” (Job 34:14- 15; cf. Ps. 104:29).
God, in preserving all things he has made, also causes them to maintain the properties
with which he created them. God preserves water in such a way that it continues to act
though philosophers may use the term determinism (or
soft determinism ) to categorize the position I advocate in this
chapter, I do not use that term because it is too easily mis-
understood in everyday English: (1) It suggests a system in
which human choices are not real and make no difference in
the outcome of events; and (2) it suggests a system in which
the ultimate cause of events is a mechanistic universe rather
than a wise and personal God. Moreover, (3) it too easily
allows critics to group the biblical view with non- Christian
deterministic systems and blur the distinctions between
them.
The view advocated in this chapter is also sometimes called
“compatibilism,” because it holds that absolute divine sover-
eignty is compatible with human significance and real human
choices. I have no objection to the nuances of this term, but
I have decided not to use it because (1) I want to avoid the
proliferation of technical terms in studying theology, and (2)
it seems preferable simply to call my position a traditional
Reformed view of God’s providence, and thereby to place
myself within a widely understood theological tradition rep-
resented by John Calvin and the other systematic theologians
listed in the “Reformed” category at the end of this chapter.
CHAPTER 16 ■ GOD'S PROVIDENCE
like water. He causes grass to continue to act like grass, with all its distinctive characteris-
tics. He causes the paper on which this sentence is written to continue to act like paper so
that it does not spontaneously dissolve into water and float away or change into a living
thing and begin to grow! Until it is acted on by some other part of creation and thereby its
properties are changed (for instance, until it is burned with fire and it becomes ash), this
paper will continue to act like paper so long as God preserves the earth and the creation
that he has made.
We should not, however, think of Gods preservation as a continuous new creation:
he does not continuously create new atoms and molecules for every existing thing every
moment. Rather, he preserves what has already been created: he “carries along all things”
by his word of power (Heb. 1:3, author’s translation). We must also appreciate that cre-
ated things are real and that their characteristics are real I do not just imagine that the
rock in my hand is hard — it is hard. If I bump it against my head, I do not just imagine
that it hurts — it does hurt! Because God keeps this rock maintaining the properties
with which he created it, the rock has been hard since the day it was formed, and (unless
something else in creation interacts with it and changes it) it will be hard until the day
God destroys the heavens and the earth (2 Peter 3:7, 10- 12).
Gods providence provides a basis for science: God has made and continues to sustain
a universe that acts in predictable ways. If a scientific experiment gives a certain result
today, then we can have confidence that (if all the factors are the same) it will give the
same result tomorrow and a hundred years from tomorrow. The doctrine of providence
also provides a foundation for technology: I can be confident that gasoline will make
my car run today just as it did yesterday, not simply because “it has always worked that
way,” but because God’s providence sustains a universe in which created things maintain
the properties with which he created them. The result may be similar in the life of an
unbeliever and the life of a Christian: we both put gasoline in our cars and drive away.
But he will do so without knowing the ultimate reason why it works that way, and I will
do so with knowledge of the actual final reason (God’s providence) and with thanks to
my Creator for the wonderful creation that he has made and preserves.
B. Concurrence
God cooperates with created things in every action , directing their distinctive properties
to cause them to act as they do.
This second aspect of providence, concurrence , is an expansion of the idea contained
in the first aspect, preservation. In fact, some theologians (such as John Calvin) treat the
fact of concurrence under the category of preservation, but it is helpful to treat it as a
distinct category.
In Ephesians 1:11 Paul says that God “accomplishes all things according to the counsel
of his will.” The word translated “accomplishes” (energeo) indicates that God “works” or
“brings about” all things according to his own will. No event in creation falls outside of
his providence. Of course this fact is hidden from our eyes unless we read it in Scripture.
Like preservation, God’s work of concurrence is not clearly evident from observation of
the natural world around us.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
318
In giving scriptural proof for concurrence, we will begin with the inanimate
creation, then move to animals, and finally to different kinds of events in the life of
human beings.
1. Inanimate Creation. There are many things in creation that we think of as merely
“natural” occurrences. Yet Scripture says that God causes them to happen. We read of “fire
and hail, snow and frost, stormy wind fulfilling his command!” (Ps. 148:8). Similarly,
To the snow he says, “Fall on the earth”;
and to the shower and the rain , “Be strong.” . . .
By the breath of God ice is given,
and the broad waters are frozen fast.
He loads the thick cloud with moisture;
the clouds scatter his lightning.
They turn round and round by his guidance,
to accomplish all that he commands them
on the face of the habitable world.
Whether for correction, or for his land,
or for love, he causes it to happen.
(Job 37:6- 13; cf. similar statements in 38:22-30)
Again, the psalmist declares that “Whatever the Lord pleases he does, in heaven and on
earth, in the seas and all deeps” (Ps. 135:6), and then in the next sentence he illustrates
God’s doing of his will in the weather: “He it is who makes the clouds rise at the end of the
earth, who makes lightnings for the rain and brings forth the wind from his storehouses”
(Ps. 135:7; cf. 104:4).
God also causes the grass to grow: “ You cause the grass to grow for the cattle, and
plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth” (Ps. 104:14).
God directs the stars in the heavens, asking Job, “Can you bring forth the constellations
in their seasons or lead out the Bear with its cubs?” (Job 38:32 NIV; “the Bear” or Ursa
Major is commonly called the Big Dipper; v. 31 refers to the constellations Pleiades and
Orion). Moreover, God continually directs the coming of the morning (Job 38:12), a fact
Jesus affirmed when he said that God “ makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and
sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matt. 5:45).
2. Animals. Scripture affirms that God feeds the wild animals of the field, for, “These all
look to you, to give them their food in due season. When you give to them, they gather it up;
when you open your hand, they are filled with good things. When you hide your face, they
are dismayed” (Ps. 104:27-29; cf. Job 38:39-41). Jesus also affirmed this when he said,
“Look at the birds of the air . . . your heavenly Father feeds them ” (Matt. 6:26). And he said
that not one sparrow “will fall to the ground without your Father’s will” (Matt. 10:29).
3. Seemingly “Random” or “Chance” Events. From a human perspective, the casting of
lots (or its modern equivalent, the rolling of dice or flipping of a coin) is the most typical
of random events that occur in the universe. But Scripture affirms that the outcome of
CHAPTER 16 ■ GOD'S PROVIDENCE
319
such an event is from God: “The lot is cast into the lap, but the decision is wholly from
the Lord” (Prov. 16:33). 2
4. Events Fully Caused by God and Fully Caused by the Creature as Well. For any of
these foregoing events (rain and snow, grass growing, sun and stars, the feeding of ani-
mals, or casting of lots), we could (at least in theory) give a completely satisfactory “natu-
ral” explanation. A botanist can detail the factors that cause grass to grow, such as sun,
moisture, temperature, nutrients in the soil, etc. Yet Scripture says that God causes the
grass to grow. A meteorologist can give a complete explanation of factors that cause rain
(humidity, temperature, atmospheric pressure, etc.), and can even produce rain in a
weather laboratory. Yet Scripture says that God causes the rain. A physicist with accurate
information on the force and direction a pair of dice was rolled could fully explain what
caused the dice to give the result they did — yet Scripture says that God brings about the
decision of the lot that is cast.
This shows us that it is incorrect for us to reason that if we know the “natural” cause
of something in this world, then God did not cause it. Rather, if it rains we should thank
him. If crops grow we should thank him. In all of these events, it is not as though the
event was partly caused by God and partly by factors in the created world. If that were
the case, then we would always be looking for some small feature of an event that we
could not explain and attribute that (say 1 percent of the cause) to God. But surely this
is not a correct view. Rather, these passages affirm that such events are entirely caused
by God. Yet we know that (in another sense) they are entirely caused by factors in the
creation as well.
The doctrine of concurrence affirms that God directs, and works through, the distinc-
tive properties of each created thing, so that these things themselves bring about the
results that we see. In this way it is possible to affirm that in one sense events are fully
(100 percent) caused by God and fully (100 percent) caused by the creature as well. How-
ever, divine and creaturely causes work in different ways. The divine cause of each event
works as an invisible, behind-the-scenes, directing cause and therefore could be called
the “primary cause” that plans and initiates everything that happens. But the created
thing brings about actions in ways consistent with the creature’s own properties, ways
that can often be described by us or by professional scientists who carefully observe the
processes. These creaturely factors and properties can therefore be called the “secondary”
causes of everything that happens, even though they are the causes that are evident to
us by observation.
5. The Affairs of Nations. Scripture also speaks of God’s providential control of human
affairs. We read that God “makes nations great, and he destroys them: he enlarges nations,
and leads them away” (Job 12:23). “Dominion belongs to the Lord, and he rules over
2 It is true that Eccl. 9:11 says that “the race is not to the swift,
nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to
the intelligent, nor favor to the men of skill; but time and chance
happen to them all.” But Michael Eaton correctly observes, “On
the lips of an Israelite ‘chance’ means what is unexpected, not
what is random” ( Ecclesiastes , TOTC [Leicester and Downers
Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press, 1983], p. 70). The rare word here
translated “chance” (Heb., pega‘) occurs only once more in the
Bible (1 Kings 5:4 [18], of an evil event).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
320
the nations” (Ps. 22:28). He has determined the time of existence and the place of every
nation on the earth, for Paul says, “he made from one every nation of men to live on all
the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their
habitation” (Acts 17:26; cf. 14:16). And when Nebuchadnezzar repented, he learned to
praise God,
For his dominion is an everlasting dominion,
and his kingdom endures from generation to generation;
all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing;
and he does according to his will in the host of heaven
and among the inhabitants of the earth;
and none can stay his hand or say to him,
“What are you doing?” (Dan. 4:34-35)
6. All Aspects of Our Lives. It is amazing to see the extent to which Scripture affirms
that God brings about various events in our lives. For example, our dependence on
God to give us food each day is affirmed every time we pray, “Give us this day our
daily bread” (Matt. 6:11), even though we work for our food and (as far as mere human
observation can discern) obtain it through entirely “natural” causes. Similarly, Paul,
looking at events with the eye of faith, affirms that “my God will supply every need”
of his children (Phil 4:19), even though God may use “ordinary” means (such as other
people) to do so.
God plans our days before we are born, for David affirms, “In your book were writ-
ten, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of
them” (Ps. 139:16). And Job says that man’s “days are determined, and the number of his
months is with you, and you have appointed his bounds that he cannot pass” (Job 14:5).
This can be seen in the life of Paul, who says that God “had set me apart before I was
born” (Gal. 1:15), and Jeremiah, to whom God said, “Before I formed you in the womb
I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to
the nations” (Jer. 1:5).
All our actions are under God’s providential care, for “in him we live and move ”
(Acts 17:28). The individual steps we take each day are directed by the Lord. Jeremiah
confesses, “I know, O Lord, that the way of man is not in himself, that it is not in man
who walks to direct his steps” (Jer. 10:23). We read that “a man’s steps are ordered by
the Lord” (Prov. 20:24), and that “a man’s mind plans his way, but the Lord directs his
steps” (Prov. 16:9). Similarly, Proverbs 16:1 affirms, “The plans of the mind belong to
man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord.” 3
3 David J. A. Clines, “Predestination in the Old Testament,”
in Grace Unlimited , ed. by Clark H. Pinnock (Minneapolis:
Bethany House, 1975), pp. 116-17, objects that these verses
simply affirm that “when it comes to conflict between God
and man, undoubtedly it cannot be man who wins the day.”
He says that these verses do not describe life in general, but
describe unusual situations where God overcomes man’s will
in order to bring about his special purposes. Clines denies that
these verses mean that God always acts this way or that these
verses represent God’s control of human conduct generally.
Yet no such restriction is seen in these passages (see Prov. 16:1,
9). The verses do not say that God directs a man’s steps in rare
instances where God needs to intervene to fulfill his purposes;
they simply make general statements about the way the world
works — God directs man’s steps in general, not simply when
there is conflict between God and man.
CHAPTER 16 • GOD’S PROVIDENCE
Success and failure come from God, for we read, “For not from the east or from the
west and not from the wilderness comes lifting up; but it is God who executes judgment,
putting down one and lifting up another” (Ps. 75:6—7). So Mary can say, “He has put
down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of low degree” (Luke 1:52). The
Lord gives children, for children “are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb
a reward” (Ps. 127:3).
All our talents and abilities are from the Lord, for Paul can ask the Corinthians, “What
have you that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if it were not
a gift?” (1 Cor. 4:7). David knew that to be true regarding his military skill, for, though
he must have trained many hours in the use of a bow and arrow, he could say of God, “He
trains my hands for war, so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze” (Ps. 18:34).
God influences rulers in their decisions, for “the king’s heart is a stream of water in
the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will” (Prov. 21:1). An illustration of this
was when the Lord “turned the heart of the king of Assyria” to his people, “so that he
aided them in the work of the house of God, the God of Israel” (Ezr. 6:22), or when “the
Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia” (Ezr. 1:1) to help the people of Israel.
But it is not just the heart of the king that God influences, for he looks down “on all the
inhabitants of the earth” and “fashions the hearts of them all” (Ps. 33:14- 15). When we
realize that the heart in Scripture is the location of our inmost thoughts and desires, this
is a significant passage. God especially guides the desires and inclinations of believers,
working in us “both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13).
All of these passages, reporting both general statements about God’s work in the lives
of all people and specific examples of God’s work in the lives of individuals, lead us to con-
clude that God’s providential work of concurrence extends to all aspects of our lives. Our
words, our steps, our movements, our hearts, and our abilities are all from the Lord.
But we must guard against misunderstanding. Here also, as with the lower creation,
God s providential direction as an unseen, behind-the-scenes, “primary cause,” should
not lead us to deny the reality of our choices and actions. Again and again Scripture
affirms that we really do cause events to happen. We are significant and we are respon-
sible. We do have choices, and these are real choices that bring about real results. Scripture
repeatedly affirms these truths as well. Just as a rock is really hard because God has made
it with the property of hardness, just as water is really wet because God has made it with
the property of wetness, just as plants are really alive because God has made them with
the property of life, so our choices are real choices and do have significant effects, because
God has made us in such a wonderful way that he has endowed us with the property of
willing choice.
One approach to these passages about God’s concurrence is to say that if our choices
are real, they cannot be caused by God (see below for further discussion of this view-
point). But the number of passages that affirm this providential control of God is so
considerable, and the difficulties involved in giving them some other interpretation are
so formidable, that it does not seem to me that this can be the rig h t approach to them.
It seems better to affirm that God causes all things that happen, but that he does so in
such a way that he somehow upholds our ability to make willing, responsible choices, .
choices that have real and eternal results, and for which we are held accountable. Exactly
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
322
how God combines his providential control with our willing and significant choices,
Scripture does not explain to us. But rather than deny one aspect or the other (simply
because we cannot explain how both can be true), we should accept both in an attempt
to be faithful to the teaching of all of Scripture.
The analogy of an author writing a play may help us to grasp how both aspects can be
true. In the Shakespearean play Macbeth, the character Macbeth murders King Duncan.
Now (if we assume for a moment that this is a fictional account), we may ask, “Who killed
King Duncan?” On one level, the correct answer is “Macbeth.” Within the play, he car-
ried out the murder and he is rightly to blame for it. But on another level, a correct answer
to the question, “Who killed King Duncan?” would be “William Shakespeare caused his
death”: he wrote the play, he created all the characters in it, and he wrote the part where
Macbeth killed King Duncan.
It would not be correct to say that because Macbeth killed King Duncan, William
Shakespeare did not (somehow) cause his death. Nor would it be correct to say that
because William Shakespeare caused King Duncans death, Macbeth did not kill him.
Both are true. On the level of the characters in the play Macbeth fully (100%) caused
King Duncans death, but on the level of the creator of the play, William Shakespeare
fully (100%) caused King Duncans death. In similar fashion, we can understand that
God fully causes things in one way (as Creator), and we fully cause things in another
way (as creatures). (One word of caution however: The analogy of an author (= writer,
creator) of a play should not lead us to say that God is the “author” (= actor, doer, an
older sense of “author”) of sin, for he never does sinful actions, nor does he ever delight
in them.) 4
Of course, characters in a play are not real persons — they are fictional characters.
But God is infinitely greater and wiser than we are. While we can only create fictional
characters in a play, our almighty God has created us as real persons who make willing
choices. To say that God could not make a world in which he (somehow) causes us to
make willing choices (as some would argue today; see discussion below), is limiting the
power of God. It seems also to deny a large number of passages of Scripture.
7. What About Evil? If God does indeed cause, through his providential activity, every-
thing that comes about in the world, then the question arises, “What is the relationship
4 I. Howard Marshall, “Predestination in the New Testa-
ment” in Grace Unlimited , by Clark H. Pinnock, pp. 132-33,
139, objects to the analogy of an author and a play because
the actors “are bound by the characters assigned to them and
the lines that they have learned” so that even if the dramatist
“makes [the characters] say T love my creator’ in his drama, this
is not mutual love in the real sense.”
But Marshall limits his analysis to what is possible with
human beings acting on a human level. He does not give
consideration to the possibility (in fact, the reality!) that
God is able to do far more than human beings are able to do,
and that he can wonderfully create genuine human beings
rather than mere characters in a play. A better approach to
the analogy of an author and a play would be if Marshall
would apply to this question a very helpful statement that
he made in another part of the essay: “The basic difficulty
is that of attempting to explain the nature of the relation-
ship between an infinite God and finite creatures. Our temp-
tation is to think of divine causation in much the same way
as human causation, and this produces difficulties as soon
as we try to relate divine causation and human freedom. It
is beyond our ability to explain how God can cause us to do
certain things (or to cause the universe to come into being
and to behave as it does)” (pp. 137-38). I can agree fully with
everything in Marshalls statement at that point, and find
that to be a very helpful way of approaching this problem.
CHAPTER 16 • GOD’S PROVIDENCE
between God and evil in the world?” Does God actually cause the evil actions that people
do? If he does, then is God not responsible for sin?
In approaching this question, it is best first to read the passages of Scripture that most
directly address it. We can begin by looking at several passages that affirm that God did,
indeed, cause evil events to come about and evil deeds to be done. But we must remem-
ber that in all these passages it is very clear that Scripture nowhere shows God as directly
doing anything evil, but rather as bringing aboutevi! deeds through the willing actions
of moral creatures. Moreover, Scripture never blames God for evil or shows God as taking
pleasure in evil, and Scripture never excuses human beings for the wrong they do. How-
ever we understand God’s relationship to evil, we must never come to the point where we
think that we are not responsible for the evil that we do, or that God takes pleasure in evil
or is to be blamed for it. Such a conclusion is clearly contrary to Scripture.
There are literally dozens of Scripture passages that say that God (indirectly) brought
about some kind of evil. I have quoted such an extensive list (in the next few paragraphs)
because Christians often are unaware of the extent of this forthright teaching in Scrip-
ture. Yet it must be remembered that in all of these examples, the evil is actually done not
by God but by people or demons who choose to do it.
A very clear example is found in the story of Joseph. Scripture clearly says that Joseph’s
brothers were wrongly jealous of him (Gen. 37:11), hated him (Gen. 37:4, 5, 8), wanted to
kill him (Gen. 37:20), and did wrong when they cast him into a pit (Gen. 37:24) and then
sold him into slavery in Egypt (Gen. 37:28). Yet later Joseph could say to his brothers,
God sent me before you to preserve life” (Gen. 45:5), and “You meant evil against me; but
God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are
today” (Gen. 50:20). 5 Here we have a combination of evil deeds brought about by sinful
men who are rightly held accountable for their sin and the overriding providential control
of God whereby God’s own purposes were accomplished. Both are clearly affirmed.
The story of the exodus from Egypt repeatedly affirms that God hardened the heart of
Pharaoh: God says, “I will harden his heart” (Ex. 4:21), “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart”
(Ex. 7:3), “the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh” (Ex. 9:12), “the Lord hardened
Pharaoh’s heart” (Ex. 10:20, repeated in 10:27 and again in 11:10), “I will harden
Pharaoh s heart (Ex. 14:4), and “the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt”
(Ex. 14:8). It is sometimes objected that Scripture also says that Pharaoh hardened his
own heart (Ex. 8:15, 32; 9:34), and that God’s act of hardening Pharaoh’s heart was only
in response to the initial rebellion and hardness of heart that Pharaoh himself exhibited
of his own free will. But it should be noted that God’s promises that he would harden
Pharaoh’s heart (Ex. 4:21; 7:3) are made long before Scripture tells us that Pharaoh
hardened his own heart (we read of this for the first time in Ex. 8:15). Moreover, our
analysis of concurrence given above, in which both divine and human agents can cause
the same event, should show us that both factors can be true at the same time: even
when Pharaoh hardens his own heart, that is not inconsistent with saying that God is
causing Pharaoh to do this and thereby God is hardening the heart of Pharaoh. Finally, if
5 Ps. 105:17 says that God “had sent a man ahead of them,
Joseph, who was sold as a slave.”
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
324
someone would object that God is just intensifying the evil desires and choices that were
already in Pharaoh’s heart, then this kind of action could still in theory at least cover all
the evil in the world today, since all people have evil desires in their hearts and all people
do in fact make evil choices.
What was God’s purpose in this? Paul reflects on Exodus 9:16 and says, “For the scrip-
ture says to Pharaoh, ‘I have raised you up for the very purpose of showing my power in
you, so that my name maybe proclaimed in all the earth’ ” (Rom. 9:17). Then Paul infers
a general truth from this specific example: “So then he has mercy upon whomever he
wills, and he hardens the heart of whomever he wills” (Rom. 9:18). In fact, God also
hardened the hearts of the Egyptian people so that they pursued Israel into the Red Sea:
“I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they shall go in after them, and I will
get glory over Pharaoh and all his host, his chariots, and his horsemen” (Ex. 14:17). This
theme is repeated in Psalm 105:25: “He turned their hearts to hate his people.”
Later in the Old Testament narrative similar examples are found of the Canaanites
who were destroyed in the conquest of Palestine under Joshua. We read, “For it was
the Lord’s doing to harden their hearts that they should come against Israel in battle,
in order that they should be utterly destroyed” (Josh. 11:20; see also Judg. 3:12; 9:23).
And Samson’s demand to marry an unbelieving Philistine woman “was from the Lord;
for he was seeking an occasion against the Philistines. At that time the Philistines had
dominion over Israel” (Judg. 14:4). We also read that the sons of Eli, when rebuked for
their evil deeds, “would not listen to the voice of their father; for it was the will of the
Lord to slay them” (1 Sam. 2:25). Later, “an evil spirit from the Lord” tormented King
Saul (1 Sam. 16:14).
When David sinned, the Lord said to him through Nathan the prophet, “I will raise
up evil against you out of your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes,
and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun.
For you did it secretly; but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun” (2 Sam.
12:11 - 12; fulfilled in 16:22). In further punishment for David’s sin, “the Lord struck the
child that Uriah’s wife bore to David, and it became sick” and eventually died (2 Sam.
12:15-18). David remained mindful of the fact that God could bring evil against him,
because at a later time, when Shimei cursed David and threw stones at him and his ser-
vants (2 Sam. 16:5-8), David refused to take vengeance on Shimei but said to his soldiers,
“Let him alone, and let him curse; for the Lord has bidden him” (2 Sam. 16:11).
Still later in David’s life, the Lord “incited” 6 David to take a census of the people
(2 Sam. 24:1), but afterward David recognized this as sin, saying, “I have sinned greatly
in what I have done” (2 Sam. 24:10), and God sent punishment on the land because of
this sin (2 Sam. 24:12-17). However, it is also dear that “the anger of the Lord was
kindled against Israel” (2 Sam. 24:1), so God’s inciting of David to sin was a means by
which he brought about punishment on the people of Israel. Moreover, the means by
which God incited David is made clear in 1 Chronicles 21:1: “Satan stood up against
6 The Hebrew word used when 2 Sam. 24:1 says that the Lord say that ]ezebe\ incited Ahab to do evil, in Deut. 13:6(7) to warn
incited David against Israel is stith, “to incite, allure, instigate” against a loved one enticing a family member secretly to serve
(BDB, p. 694). It is the same word used in 2 Chron. 21:1 to say other gods, and in 2 Chron. 18:31 to say that God moved the
that Satan incited David to number Israel, in 1 Kings 21:25 to Syrian army to withdraw from Jehoshaphat.
CHAPTER 16 • GOD’S PROVIDENCE
Israel, and incited David to number Israel.” In this one incident the Bible gives us a
remarkable insight into the three influences that contributed in different ways to one
action: God, in order to bring about his purposes, worked through Satan to incite David
to sin, but Scripture regards David as being responsible for that sin. Again, after Solo-
mon turned away from the Lord because of his foreign wives, “the Lord raised up an
adversary against Solomon, Hadad the Edomite” (1 Kings 11:14), and “God also raised
up as an adversary to him, Rezon the son of Eliada” (1 Kings 11:23). These were evil
kings raised up by God.
In the story of Job, though the Lord gave Satan permission to bring harm to Job’s
possessions and children, and though this harm came through the evil actions of the
Sabeans and the Chaldeans, as well as a windstorm (Job 1:12, 15, 17, 19), yet Job looks
beyond those secondary causes and, with the eyes of faith, sees it all as from the hand
of the Lord: “the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the
Lord ” (Job 1:21). The Old Testament author follows Job’s statement immediately with
the sentence, “In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong” (Job 1:22). Job has
just been told that evil marauding bands had destroyed his flocks and herds, yet with
great faith and patience in adversity, he says, “The Lord has taken away.” Though he says
that the Lord had done this, yet he does not blame God for the evil or say that God had
done wrong: he says, “Blessed be the name of the Lord.” To blame God for evil that he
had brought about through secondary agents would have been to sin. Job does not do
this, Scripture never does this, and neither should we.
Elsewhere in the Old Testament we read that the Lord “put a lying spirit in the
mouth” of Ahab’s prophets (1 Kings 22:23) and sent the wicked Assyrians as “the rod
of my anger” to punish Israel (Isa. 10:5). He also sent the evil Babylonians, includ-
ing Nebuchadnezzar, against Israel, saying, “I will bring them against this land and its
inhabitants” (Jer. 25:9). Then God promised that later he would punish the Babylonians
also: “I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for
their iniquity, says the Lord, making the land an everlasting waste” (Jer. 25:12). If there
is a deceiving prophet who gives a false message, then the Lord says, “if the prophet be
deceived and speak a word, I, the Lord, have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out
my hand against him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel” (Ezek.
14:9, in the context of bringing judgment on Israel for their idolatry). As the culmina-
tion of a series of rhetorical questions to which the implied answer is always “no,” Amos
asks, “Is a trumpet blown in a city, and the people are not afraid? Does evil befall a city,
unless the Lord has done it?” (Amos 3:6). There follows a series of natural disasters in
Amos 4:6-12, where the Lord reminds the people that he gave them hunger, drought,
blight and mildew, locusts, pestilence, and death of men and horses, “yet you did not
return to me” (Amos 4:6, 8, 9, 10, 11).
In many of the passages mentioned above, God brings evil and destruction on people
in judgment upon their sins: They have been disobedient or have strayed into idolatry,
and then the Lord uses evil human beings or demonic forces or “natural” disasters
to bring judgment on them. (This is not always said to be the case — Joseph and Job
come to mind — but it is often so.) Perhaps this idea of judgment on sin can help us
to understand, at least in part, how God can righteously bring about evil events. All
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
326
human beings are sinful, for Scripture tells us that “all have sinned and fall short of
the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). None of us deserves God’s favor or his mercy, but only
eternal condemnation. Therefore, when God brings evil on human beings, whether
to discipline his children, or to lead unbelievers to repentance, or to bring a judgment
of condemnation and destruction upon hardened sinners, none of us can charge God
with doing wrong. Ultimately all will work in Gods good purposes to bring glory to
him and good to his people. Yet we must realize that in punishing evil in those who
are not redeemed (such as Pharaoh, the Canaanites, and the Babylonians), God is also
glorified through the demonstration of his justice, holiness, and power (see Ex. 9:16;
Rom. 9:14-24).
Through the prophet Isaiah God says, “I form the light, and create darkness: I make
peace, and create evil: 7 I the Lord do all these things” (Isa. 45:7 KJV; the Hebrew
word for “create” here is bara, the same word used in Gen. 1:1). In Lamentations 3:38
we read, “Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and evil come?” 8 The
people of Israel, in a time of heartfelt repentance, cry out to God and say, “O Lord,
why do you make us err from your ways and harden our heart, so that we fear you
not?” (Isa. 63: 17). 9
The life of Jonah is a remarkable illustration of God’s concurrence in human activ-
ity. The men on board the ship sailing to Tarshish threw Jonah overboard, for Scripture
says, “So they took up Jonah and threw him into the sea; and the sea ceased from its
raging” (Jonah 1:15). Yet only five verses later Jonah acknowledges God’s providential
direction in their act, for he says to God, “ You cast me into the deep, into the heart of the
seas” (Jonah 2:3). Scripture simultaneously affirms that the men threw Jonah into the
sea and that God threw him into the sea. The providential direction of God did not force
the sailors to do something against their will, nor were they conscious of any divine
influence on them — indeed, they cried to the Lord for forgiveness as they threw Jonah
overboard (Jonah 1:14). What Scripture reveals to us, and what Jonah himself realized,
was that God was bringing about his plan through the willing choices of real human
beings who were morally accountable for their actions. In a way not understood by us
and not revealed to us, God caused them to make a willing choice to do what they did.
The most evil deed of all history, the crucifixion of Christ, was ordained by God — not
just the fact that it would occur, but also all the individual actions connected with it. The
church at Jerusalem recognized this, for they prayed:
7 Other translations render the Hebrew word rd\ “evil,” as
“disaster” (NIV) or “woe” (RSV) or “calamity” (NASB), and
indeed the word can be used to apply to natural disasters such
as these words imply. But it may have broader application than
natural disasters, for the word is an extremely common word
used of evil generally: It is used of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil (Gen. 2:9), of the evil among mankind that
brought the judgment of the flood (Gen. 6:5), and of the evil
of the men of Sodom (Gen. 13:13). It is used to say, “Depart
from evil and do good” (Ps. 34:14), and to speak of the wrong
of those who call evil good and good evil (Isa. 5:20), and of the
sin of those whose “feet run to evil” (Isa. 59:7; see also 47:10, 11;
56:2; 57:1; 59:15; 65:12; 66:4). Dozens of other times through-
out the Old Testament it refers to moral evil or sin. The contrast
with “peace” ( shalom ) in the same phrase in Isa. 45:7 might
argue that only “calamity” is in view, but not necessarily so,
for moral evil and wickedness is certainly also the opposite of
the wholeness of God’s “shalom” or peace. (In Amos 3:6, ra
* ah is a different but related word and has a similar range of
meanings.) But Isa. 45:7 does not say that God does evil (see
discussion below).
8 The Hebrew for “evil” here is ra ‘ ah , as in Amos 3:6.
9 Another kind of evil is physical infirmity. With regard to
this, the Lord says to Moses, “Who has made man’s mouth?
Who makes him dumb, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I,
the LORD?” (Ex. 4:11).
CHAPTER 16 • GOD'S PROVIDENCE
For truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant
Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles
and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predes-
tined to take place, (Acts 4:27)
All the actions of all the participants in the crucifixion of Jesus had been “predestined”
by God. Yet the apostles clearly attach no moral blame to God, for the actions resulted
from the willing choices of sinful men. Peter makes this clear in his sermon at Pente-
cost: “this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God,
you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men ” (Acts 2:23). In one sentence he
links God’s plan and foreknowledge with the moral blame that attaches to the actions
of “lawless men.” They were not forced by God to act against their wills; rather, God
brought about his plan through their willing choices , for which they were nevertheless
responsible.
In an example similar to the Old Testament account of God sending a lying spirit into
the mouth of Ahab’s prophets, we read of those who refuse to love the truth, “Therefore
God sends upon them a strong delusion, to make them believe what is false, so that all
may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness”
(2 Thess. 2:11 — 12). And Peter tells his readers that those who oppose them and perse-
cute them, who reject Christ as Messiah, “stumble because they disobey the word, as
they were destined to do” (1 Peter 2:8). 10
8. Analysis of Verses Relating to God and Evil. After looking at so many verses that
speak of God’s providential use of the evil actions of men and demons, what can we say
by way of analysis?
a. God Uses All Things to Fulfill His Purposes and Even Uses Evil for His Glory and
for Our Good: Thus, when evil comes into our lives to trouble us, we can have from the
doctrine of providence a deeper assurance that “God causes all things to work together
for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose” (Rom.
8:28 NASB). This kind of conviction enabled Joseph to say to his brothers, “You meant
evil against me; but God meant it for good” (Gen. 50:20).
We can also realize that God is glorified even in the punishment of evil. Scripture
tells us that “the Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day
of trouble” (Prov. 16:4). n Similarly, the psalmist affirms, “Surely the wrath of men shall
praise you” (Ps. 76:10). And the example of Pharaoh (Rom. 9:14-24) is a clear example
of the way God uses evil for his own glory and for the good of his people.
10 The “destining” in this verse is best taken to refer to both
the stumbling and the disobedience. It is incorrect to say that
God only destined the fact that those who disobey would stum-
ble, because it is not a fact but persons (“they”) who are said to
be “destined” in this case. (See discussion in Wayne Grudem,
The First Epistle of Peter, TNTC [Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press,
and Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988], pp. 106-10.)
n David J. A. Clines, “Predestination in the Old Testament,”
p. 116, retranslates this, “The Lord has made everything with
its counterpart, so the wicked will have his day of doom.” He
does this in order to avoid the conclusion that the Lord has
made some wicked people for the day of evil. But his transla-
tion is not convincing. The Hebrew word translated “purpose”
in the RSV ( ma ‘ aneh ) occurs only eight times in the Old Tes-
tament and usually refers to an “answer” to a question or a
statement. So it means something like “appropriate response”
or “corresponding purpose.” But the preposition le is much
more accurately translated “for” (not “with”), so in either
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
328
b. Nevertheless, God Never Does Evil, and Is Never to Be Blamed for Evil: In a statement
similar to those cited above from Acts 2:23 and 4:27-28, Jesus also combines Gods pre-
destination of the crucifixion with moral blame on those who carry it out: “For the Son of
man goes as it has been determined; but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed!” (Luke
22:22 ; cf. Matt. 26:24; Mark 14:21) . And in a more general statement about evil in the world,
Jesus says, “Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations
come, but woe to the man by whom the temptation comes!” (Matt. 18:7).
James speaks similarly in warning us not to blame God for the evil we do when he
says, “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am tempted by God’; for God cannot be
tempted with evil and he himself tempts no one; but each person is tempted when he is
lured and enticed by his own desire” (James 1:13-14). The verse does not say that God
never causes evil; it affirms that we should never think of him as the personal agent who
is tempting us or who is to be held accountable for the temptation. We can never blame
God for temptation or think that he will approve of us if we give in to it. We are to resist
evil and always blame ourselves or others who tempt us, but we must never blame God.
Even a verse such as Isaiah 45:7, which speaks of God “creating evil,” does not say that
God himself does evil, but should be understood to mean that God ordained that evil
would come about through the willing choices of his creatures.
These verses all make it clear that “secondary causes” (human beings, and angels
and demons) are real, and that human beings do cause evil and are responsible for it.
Though God ordained that it would come about, both in general terms and in specific
details, yet God is removed from actually doing evil , and his bringing it about through
“secondary causes” does not impugn his holiness or render him blameworthy. John
Calvin wisely says:
Thieves and murderers and other evildoers are the instruments of divine
providence, and the Lord himself uses these to carry out the judgments that
he has determined with himself. Yet I deny that they can derive from this any
excuse for their evil deeds. Why? Will they either involve God in the same iniq-
uity with themselves, or will they cloak their own depravity with his justice?
They can do neither. 12
A little later, Calvin heads a chapter, “God So Uses the Works of the Ungodly, and So
Bends Their Minds to Carry Out His Judgments, That He Remains Pure From Every
Stain.” 13
We should notice that the alternatives to saying that God uses evil for his purposes ,
but that he never does evil and is not to be blamed for it, are not desirable ones. If we were
to say that God himself does evil, we would have to conclude that he is not a good and
righteous God, and therefore that he is not really God at all. On the other hand, if we
maintain that God does not use evil to fulfill his purposes, then we would have to admit
case the sentence affirms that the Lord has made everything for
its appropriate purpose or the response appropriate to it. There-
fore, whether we translate “purpose” or “counterpart,” the verse
affirms that even the wicked have been made by the Lord “for
[Heb. le] the day of evil ”
12 John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion , Library
of Christian Classics, ed. by John T. McNeill and trans. by
F. L. Battles, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960), 1:217
(1.16.5).
13 John Calvin, Institutes, 1:228 (1.18.title).
CHAPTER 16 • GOD'S PROVIDENCE
that there is evil in the universe that God did not intend, is not under his control, and
might not fulfill his purposes. This would make it very difficult for us to affirm that
“all things” work together for good for those who love God and are called according to
his purpose (Rom. 8:28). If evil came into the world in spite of the fact that God did not
intend it and did not want it to be there, then what guarantee do we have that there will
not be more and more evil that he does not intend and that he does not want? And what
guarantee do we have that he will be able to use it for his purposes, or even that he can
triumph over it? Surely this is an undesirable alternative position.
c. God Rightfully Blames and Judges Moral Creatures for the Evil They Do: Many
passages in Scripture affirm this. One is found in Isaiah: “These have chosen their
own ways, and their soul delights in their abominations; I also will choose afflic-
tion for them, and bring their fears upon them; because, when I called, no one
answered, when I spoke they did not listen; but they did what was evil in my eyes,
and chose that in which I did not delight” (Isa. 66:3-4). Similarly, we read, “God
made man upright, but they have sought out many devices” (Eccl. 7:29). The blame
for evil is always on the responsible creature, whether man or demon, who does it,
and the creature who does evil is always worthy of punishment. Scripture consistently
affirms that God is righteous and just to punish us for our sins. And if we object
that he should not find fault with us because we cannot resist his will, then we must
ponder the apostle Paul’s own response to that question: “You will say to me then, ‘Why
does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?’ But who are you, a man, to answer
back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, ‘Why have you made me thus?”’
(Rom. 9:19-20). In every case where we do evil, we know that we willingly choose to do
it, and we realize that we are rightly to be blamed for it.
d. Evil Is Real, Not an Illusion, and We Should Never Do Evil, for It Will Always Harm
Us and Others: Scripture consistently teaches that we never have a right to do evil,
and that we should persistently oppose it in ourselves and in the world. We are to pray,
Deliver us from evil” (Matt. 6:13), and if we see anyone wandering from the truth and
doing wrong, we should attempt to bring him back. Scripture says, “If any one among
you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever
brings back a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and will
cover a multitude of sins” (James 5:19—20). We should never even will evil to be done,
for entertaining sinful desires in our minds is to allow them to “wage war” against our
souls (1 Peter 2:11) and thereby to do us spiritual harm. If we are ever tempted to say,
“Why not do evil that good may come? ” as some people were slanderously charging Paul
with teaching, we should remember what Paul says about people who teach that false
doctrine: “Their condemnation is just” (Rom. 3:8).
In thinking about God using evil to fulfill his purposes, we should remember that
there are things that are right for God to do but wrong for us to do: He requires others
to worship him, and he accepts worship from them. He seeks glory for himself. He will
execute final judgment on wrongdoers. He also uses evil to bring about good purposes,
but he does not allow us to do so. Calvin quotes a statement of Augustine with approval:
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
330
“There is a great difference between what is fitting for man to will and what is fitting for
God. . . . For through the bad wills of evil men God fulfills what he righteously wills.” 14
And Herman Bavinck uses the analogy of a parent who will himself use a very sharp
knife but will not allow his child to use it, to show that God himself uses evil to bring
about good purposes but never allows his children to do so. Though we are to imitate
God’s moral character in many ways (cf. Eph. 5:1), this is one of the ways in which we
are not to imitate him.
e. In Spite of All of the Foregoing Statements, We Have to Come to the Point Where
We Confess That We Do Not Understand How It Is That God Can Ordain That We
Carry Out Evil Deeds and Yet Hold Us Accountable for Them and Not be Blamed
Himself: We can affirm that all of these things are true, because Scripture teaches them.
But Scripture does not tell us exactly how God brings this situation about or how it can
be that God holds us accountable for what he ordains to come to pass. Here Scripture is
silent, and we have to agree with Berkhof that ultimately “the problem of God’s relation
to sin remains a mystery.” 15
9. Are We “Free”? Do We Have “Free Will”? If God exercises providential control over
all events are we in any sense free? The answer depends on what is meant by the word
free. In some senses of the word free , everyone agrees that we are free in our will and
in our choices. Even prominent theologians in the Reformed or Calvinistic tradition
concur. Both Louis Berkhof in his Systematic Theology (pp. 103, 173) and John Calvin
in his Institutes of the Christian Religion 16 are willing to speak in some sense of the “free”
acts and choices of man. However, Calvin explains that the term is so subject to mis-
understanding that he himself tries to avoid using it. This is because “free will is not
sufficient to enable man to do good works, unless he be helped by grace.” 17 Therefore,
Calvin concludes:
Man will then be spoken of as having this sort of free decision, not because he
has free choice equally of good and evil, but because he acts wickedly by will,
not by compulsion. Well put, indeed, but what purpose is served by labeling
with a proud name such a slight thing?
Calvin continues by explaining how this term is easily misunderstood:
But how few men are there, I ask, who when they hear free will attributed to
man do not immediately conceive him to be master of both his own mind and
14 John Calvin, Institutes, 1:234 (1.18.3).
15 Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology , p. 175.
16 Institutes, 1:296 (2.3.5), quoting St. Bernard with
approval: “Among all living beings man alone is free For
what is voluntary is also free.” Later in the same passage he
quotes St. Bernard with approval again, where he admits that
the will is in bondage to sin and therefore sins of necessity, but
then says that “this necessity is as it were voluntary. . . . Thus
the soul ... is at the same time enslaved and free: enslaved
because of necessity; free because of will.” A little later Cal-
vin himself says that “man, while he sins of necessity, yet sins
no less voluntarily” (1:309 [2.4.1]). Calvin clearly says that
Adam, before there was sin in the world, “by free will had the
power, if he so willed, to attain eternal life. . . . Adam could
have stood if he wished, seeing that he fell solely by his own
will His choice of good and evil was free” (1:195 [1.15.8]).
So Calvin can use the term free will if it means “voluntary,
willing,” and he can use it of Adam before the fall. Yet he care-
fully avoids applying the term free will to sinful human beings
if by it people mean “able to do good in one’s own strength”
(see text above).
17 Institutes , 1:262 (2.2.6).
CHAPTER 16 • GOD'S PROVIDENCE
will, able of his own power to turn himself toward either good or evil If
anyone, then, can use this word without understanding it in a bad sense, I shall
not trouble him on this account . . . Fd prefer not to use it myself, and I should
like others, if they seek my advice, to avoid it. 18
Thus, when we ask whether we have “free will,” it is important to be clear as to what
is meant by the phrase. Scripture nowhere says that we are “free” in the sense of being
outside of Gods control 19 or of being able to make decisions that are not caused by
anything. (This is the sense in which many people seem to assume we must be free; see
discussion below.) Nor does it say we are “free” in the sense of being able to do right
on our own apart from God’s power. But we are nonetheless free in the greatest sense
that any creature of God could be free— we make willing choices, choices that have real
effects. 20 We are aware of no restraints on our will from God when we make decisions. 21
We must insist that we have the power of willing choice; otherwise we will fall into the
error of fatalism or determinism and thus conclude that our choices do not matter, or
that we cannot really make willing choices. On the other hand, the kind of freedom that
is demanded by those who deny Gods providential control of all things, a freedom to be
outside of God s sustaining and controlling activity, would be impossible if Jesus Christ
is indeed “continually carrying along things by his word of power” (Heb. 1:3, author’s
translation) . If this is true, then to be outside of that providential control would simply
be not to exist! An absolute freedom, totally free of God’s control, is simply not pos-
sible in a world providentially sustained and directed by God himself.
C. Government
1. Scriptural Evidence. We have discussed the first two aspects of providence, (1) pres-
ervation and (2) concurrence. This third aspect of God’s providence indicates that God
has a purpose in all that he does in the world and he providentially governs or directs all
things in order that they accomplish his purposes. We read in the Psalms, “His kingdom
rules over all (Ps. 103:19). Moreover, “he does according to his will in the host of
heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to
him, What are you doing? (Dan. 4:35). Paul affirms that “from him and through him
and to him are all things (Rom. 11:36), and that “God has put all things in subjection
under his feet (1 Cor. 15:27). God is the one who “accomplishes all things according to
the counsel of his will (Eph. 1:11), so that ultimately “at the name of Jesus” every knee
will bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:10- 11). It is because Paul
18 Ibid., 1:264, 266 (2.2.7— 8).
19 In fact, our ability to make willing choices at all is simply
a created reflection of God’s will and his ability to make willing
choices. However, if we were to be totally free in our choices, we
would be equal to God in our will, and that is something we
may never expect either in this life or in the one to come.
20 Arminian theologians dissent from this understanding
of free will and argue for a freedom that means our decisions
are not caused by anything outside ourselves (see discussion of
Jack Cottrell’s objection that freedom must mean more than
willing choices on pp. 340-47, below).
21 John Feinberg says, “If the act is according to the agent’s
desires , then even though the act is causally determined, it is
free and the agent is morally responsible” (“God Ordains All
Things,” in Predestination and Free Will: Four Views of Divine
Sovereignty and Human Freedom , ed. by David Basinger and
Randall Basinger [Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press,
1986], p. 37).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
332
knows that God is sovereign over all and works his purposes in every event that happens
that he can declare that “God causes all things to work together for good to those who
love God, to those who are called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28 NASB).
2, Distinctions Concerning the Will of God. Though in God his will is unified, and not
divided or contradictory, we cannot begin to understand the depths of God’s will, and
only in a small part is it revealed to us. For this reason, as we saw in chapter 13, 22 two
aspects of God’s will appear to us. On the one hand, there is God’s moral will (sometimes
called his “revealed” will). This includes the moral standards of Scripture, such as the
Ten Commandments and the moral commands of the New Testament. God’s moral
commands are given as descriptions of how we should conduct ourselves if we would act
rightly before him. On the other hand, another aspect of God’s will is his providential
government of all things (sometimes called his “secret will”). This includes all the events
of history that God has ordained to come about, for example, the fact that Christ would
be crucified by “lawless men” (Acts 2:23). It also includes all the other evil acts that were
mentioned in the preceding section.
Some have objected to this distinction between two aspects of the will of God, argu-
ing that it means there is a “self-contradiction” in God. 23 However, even in the realm of
human experience, we know that we can will and carry out something that is painful
and that we do not desire (such as punishing a disobedient child or getting an inocula-
tion that temporarily makes us ill) in order to bring about a long-term result that we
desire more than the avoidance of short-term pain (to bring about the obedience of the
child, for example, or to prevent us from getting a more serious illness). And God is
infinitely greater and wiser than we are. Certainly it is possible for him to will that his
creatures do something that in the short term displeases him in order that in the long
term he would receive the greater glory. To say that this is a “self-contradiction” in God
is to fail to understand the distinctions that have been made so that this explanation is
not contradictory. 24
D. The Decrees of God
The decrees of God are the eternal plans of God whereby, before the creation of the
world, he determined to bring about everything that happens . This doctrine is similar to
the doctrine of providence, but here we are thinking about God’s decisions before the
world was created, rather than his providential actions in time. His providential actions
are the outworking of the eternal decrees that he made long ago. (See chapter 2, pp.
47-48, for “decree” used in a somewhat different sense.)
22 See pp. 213- 16 for a further discussion of God’s secret and
revealed will.
23 This is the objection of I. Howard Marshall, “Predestina-
tion in the New Testament,” p. 173.
24 John Calvin says of those who object to two senses of the
will of God, “Let them tell me, I pray, whether he exercises his
judgments willingly or unwillingly. . . . When we do not grasp
how God wills to take place what he forbids to be done, let us
recall our mental incapacity ” He also quotes with approval the
statement of Augustine: “There is a great difference between
what is fitting for man to will and what is fitting for God . . .
for through the bad wills of evil men God fulfills what he
righteously wills” ( Institutes , 1:233-34 [1.18.3]).
CHAPTER 16 • GOD’S PROVIDENCE
David confesses, “in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were
formed for me, when as yet there was none of them” (Ps. 139:16; cf. Job 14:5: the days,
months, and bounds of man are determined by God). There was also a “definite plan
and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23) by which Jesus was put to death, and the actions
of those who condemned and crucified him were “predestined” (Acts 4:28) by God.
Our salvation was determined long ago because God “chose us in him (Christ) before
the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him” (Eph. 1:4).
Our good works as believers are those “which God prepared beforehand, that we should
walk in them” (Eph. 2:10; cf. Jude 4).
These examples take in many diverse aspects of human activity. It seems appropri-
ate to conclude from these examples that all that God does he has planned before the
creation of the world — in fact, these things have been an eternal plan with him. The
benefit of an emphasis on God’s decrees is that it helps us to realize that God does not
make up plans suddenly as he goes along. He knows the end from the beginning, and
he will accomplish all his good purposes. This should greatly increase our trust in him,
especially in difficult circumstances.
E. The Importance of Our Human Actions
We may sometimes forget that God works through human actions in his providential
management of the world. If we do, then we begin to think that our actions and our
choices do not make much difference or do not have much effect on the course of events.
To guard against any misunderstanding of God’s providence we make the following
points of emphasis.
1. We Are Still Responsible for Our Actions. God has made us responsible for our
actions, which have real and eternally significant results. In all his providential acts God
will preserve these characteristics of responsibility and significance.
Some analogies from the natural world might help us understand this. God has cre-
ated a rock with the characteristic of being hard, and so it is. God has created water
with the characteristic of being wet, and so it is. God has created plants and animals
with the characteristic of being alive, and so they are. Similarly, God has created
us with the characteristic of being responsible for our actions, and so we are! If we do right
and obey God, he will reward us and things will go well with us both in this age and in
eternity. If we do wrong and disobey God, he will discipline and perhaps punish us, and
things will go ill with us. The realization of these facts will help us have pastoral wisdom
in talking to others and in encouraging them to avoid laziness and disobedience.
The fact that we are responsible for our actions means that we should never begin to
think, God made me do evil, and therefore I am not responsible for it.” Significantly,
Adam began to make excuses for the very first sin in terms that sounded suspiciously
like this: The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and
I ate (Gen. 3:12). Unlike Adam, Scripture never blames God for sin. If we ever begin
to think that God is to blame for sin, we have thought wrongly about God’s providence,
for it is always the creature, not God who is to be blamed. Now we may object that it is
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
334
not right for God to hold us responsible if he has in fact ordained all things that happen,
but Paul corrects us: “You will say to me then, ‘Why does he still find fault? For who can
resist his will?’ But who are you, a man, to answer back to God?” (Rom. 9:19-20). We
must realize and settle in our hearts that it is right for God to rebuke and discipline and
punish evil. And, when we are responsible to do so, it is right for us to rebuke and disci-
pline evil in our families, in the church, and even, in some ways, in the society around
us. We should never say about an evil event, “God willed it and therefore it is good,”
because we must recognize that some things that God’s will of decree has planned are
not in themselves good, and should not receive our approval, just as they do not receive
God’s approval.
2. Our Actions Have Real Results and Do Change the Course of Events. In the ordinary
working of the world, if I neglect to take care of my health and have poor eating habits,
or if I abuse my body through alcohol or tobacco, I am likely to die sooner. God has
ordained that our actions do have effects. God has ordained that events will come about
by our causing them. Of course, we do not know what God has planned even for the rest
of this day, to say nothing of next week or next year. But we do know that if we trust God
and obey him, we will discover that he has planned good things to come about through
that obedience! We cannot simply disregard others whom we meet, for God brings many
people across our paths and gives us the responsibility to act toward them in eternally
significant ways — whether for good or ill.
Calvin wisely notes that to encourage us to use ordinary caution in life and to plan
ahead, “God is pleased to hide all future events from us, in order that we should resist
them as doubtful, and not cease to oppose them with ready remedies, until they are
either overcome or pass beyond all care. . . . God’s providence does not always meet us
in its naked form, but God in a sense clothes it with the means employed.” 25
By contrast, if we anticipate that some dangers or evil events may come in the future,
and if we do not use reasonable means to avoid them, then we may in fact discover that
our lack of action was the means that God used to allow them to come about!
3. Prayer Is One Specific Kind of Action That Has Definite Results and That Does
Change the Course of Events. God has also ordained that prayer is a very significant
means of bringing about results in the world. 26 When we earnestly intercede for a spe-
cific person or situation, we will often find that God had ordained that our prayer would
be a means he would use to bring about the changes in the world. Scripture reminds us of
this when it tells us, “You do not have, because you do not ask” (James 4:2). Jesus says,
“Hitherto you have asked nothing in my name; ask, and you will receive, that your joy
maybe full” (John 16:24).
4. In Conclusion, We Must Act! The doctrine of providence in no way encourages us to
sit back in idleness to await the outcome of certain events. Of course, God may impress
on us the need to wait on him before we act and to trust in him rather than in our
25 John Calvin, Institutes, 1:216 (1.17.4).
26 See chapter 18 for a more extensive discussion of prayer.
CHAPTER 16 • GOD’S PROVIDENCE
own abilities — that is certainly not wrong. But simply to say that we are trusting in
God instead of acting responsibly is sheer laziness and is a distortion of the doctrine of
providence.
In practical terms, if one of my sons has school work that must be done the next day,
I am right to make him complete that work before he can go out to play. I realize that
his grade is in God s hands, and that God has long ago determined what it would be, but
I do not know what it will be, and neither does he. What I do know is that if he studies
and does his school work faithfully, he will receive a good grade. If he doesn’t, he will
not. So Calvin can say:
Now it is very clear what our duty is: Thus, if the Lord has committed to us
the protection of our life, our duty is to protect it; if he offers helps to us, to
use them; if he forewarns us of dangers, not to plunge headlong; if he makes
remedies available, not to neglect them. But no danger will hurt us, say they,
unless it is fatal, and in this case it is beyond remedies. But what if the dangers
are not fatal, because the Lord has provided you with remedies for repulsing
and overcoming them? 27
One good example of vigorous activity combined with trust in God is found in 2
Samuel 10:12, where Joab says, “Be strong and let us show ourselves courageous for the
sake of our people and for the cities of our God,” but then adds immediately in the same
sentence, “and may the Lord do what is good in His sight” (NASB). Joab will both fight
and trust God to do what he thinks to be good.
Similar examples are found in the New Testament. When Paul was in Corinth, in
order to keep him from being discouraged about the opposition he had received from
the Jews, the Lord appeared to him one night in a vision and said to him, “Do not be
afraid, but speak and do not be silent; for I am with you, and no man shall attack you to
harm you; for I have many people in this city” (Acts 18:9- 10). If Paul had been a fatalist
with an improper understanding of God’s providence, he would have listened to God’s
words, I have many people in this city, and concluded that God had determined to save
many of the Corinthians, and that therefore it did not matter whether Paul stayed there
or not: God had already chosen many people to be saved! Paul would have thought that
he may as well pack his bags and leave! But Paul does not make that mistake. He rather
concludes that if God has chosen many people, then it will probably be through the
means of Paul s preaching the gospel that those many people would be saved. Therefore
Paul makes a wise decision: And he stayed a year and six months, teaching the word of
God among them” (Acts 18:11).
Paul put this kind of responsible action in the light of God’s providence into a single
sentence in 2 Timothy 2:10, where he said, “I endure everything for the sake of the elect,
that they also may obtain salvation in Christ Jesus with its eternal glory.” He did not
argue from the fact that God had chosen some to be saved that nothing had to be done;
rather, he concluded that much had to be done in order that God’s purposes might come
about by the means that God had also established. Indeed, Paul was willing to endure
335
27 John Calvin, Institutes, 1:216 (1.17.4).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
336
“everything,” including all kinds of hardship and suffering, that Gods eternal plans
might come about. A hearty belief in Gods providence is not a discouragement but a
spur to action.
A related example is found in the story of Paul’s journey to Rome. God had clearly
revealed to Paul that no one on the ship would die from the long storm they had endured.
Indeed, Paul stood before the passengers and crew and told them to take heart,
for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship. For this very
night there stood by me an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I wor-
ship, and he said, “Do not be afraid, Paul; you must stand before Caesar; and
lo, God has granted you all those who sail with you.” So take heart, men, for I
have faith in God that it will be exactly as I have been told. But we shall have to
run on some island. (Acts 27:22-26)
But shortly after Paul had said this, he noticed that the sailors on board the ship were
secretly trying to lower a lifeboat into the sea, “seeking to escape from the ship” (Acts
27:30). They were planning to leave the others helpless with no one who knew how to sail
the ship. When Paul saw this, he did not adopt an erroneous, fatalistic attitude, think-
ing that God would miraculously get the ship to shore. Rather, he immediately went to
the centurion who was in charge of the sailors and “Paul said to the centurion and the
soldiers, ‘ Unless these men stay in the ship, you cannot be saved’ ” (Acts 27:31). Wisely,
Paul knew that God’s providential oversight and even his clear prediction of what would
happen still involved the use of ordinary human means to bring it about. He was even so
bold to say that those means were necessary: “Unless these men stay in the ship, you can-
not be saved ” (Acts 27:31). We would do well to imitate his example, combining complete
trust in God’s providence with a realization that the use of ordinary means is necessary
for things to come out the way God has planned them to come out.
5. What If We Cannot Understand This Doctrine Fully? Every believer who meditates
on God’s providence will sooner or later come to a point where he or she will have to say,
“I cannot understand this doctrine fully.” In some ways that must be said about every
doctrine, since our understanding is finite, and God is infinite (see chapter 1, pp. 34-35;
cf. pp. 149-51). But particularly is this so with the doctrine of providence: we should
believe it because Scripture teaches it even when we do not understand fully how it fits
in with other teachings of Scripture. Calvin has some wise advice:
Let those for whom this seems harsh consider for a little while how bearable
their squeamishness is in refusing a thing attested by clear Scriptural proofs
because it exceeds their mental capacity, and find fault that things are put forth
publicly, which if God had not judged useful for men to know, he would never
have bidden his prophets and apostles to teach. For our wisdqm ought to be
nothing else than to embrace with humble teachableness, and at least without
finding fault, whatever is taught in sacred Scripture. 28
28 Institutes , 1:237 ( 1 . 18 . 4 ).
CHAPTER 16 • GOD’S PROVIDENCE
F. Further Practical Application c
Although we have already begun to speak of the practical application of this doctrine,
three additional points should be made.
1. Do Not Be Afraid, but Trust in God. Jesus emphasizes the fact that our sovereign
Lord watches over us and cares for us as his children. He says, “Look at the birds of the
air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds
them. Are you not of more value than they? . . . Therefore do not be anxious, saying,
‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ” (Matt. 6:26,
31). If God feeds the birds and clothes the grass of the field, he will take care of us.
Similarly, Jesus says, Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will
fall to the ground without your Father’s will. . . . Fear not, therefore; you are of more
value than many sparrows” (Matt. 10:29-31).
David was able to sleep in the midst of his enemies, because he knew that God’s
providential control made him “dwell in safety,” and he could say, “In peace I will
both lie down and sleep” (Ps. 4:8). Many of the psalms encourage us to trust God
and not to fear, because the Lord keeps and protects his people — for example. Psalm
91 (“He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High . . .”) or Psalm 121 (“I lift up my
eyes to the hills . . .”). Because of our confidence in God’s providential care, we need
not fear any evil or harm, even if it does come to us — it can only come by God’s will
and ultimately for our good. Thus Peter can say that “now for a little while you may
have to suffer various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith, more precious than
gold . . . may redound to praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ”
(1 Peter 1:6-7). In all of this we need not worry about the future but trust in God’s
omnipotent care.
2. Be Thankful for All Good Things That Happen. If we genuinely believe that all
good things are caused by God, then our hearts will indeed be full when we say, “Bless
the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits” (Ps. 103:2). We will thank him
for our daily food (cf. Matt. 6:11; 1 Tim. 4:4—5); indeed, we will “give thanks in all
circumstances” (1 Thess. 5:18).
3. There Is No Such Thing as “Luck” or “Chance.” All things come to pass by God’s
wise providence. This means that we should adopt a much more “personal” under-
standing of the universe and the events in it. The universe is not governed by imper-
sonal fate or luck, but by a personal God. Nothing “just happens” — we should see
God s hand in events throughout the day, causing all things to work together for good
for those who love him.
This confidence in God’s wise providence certainly does not equal superstition, for
that is a belief in impersonal or demonic control of circumstances, or control by a capri-
cious deity concerned for meaningless ritual rather than obedience and faith. A deep-
ened appreciation for the doctrine of providence will not make us more superstitious; it
will make us trust in God more and obey him more fully.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
G. Another Evangelical View: the Arminian Position
There is a major alternative position held by many evangelicals, which for conve-
nience we shall call the “Arminian” view . 29 Among denominations in contemporary
evangelicalism, Methodists and Nazarenes tend to be thoroughly Arminian, whereas
Presbyterians and the Christian Reformed tend to be thoroughly Reformed (at least
by denominational statement of faith). Both views are found among Baptists, Episco-
palians (though the Thirty-Nine Articles have a clearly Reformed emphasis), Dispen-
sationalists, Evangelical Free Churches, Lutherans (though Martin Luther was in the
Reformed camp on this issue), the Churches of Christ, and most charismatic and Pen-
tecostal groups (though Pentecostal denominations such as the Assemblies of God have
been predominantly Arminian).
Those who hold an Arminian position maintain that in order to preserve the real
human freedom and real human choices that are necessary for genuine human person-
hood, God cannot cause or plan our voluntary choices. Therefore they conclude that
God’s providential involvement in or control of history must not include every specific
detail of every event that happens, but that God instead simply responds to human
choices and actions as they come about and does so in such a way that his purposes are
ultimately accomplished in the world.
Those who hold this position argue that God’s purposes in the world are more gen-
eral and could be accomplished through many different kinds of specific events. So
God’s purpose or plan for the world “is not a blueprint encompassing all future con-
tingencies” but “a dynamic program for the world, the outworking of which depends
in part on man .” 30 Cottrell says, “God does not have a specific, unconditional purpose
for each discrete particle, object, person, and event within the creation .” 31 Arminians
believe that God achieves his overall goal by responding to and utilizing the free choices
of human beings, whatever they may be . 32 Pinnock says that “predestination does not
29 The term Arminianism was recently chosen in the title
of a responsible series of essays representing this position: See
Clark H. Pinnock, ed., The Grace of God, The Will of Man:
A Case for Arminianism (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1989).
In the following section I quote extensively from this book
and from an earlier book edited by Pinnock, Grace Unlimited .
These two books are excellent recent defenses of the Armin-
ian position.
Jacob Arminius (1560- 1609) was a Dutch theologian who
differed with the predominant Calvinism of his day. Though
he is not personally quoted or referred to very often by Armin-
ians today, his name has become attached to a range of posi-
tions that have in common the fact that they differ from the
Calvinist position on the question of man’s free will, both
with respect to God’s providence in general (the subject of
this chapter) and with respect to predestination or election in
specific (the subject of chapter 32).
The term Arminian should be distinguished from the term
Armenian , which refers to people who live in or descend from
inhabitants of the ancient country of Armenia in western Asia
(now part of Turkey, Iran, and the CIS).
30 Clark Pinnock, “Responsible Freedom in the Flow of
Biblical History,” in Grace Unlimited , p. 18.
31 Jack Cottrell, “The Nature of the Divine Sovereignty,” in
The Grace of God, the Will of Man, p. 107. Cottrell’s essay is, in
my view, the most comprehensive and persuasive of the many
excellent Arminian essays in this book — the book as a whole
is responsibly done and is probably the best recent represen-
tation of Arminian thinking. Cottrell does not deny divine
omniscience regarding future events as do the essays by Clark
Pinnock and Richard Rice in the same volume, and this places
him closer to the intuitive Arminianism that seems right to
many evangelical laypersons today.
32 I. Howard Marshall claims this at several points in
“Predestination in the New Testament,” Grace Unlimited,
pp. 127-43. Marshall uses the analogy of a jazz band where
individual players can improvise freely but the overall goal
and unity of the piece are preserved nonetheless (p. 133). Thus,
“the Bible has the picture of a God deciding fresh measures in
history and interacting with the wills of men alongside the
picture of a God planning things in eternity past, and both
pictures are equally valid” (Marshall, p. 141).
CHAPTER 16 • GOD'S PROVIDENCE
apply to every individual activity, but is rather the comprehensive purpose of God which
is the structural context in which history moves.” 33
Moreover, advocates of the Arminian position maintain that Gods will cannot include
evil. Pinnock says, “The fall of man is an eloquent refutation to the theory that God’s will
is always done.” 34 He states that it “is not the case” that God’s will “is also accomplished
in the lostness of the lost.” 35 And I. Howard Marshall quite clearly affirms, “It is not true
that everything that happens is what God desires.” 36 These statements make it clear that
the differences between the Reformed and Arminian positions are not merely differ-
ences in terminology: there is a real disagreement in substance. Several arguments are
advanced in defense of the Arminian position. I have attempted to summarize them in
the four major points that follow.
1. The Verses Cited as Examples of God’s Providential Control Are Exceptions and Do
Not Describe the Way That God Ordinarily Works in Human Activity. In surveying the
Old Testament passages referring to God’s providential involvement in the world, David
J. A. Clines says that God’s predictions and statements of his purposes refer to limited
or specific events:
Almost all of the specific references to God’s plans have in view a particular
event or a limited series of events, for example, “his purposes against the land
of the Chaldeans” (Jer. 50:45). Furthermore, it is not a matter of a single divine
plan; various passages speak of various intentions, and some references are in
fact to God’s plans in the plural. . . . [The passages are] an assertion that within
history God is working his purposes out. 37
Jack Cottrell agrees that in some cases God intervenes in the world in an uncommon
way, using “subtle manipulation of such [natural] laws and of mental states.” But he calls
these unusual events “special providence,” and says, “It is natural that the Old Testament
teems with accounts of special providence. But we have no reason to assume that God was
working in Australia and South America in such ways at the same time.” 38
2. The Calvinist View Wrongly Makes God Responsible for Sin. Those who hold an
Arminian position ask, “How can God be holy if he decrees that we sin?” They affirm that
God is not the “author of sin,” that “God cannot be tempted with evil and he himself tempts
no one” (James 1:13), that “God is light and in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5), and
that “the Lord is upright . . . and there is no unrighteousness in him” (Ps. 92:15).
The view of God’s providence advocated above, they would say, makes us into puppets or
robots who cannot do anything other than what God causes us to do. But this brings moral
33 Pinnock, “Responsible Freedom,” p. 102.
34 Ibid., p. 102.
35 Ibid., p. 106.
36 Marshall, “Predestination in the New Testament,” p. 139.
37 David J. A. Clines, “Predestination in the Old Testament,”
p. 122; see also pp. 116- 17. Similarly, James D. Strauss, “God’s
Promise and Universal History,” Grace Unlimited, p. 196, says
that the example of Jacob and Esau that Paul mentions in Rom.
9:9-13 refers to God’s corporate plans for the descendants of
Jacob and Esau and should not be taken as an illustration of
how God works in people’s lives or hearts generally.
38 Jack Cottrell, “The Nature of the Divine Sovereignty,”
pp. 112-13.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
340
reproach on God, for Marshall says, “I am responsible for what my agent does .” 39 Pinnock
affirms that “it is simply blasphemous to maintain, as this theory does, that man’s rebellion
against God is in any sense the product of God’s sovereign will or primary causation .” 40
3. Choices Caused by God Cannot Be Real Choices. When the Calvinist claims that
God causes us to choose things voluntarily, those who hold an Arminian position would
respond that any choices that are ultimately caused by God cannot be real choices, and
that, if God really causes us to make the choices we make, then we are not real persons.
Cottrell says that the Calvinist view of God as the primary cause and men as second-
ary causes really breaks down so there is only one cause, God. If a man uses a lever to
move a rock, he argues, “the lever is not a true second cause but is only an instrument
of the real cause of the movement. ... In my judgment the concept of cause has no real
significance when used in this sense. In such a system man contributes only what has
been predetermined .” 41
Pinnock writes:
Personal fellowship of the kind envisioned in the Gospel only exists where con-
summated in a free decision. If we wish to understand God’s grace as personal
address to his creatures, we must comprehend it in dynamic, non-manipula-
tive, non-coercive terms, as the Bible does . 42
He also says:
If the world were a completely determined structure on which no decision of
man’s would have any effect, that basic intuition of man’s that he is an actor and
a free agent wow\d be nonsensical: There would then be no point to his making
plans or exerting efforts intended to transform the world. . . . Human freedom
is the precondition of moral and intellectual responsibility . 43
Why then, in the Arminian view, did the fall and sin come about? Pinnock answers that
“they occur because God refuses to mechanize man or to force his will upon him .” 44 And
Marshall says, with respect to the “possibility of my predetermining a course of action
involving myself and another subject,” that “on the level of free agents it is impossible .” 45
He objects that the analogy of God and world as being like an author and a play is unhelpful
because if we ask whether the characters are indeed free, “this is an unreal question .” 46
However, it should be noted that Arminian theologians are certainly willing to allow
some kinds of influence by God on human beings. Marshall says, “Prayer also influences
men. . . . The wills of men can thus be affected by prayer or else we would not pray for
them. To believe in prayer is thus to believe in some kind of limitation of human freedom y
and in some kind of incomprehensible influence upon the wills of men” 47
39 Marshall, “Predestination,” p. 136. 45 Marshall, “Predestination,” p. 132. Similarly, he says,
40 Pinnock, “Responsible Freedom,” p. 102. “When we try to think of a person foreordaining the course
41 Jack Cottrell, “The Nature of the Divine Sovereignty,” of a relationship between himself and another person . . . this
pp. 104-5. concept is logically self- contradictory” (p, 135).
42 Pinnock, Grace Unlimited, p. 15. 46 Ibid., p. 133.
43 Pinnock, “Responsible Freedom,” p. 95. 47 Ibid., pp. 139-40 (emphasis in original text).
44 Ibid., p. 108.
CHAPTER 16 • GOD'S PROVIDENCE
To drive home their point about the essential freedom of the human will, advocates
of an Arminian position draw attention to the frequency of the free offer of the gospel in
the New Testament. They would say that these invitations to people to repent and come
to Christ for salvation, if bona fide, must imply the ability to respond to them. Thus,
all people without exception have the ability to respond, not just those who have been
sovereignly given that ability by God in a special way.
In further support of this point, Arminians would see 1 Corinthians 10:13 as clearly
affirming our ability not to sin. Paul says to the Corinthians, “No temptation has over-
taken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted
beyond your strength, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, that
you may be able to endure it” But, it is said, this statement would be false if God some-
times ordains that we sin, for then we would not be “able” to escape from temptation
without sinning.
4. The Arminian View Encourages Responsible Christian Living, While the
Calvinistic View Encourages a Dangerous Fatalism. Christians who hold an Arminian
position argue that the Calvinist view, when thoroughly understood, destroys motives
for responsible Christian behavior. Randall Basinger says that the Calvinist view “estab-
lishes that what is ought to be and rules out the consideration that things could and/or
should have been different.” 48 Basinger continues by saying that Christians
who evoke and act on the basis of God’s sovereignty are guilty of an arbi-
trary, unlivable, and dangerous fatalism. ... In contrast to this, the Arminian
believes that what actually occurs in the world is, to an extent, consequent on
the human will; God’s exhaustive control over the world is denied. This means
that things can occur that God does not will or want; things not only can be
different but often should be different. And from all this follows our responsi-
bility to work with God to bring about a better world. 49
However, Basinger goes on to make a further point: Calvinists, in practice, often avoid
such fatalism and “live and talk like Arminians.” 50 Thus, on the one hand, Basinger’s
challenge is a warning against the practical extremes to which he claims Calvinism
should logically drive Christians. On the other hand, his objection claims that when
Calvinists live the way they know they must live, in responsible obedience to God, they
are either inconsistent with their view of divine sovereignty or else not allowing their
view of God’s sovereign control to affect their daily lives.
H. Response to the Arminian Position
Many within the evangelical world will find these four Arminian arguments convincing.
They will feel that these arguments represent what they intuitively know about themselves,
their own actions, and the way the world functions, and that these arguments best account
48 Randall G. Basinger, “Exhaustive Divine Sovereignty: A 49 Ibid., p. 196.
Practical Critique,” in The Grace of God , the Will of Man: A Case 50 Ibid., p. 204.
for Arminianism, ed. Clark H. Pinnock, p. 94.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
342
for the repeated emphasis in Scripture on our responsibility and the real consequences of
our choices. However, there are some answers that can be given to the Arminian position.
1. Are These Scripture Passages Unusual Examples, or Do They Describe the Way God
Works Ordinarily? In response to the objection that the examples of God’s providential
control only refer to limited or specific events, it may be said first that the examples are
so numerous (see above, pp. 317-27) that they seem to be designed to describe to us the
ways in which God works all the time. God does not just cause some grass to grow; he
causes all grass to grow. He does not just send some rain; he sends all the rain. He does
not just keep some sparrows from falling to the ground without his will; he keeps all
sparrows from falling to the ground without his will. He does not just know every word
on David’s tongue before he speaks it; he knows the words on all our tongues before we
speak them. He has not just chosen Paul and the Christians in the Ephesian churches to
be holy and blameless before him; he has chosen all Christians to be holy and blameless
before him. This is why Cottrell’s claim, that God was working differently in Australia
and South America than in the Old Testament, 51 is so unconvincing: Scripture is given
to tell us the ways of God, and when we have dozens of examples throughout Old and
New Testaments where there is such clear teaching on this, it is appropriate for us to
conclude that this is the way in which God always works with human beings. By con-
trast, there seems to be nothing in Scripture that would indicate that some things are
outside God’s providential control, or that these ways of God’s acting are unusual or
unrepresentative of the ways in which he acts generally.
Moreover, many of the verses that speak of God’s providence are very general: Christ
“continually carries along all things by his word of power” (Heb. 1:3, author’s transla-
tion), and “in him all things hold together” (Col. 1:17). “In him we live and move and
have our being” (Acts 17:28). He “accomplishes all things according to the counsel of
his will” (Eph. 1:11). 52 He provides our food (Matt. 6:11), supplies all our needs (Phil.
4:19), directs our steps (Prov. 20:24) and works in us to will and to do his good pleasure
(Phil. 2:13). Such Scripture passages have in view more than exceptional examples of an
unusual intervention by God in the affairs of human beings; they describe the way God
always works in the world.
51 Jack Cottrell, “The Nature of the Divine Sovereignty,”
p. 113.
52 Jack Cottrell, “The Nature of the Divine Sovereignty,”
argues that the context of Eph. 1:11 shows that it does not
include all things in the universe but is restricted to a spe-
cific focus: “This focus is ‘the mystery of his will* (1:9), which
is the uniting of Jews and Gentiles together into one body,
the church (3:6) ” Thus, he says, the verse only “refers to ‘all
things* required for uniting Jews and Gentiles under one Head
in one body” (p. 116).
But this argument is not convincing. Cottrell must skip
over to Eph. 3:6 to get the contextual restriction he seeks for
the “all things” in 1:11. In doing this he ignores the clearly cos-
mic scope of the context as defined in the immediately preced-
ing verse, a verse that is in the same sentence in the Greek text:
“as a plan for the fulness of time, to unite all things [ta panto]
in him, things in heaven and things on earth ” (Eph. 1:10). All
things in heaven and on earth includes the whole universe.
Eph. 1:21 -22 further explains that God has exalted Christ “far
above all rule and authority and power and dominion . . . and
he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head
over all things for the church.” Once again the scope is univer-
sal. The “mystery” of God’s will mentioned in Eph. 1:9 is not
limited to the uniting of Jews and Gentiles (as in 3:6) but is
defined by 1:10 as a plan to unite all things in Christ. The term
mystery (Gk. mysterion ) in Paul means something previously
hidden but now made known by revelation, and it can refer
to different things in different contexts: in Eph. 5:32 it refers
to marriage as a symbol of the union between Christ and the
church; in 1 Cor. 15:51 it refers to the resurrection body; etc.
CHAPTER 16 • GOD'S PROVIDENCE
2. Does the Calvinistic Doctrine of God’s Providence Make God Responsible for Sin?
Against the Calvinistic view of God s providence (which allows that he decrees to permit
sin and evil) Arminians would say that God is not responsible for sin and evil because he
did not ordain them or cause them in any way . This is indeed one way of absolving God
from responsibility and blame for sin, but is it the biblical way?
The problem is whether the Arminian position can really account for many texts
that clearly say that God ordains that some people sin or do evil (see Section B.7, above,
pp. 322—27). The death of Christ is the prime example of this, but there are many oth-
ers in Scripture (Joseph’s brothers, Pharaoh, the Egyptians, the Canaanites, Eli’s sons,
David’s census, and the Babylonians, to mention a few). The response could be made
that these were unusual events, exceptions to God’s ordinary way of acting. But it does
not solve the problem, for, on the Arminian view, how can God be holy if he ordains
even one sinful act?
The Calvinist position seems preferable: God himself never sins but always brings
about his will through secondary causes; that is, through personal moral agents who
voluntarily, willingly do what God has ordained. These personal moral agents (both
human beings and evil angels) are to blame for the evil they do. While the Arminian
position objects that, on a human level, people are also responsible for what they cause
others to do, we can answer that Scripture is not willing to apply such reasoning to God.
Rather, Scripture repeatedly gives examples where God in a mysterious, hidden way
somehow ordains that people do wrong, but continually places the blame for that wrong
on the individual human who does wrong and never on God himself. The Arminian
position seems to have failed to show why God cannot work in this way in the world,
preserving both his holiness and our individual human responsibility for sin.
3. Can Choices Ordained by God Be Real Choices? In response to the claim that choices
ordained by God cannot be real choices, it must be said that this is simply an assumption
based once again on human experience and intuition, not on specific texts of Scrip-
ture. 53 Yet Scripture does not indicate that we can extrapolate from our human experi-
ence when dealing with God’s providential control of his creatures, especially human
beings. Arminians have simply not answered the question, Where does Scripture say
that a choice ordained by God is not a real choice? 54 When we read passages indicating
that God works through our will, our power to choose, and our personal volition, on
53 This is the case with Cottrell's analogy of the man who
uses a lever to move a rock. He says the lever “is not a true second
cause, but only an instrument of the real cause” (“The Nature
of the Divine Sovereignty,” p. 104). But here Cottrell makes a
common mistake, assuming that analogies from human expe-
rience, rather than the testimony of Scripture itself, can deter-
mine what is a real cause and what is not. The analogy of a man
using a lever to move a rock does not fit, because God is far
greater than any man, and we as real persons are far greater than
any lever.
54 The lack of scriptural support for this fundamental
Arminian idea is evident in Jack Cottrell’s discussion of free
will. After accurately explaining that Calvinists say we are
free only in the sense of making voluntary, willing choices,
Cottrell says, “In my judgment, however, the mere ability to
act in accord with one’s desires is not a sufficient criterion of
freedom” (“The Nature of the Divine Sovereignty,” p. 103,
emphasis mine). He then gives no evidence from Scripture to
show why this is his judgment (pp. 103-4). I would respond
that Cottrell has simply imported into the discussion a non-
biblical assumption about the nature of human freedom and
then has pronounced Calvinism incapable of meeting his
(nonbiblical) criterion.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
344
what basis can we say that a choice brought about by God through these means is not
a real choice? It seems better to affirm that God says that our choices are real and to
conclude that therefore they are real. Scripture repeatedly affirms that our choices are
genuine choices, that they have real results, and that those results last for eternity. “Do
this, and you will live” (Luke 10:28). “For God so loved the world that he gave his only
Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
This causes us to conclude that God has made us in such a way that (1) he ordains
all that we do, and (2) we exercise our personal will and make real, voluntary choices.
Because we cannot understand this should we therefore reject it? We cannot under-
stand (in any final sense) how a plant can live, or how a bumblebee can fly, or how God
can be omnipresent or eternal. Should we therefore reject those facts? Should we not
rather simply accept them as true either because we see that plants in fact do live and
bumblebees in fact do fly, or because Scripture itself teaches that God is omnipresent
and eternal?
Calvin several times distinguishes between “necessity” and “compulsion” with regard
to our will: unbelievers necessarily sin, but no compulsion forces them to sin against
their will. 55 In response to the objection that an act cannot be willing or voluntary if it
is a necessary act, Calvin points to both the good deeds of God (who necessarily does
good) and the evil deeds of the Devil (who necessarily does evil):
If the fact that he must do good does not hinder God’s free will in doing good; if
the Devil, who can only do evil, yet sins with his will — who shall say that man
therefore sins less willingly because he is subject to the necessity of sinning? 56
Who are we to say that choices somehow caused by God cannot be real? On what
basis can we prove that? God in Scripture tells us that he ordains all that comes to pass.
He also tells us that our choices and actions are significant in his sight , and that we are
responsible before him for our actions. We need simply to believe these things and to take
comfort in them. After all, he alone determines what is significant, what is real, and what
is genuine personal responsibility in the universe.
But do our actions have any effect on God? At this point Arminians will object that
while Calvinists may say that a choice caused by God is a real choice, it is not real in
any ultimate sense, because, on a Calvinist view, nothing that God does can ever be a
response to what we do. Jack Cottrell says:
Calvinism is still a theology of determinism as long as it declares that nothing
God does can be conditioned by man or can be a reaction to something in the
world. The idea that a sovereign God must always act and never react is a point
on which almost all Calvinists seem to agree Reformed theologians agree
that the eternal decree is unconditional or absolute. . . . “Decretal theology”
decrees that “God cannot be affected by, nor respond to, anything external to
him,” says Daane. 57
55 See Institutes, 1:294-96 (2.3.5). pp. 102-3. The quotation at the end is from James Daane,
56 Ibid., p. 295 (2.3.5). The Freedom of God (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1973),
57 Jack Cottrell, “The Nature of the Divine Sovereignty,” p. 160.
CHAPTER 16 • GOD'S PROVIDENCE
But here Cottrell has misunderstood Reformed theology for two reasons. First, he
has quoted James Daane, who, though he belongs to the Christian Reformed Church,
has written as an opponent, not a defender, of classical Reformed theology, and his
statement does not represent a position Reformed theologians would endorse. Second,
Cottrell has confused Gods decrees before creation with Gods actions in time. It is
true that Calvinists would say that God’s eternal decrees were not influenced by any of
our actions and cannot be changed by us, since they were made before creation. 58 But to
conclude from that that Calvinists think God does not react in time to anything we do,
or is not influenced by anything we do, is simply false. No Calvinist theologian known
to me has ever said that God is not influenced by what we do or does not react to what
we do. He is grieved at our sin. He delights in our praise. He answers our prayers. To
say that God does not react to our actions is to deny the whole history of the Bible from
Genesis to Revelation.
Now a Calvinist would add that God has eternally decreed that he would respond to
us as he does. In fact, he has decreed that we would act as we do and he would respond to
our actions. But his responses are still genuine responses, his answers to prayers are still
genuine answers to prayer, his delight in our praise is still genuine delight. Cottrell may
of course object that a response that God has planned long ago is not a real response, but
this is far different from saying that Calvinists believe God does not respond to what we
do. Moreover, we return to the same unsupported assumption underlying this objec-
tion: on what scriptural basis can Cottrell say that a response God has planned long ago
is not a real response? 59
Here it is helpful for us to realize that there is no other reality in the universe except
what God himself has made. Is a thunderstorm caused by God a real thunderstorm?
Is a king that God establishes on a throne a real king? Is a word that God causes me to
speak (Ps. 139:4; Prov. 16:1) area/ word? Of course they are real! There is no other reality
than that which God brings about! Then is a human choice that God somehow causes
to happen a real choice? Yes, it is, in the same way that a thunderstorm or a king is real
according to their own characteristics and properties. The choice that I make is not a
“forced” or “involuntary” choice — we make choices all the time, and we have absolutely
no sense of being forced or compelled to choose one thing rather than another.
Now some may object that this view makes us mere “puppets” or “robots.” But we are
not puppets or robots; we are real persons . Puppets and robots do not have the power of
personal choice or even individual thought. We, by contrast, think, decide, and choose.
Again the Arminian wrongly takes information from our situation as human beings
and then uses that information to place limitations on what God can or cannot do. All
of these analogies from human experience fail to recognize that God is far greater than
58 See above, p. 403, on God’s decrees.
59 I am not sure if Cottrell would be able to object that
a response planned by God long ago is not a real response,
because he himself talks about God foreknowing our actions
and then planning how he will respond to them. He says,
“Even before the creation God foreknew every free-will
act. . . . Nothing takes God by surprise. . . . God knew, even
before creation, when and how he would have to intervene in
his world to accomplish his purposes. . . . God’s foreknowl-
edge also enables him to plan his own responses to and uses
of human choices even before they are made” (“The Nature of
the Divine Sovereignty,” p. 112). But if Cottrell is willing to say
that God planned long ago how he would respond to human
choices, it is hard to see how he can object to the Calvinist
position that God decreed long ago how he would respond
when we pray or act.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
346
our limited human abilities. Moreover, we are far more real and complex than any robot
or puppet would ever be — we are real persons created by an infinitely powerful and
infinitely wise God.
Much of our difficulty in understanding how God can cause us to choose something
willingly comes from the finite nature of our creaturely existence. In a hypothetical world
where all living things created by God were plants rooted in the ground, we might imag-
ine one plant arguing to another that God could not make living creatures who could
move about on the earth, for how could they carry their roots with them? And if their
roots were not in the ground, how could they receive nourishment? An “Arminian” plant
might even argue, “In order for God to create a world with living things, he had to create
them with roots and with the characteristic of living all their lives in a single place. To say
that God could not create living things that move about on the earth does not challenge
God’s omnipotence, for that is simply to say that he cannot do things that logically can-
not be done. Therefore it is impossible that God could create a world where living things
also have the capacity of moving about on the earth.” The problem with this plant is that
it has limited Gods power by virtue of its own “plant-like” experience.
On a higher level, we could imagine a creation that had both plants and animals but
no human beings. In that creation, we can imagine an argument between a “Calvinist”
dog and a “Arminian” dog, where the “Calvinist” dog would argue that it is possible for
God to create creatures that not only can communicate by barking to one another but
also can record their barks in marks on paper and can send them silently to be under-
stood by other creatures many days’ journey distant, creatures who have never been seen
by the sending creature who first marked his barks down on paper. The “Arminian” dog
would reply that God cannot do such a thing, because essential to the idea of creaturely
communication is hearing and seeing (and usually smelling!) the creature from whom
one receives the communication. To say that there can be communication without ever
hearing or seeing or smelling the other creature is an absurd idea! It is beyond the range
of possible occurrences and is logically inconceivable. Therefore it is impossible to think
that God could create a creature with such communicating abilities.
In both cases the “Arminian” plant and the “Arminian” dog are in the wrong, because
they have incorrectly limited the kind of thing God could create by deriving what was
possible for God (in their opinion) from their own finite creaturely existence. But this
is very similar to the Arminian theologian who simply asserts (on the basis of his own
perception of human experience) that God cannot create a creature who makes will-
ing, voluntary, meaningful choices, and that those choices are nonetheless ordained by
God. Similarly, the Arminian theologian who argues that God cannot ordain that evil
come about and not yet himself be responsible for evil, is limiting God based merely on
observation of finite human experience.
4. Does a Calvinistic View of Providence Encourage Either a Dangerous Fatalism or a
Tendency to “Live Like Arminians”? The view of providence presented above emphasizes
the need for responsible obedience, so it is not correct to say that it encourages the kind
of fatalism that says that whatever is, should be. Those who accuse Reformed writers of
believing this have simply not understood the Reformed doctrine of providence.
CHAPTER 16 • GOD’S PROVIDENCE
But do Calvinists “live like Arminians” anyway? Both Calvinists and Arminians
believe that our actions have real results and that they are eternally significant. Both
agree that we are responsible for our actions and that we make voluntary, willing
choices. Both groups will agree that God answers prayer, that proclaiming the gospel
results in people being saved, and that obedience to God results in blessing in life, while
disobedience results in lack of God’s blessing.
But the differences are very significant. Calvinists when true to their doctrine will
live with a far more comprehensive trust in God in all circumstances and a far greater
freedom from worry about the future, because they are convinced, not just that God
will somehow cause his major purposes to work out right in the end, but that all things
work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose
(Rom. 8:28). They will also be thankful to God for all the benefits that come to us from
whatever quarter, for the one who believes in providence is assured that the ultimate
reason for all things that happen is not some chance occurrence in the universe, nor is
it the “free will” of another human being, but it is ultimately the goodness of God him-
self. They will also have great patience in adversity, knowing that it has not come about
because God was unable to prevent it, but because it, too, is part of his wise plan. So the
differences are immense. Calvin says:
Gratitude of mind for the favorable outcome of things, patience in adversity,
and also incredible freedom from worry about the future all necessarily follow
upon this knowledge Ignorance of providence is the ultimate of all miser-
ies; the highest blessedness lies in the knowledge of it. 60
5. Additional Objections to the Arminian Position. In addition to responding to the
four specific Arminian claims mentioned above some remaining objections to it need
to be considered.
a. On an Arminian View, How Can God Know the Future?: According to the Arminian
view, our human choices are not caused by God. They are totally free. But Scripture gives
many examples of God predicting the future and of prophecies being fulfilled exactly.
How can God predict the future in this way if it is not certain what will happen?
In response to this question, Arminians give three different kinds of answer. Some
say that God is not able to know details about the future; specifically, they deny that God
is able to know what choices individual human beings will make in the future. 61 This
seems to me to be the most consistent Arminian position, but the result is that, while
God may be able to make some fairly accurate predictions based on complete knowledge
60 Calvin, Institutes, 1:219-25 (1.17.7, 11).
61 Richard Rice, “Divine Foreknowledge and Free-Will
Theism,” in The Grace of God , the Will of Man, pp. 121-39,
takes this position (see esp. pp. 129, 134-37). Rice says, “God
knows a great deal about what will happen All that God
does not know is the content of future free decisions, and this
is because decisions are not there to know until they occur”
(p. 134). In order to take this position and maintain God’s
omniscience, Rice redefines omniscience: “An omniscient
being knows everything logically knowable” (p. 128), and
then he defines “logically knowable” to exclude future human
choices. On this basis. Rice argues that God does not know the
results of future free decisions of human beings, since these
are not logically knowable.
Clark Pinnock also explains how he came to this position:
“I knew the Calvinist argument that exhaustive foreknowledge
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
348
of the present, these cannot be certain predictions. Ultimately it also means that God
is ignorant of all future human choices , which means that he does not even know what
the stock market will do tomorrow, or who will be elected as the next president of the
United States, or who will be converted. On this view, what event of human history could
God know with certainty in advance? No event. This is a radical revision of the idea
of omniscience and seems to be clearly denied by the dozens of examples of unfailing
predictive prophecy in Scripture, the fulfillment of which demonstrates that God is the
true God in opposition to false gods . 62
Other Arminians simply affirm that God knows everything that will happen, but this
does not mean that he has planned or caused what will happen — it simply means that he
has the ability to see into the future. (The phrase sometimes used to express this view
is “Foreknowledge does not imply foreordination.”) This is probably the most common
Arminian view, and it is ably expressed by Jack Cottrell: “I affirm that God has a true
foreknowledge of future free-will choices without himself being the agent that causes
them or renders them certain .” 63
The problem with this position is that, even if God did not plan or cause things to
happen, the fact that they are foreknown means that they will certainly come about.
And this means that our decisions are predetermined by something (whether fate or the
inevitable cause-and-effect mechanism of the universe), and they still are not free in
the sense the Arminian wishes them to be free. If our future choices are known, then
they are fixed. And if they are fixed, then they are not “free” in the Arminian sense
(undetermined or uncaused).
A third Arminian response is called “middle knowledge.” Those who take this view
would say that the future choices of people are not determined by God, but that God
knows them anyway, because he knows all future possibilities, and he knows how each
free creature will respond in any set of circumstances that might occur . 64 William Craig
says:
Gods insight into the will of a free creature is of such a surpassing quality that
God knows exactly what the free creature would do were God to place him in a
certain set of circumstances. ... By knowing what every possible free creature
would do in any possible situation, God can by bringing about that situation
know what the creature will freely do. . . . Thus he foreknows with certainty
everything that happens in the world . 65
was tantamount to predestination because it implies the fixity
of all things from ‘eternity past,’ and I could not shake off its
logical force” (“From Augustine to Arminius: A Pilgrimage
in Theology” in The Grace of God , the Will of Man , p. 25).
He rejected exhaustive foreknowledge and decided that “ God
knows everything that can be known , but that free choices would
not be something that can be known even by God because they
are not yet settled in reality. Decisions not yet made do not exist
anywhere to be known even by God God too moves into
a future not wholly known because not yet fixed” (ibid., pp.
25-26, emphasis mine).
62 See chapter 11, pp. 171-72, also p. 190, on God’s knowl-
edge of the future.
63 Jack Cottrell, “The Nature of the Divine Sovereignty,”
p. 111.
64 See William L. Craig, “Middle Knowledge, a Calvinist-
Arminian Rapprochement?” in The Grace of God , the Will of
Man , pp. 141-64. See also his book The Only Wise God: The
Compatibility of Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom
(Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987).
65 Craig, “Middle Knowledge,” pp. 150-51.
CHAPTER 16 ■ GOD'S PROVIDENCE
349
But Craig’s view does not sustain a view of freedom in the sense Arminians usually
maintain: that no cause or set of causes made a person choose the way he or she did. On
Craig’s view, the surrounding circumstances and the person’s own disposition guarantee
that a certain choice will be made — otherwise, God could not know what the choice
would be from his exhaustive knowledge of the person and the circumstances. But if
God knows what the choice will be, and if that choice is guaranteed, then it could not
be otherwise. Moreover, if both the person and the circumstances have been created by
God, then ultimately the outcome has been determined by God. This sounds very close
to freedom in a Calvinist sense, but it is certainly not the kind of freedom that most
Arminians would accept.
b. On an Arminian View, How Can Evil Exist If God Did Not Want It?: Arminians
quite clearly say that the entrance of evil into the world was not according to the will of
God. Pinnock says, “The fall of man is an eloquent refutation to the theory that God’s
will is always done.” 66 But how can evil exist if God did not want it to exist? If evil hap-
pens in spite of the fact that God does not want it to happen, this seems to deny God’s
omnipotence: he wanted to prevent evil, but he was unable to do so. How then can we
believe that this God is omnipotent?
The common Arminian response is to say that God was able to prevent evil but he
chose to allow for the possibility of evil in order to guarantee that angels and humans
would have the freedom necessary for meaningful choices. In other words, God had to
allow for the possibility of sinful choices in order to allow genuine human choices. Cot-
trell says, “This God-given freedom includes human freedom to rebel and to sin against
the Creator himself. By creating a world in which sin was possible, God thereby bound
himself to react in certain specific ways should sin become a reality.” 67
But this is not a satisfactory response either, for it implies that God will have to allow
for the possibility of sinful choices in heaven eternally. On the Arminian position, if
any of our choices and actions in heaven are to be genuine and real, then they will have
to include the possibility of sinful choices. But this implies that even in heaven, for all
eternity, we will face the real possibility of choosing evil — and therefore the possibility
of rebelling against God and losing our salvation and being cast out of heaven! This is a
terrifying thought, but it seems a necessary implication of the Arminian view.
Yet there is an implication that is more troubling: If real choices have to allow for the
possibility of choosing evil, then (1) God’s choices are not real, since he cannot choose
evil, or (2) God’s choices are real, and there is the genuine possibility that God might
someday choose to do evil — perhaps a little, and perhaps a great deal. If we ponder the
second implication it becomes terrifying. But it is contrary to the abundant testimony of
Scripture. 68 On the other hand, the first implication is clearly false: God is the definition
of what is real, and it is clearly an error to say that his choices are not real. Both implica-
tions therefore provide good reason for rejecting the Arminian position that real choices
66 Pinnock, “Responsible Freedom” p. 102. testimony to Gods goodness, holiness, and righteousness, and
67 Cottrell, “The Nature of Divine Sovereignty,” p. 109. chapter 11, pp. 203-5, on God’s unchangeableness.
68 See chapter 12, pp. 163-68, 197-98, 201-2, for scriptural
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
350
must allow the possibility of choosing evil. But this puts us back to the earlier question
for which there does not seem to be a satisfactory answer from the Arminian position:
How can evil exist if God did not want it to exist?
c. On an Arminian View, How Can We Know That God Will Triumph Over Evil?: If we
go back to the Arminian assertion that evil is not according to the will of God, another
problem arises: if all the evil now in the world came into the world even though God did
not want it, how can we be sure that God will triumph over it in the end? Of course, God
says in Scripture that he will triumph over evil. But if he was unable to keep it out of his
universe in the first place and it came in against his will, and if he is unable to predict the
outcome of any future events that involve free choices by human, angelic, and demonic
agents, how then can we be sure that God’s declaration that he will triumph over all
evil is in itself true? Perhaps this is just a hopeful prediction of something that (on the
Arminian viewpoint) God simply cannot know. Far from the “incredible freedom from
worry about the future” which the Calvinist has because he knows that an omnipotent
God makes “all things work together for good” (Rom. 8:28 KJV), the Arminian posi-
tion seems logically to drive us to a deep-seated anxiety about the ultimate outcome of
history.
Both of these last two objections regarding evil make us realize that, while we may
have difficulties in thinking about the Reformed view of evil as ordained by God and
completely under the control of God, there are far more serious difficulties with the
Arminian view of evil as not ordained or even willed by God, and therefore not assur-
edly under the control of God.
d. The Difference in the Unanswered Questions: Since we are finite in our understand-
ing, we inevitably will have some unanswered questions about every biblical doctrine.
Yet on this issue the questions that Calvinists and Arminians must leave unanswered are
quite different. On the one hand, Calvinists must say that they do not know the answer
to the following questions:
1. Exactly how God can ordain that we do evil willingly, and yet God not
be blamed for evil.
2. Exactly how God can cause us to choose something willingly.
To both, Calvinists would say that the answer is somehow to be found in an aware-
ness of God’s infinite greatness, in the knowledge of the fact that he can do far more than
we could ever think possible. So the effect of these unanswered questions is to increase
our appreciation of the greatness of God.
On the other hand, Arminians must leave unanswered questions regarding God’s
knowledge of the future, why he would allow evil when it is against his will, and whether
he will certainly triumph over evil. Their failure to resolve these questions tends to
diminish the greatness of God — his omniscience, his omnipotence, and the absolute
reliability of his promises for the future. And these unanswered questions tend to exalt
the greatness of man (his freedom to do what God does not want) and the power of evil
(it comes and remains in the universe even though God does not want it). Moreover, by
CHAPTER 16 ■ GOD'S PROVIDENCE
351
denying that God can make creatures who have real choices that are nevertheless caused
by him, the Arminian position diminishes the wisdom and skill of God the Creator.
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. Has thinking about the doctrine of providence increased your trust in God? How
has it changed the way you think about the future? Are there difficulties or hard-
ships in your life at this time? Give an example of a specific difficulty that you are
now facing and explain how the doctrine of providence will help you in the way
you think about it.
2. Can you name five good things that have happened to you so far today? Were you
thankful to God for any of them?
3. Do you sometimes think of luck or chance as causing events that happen in your
life? If you ever feel that way, does it increase or decrease your anxiety about the
future? Now think for a moment about some events that you might have attrib-
uted to luck in the past. Instead, begin to think about those events as under the
control of your wise and loving heavenly Father. How does that make you feel
differently about them and about the future generally?
4. Do you ever fall into a pattern of little “superstitious” actions or rituals that you
think will bring good luck or prevent bad luck (such as not walking under a ladder,
being afraid when a black cat walks across your path, not stepping on cracks on a
sidewalk, carrying a certain item “just for good luck,” etc.)? Do you think those
actions tend to increase or decrease your trust in God during the day and your
obedience to him?
5. Explain how a proper understanding of the doctrine of providence should lead a
Christian to a more active prayer life.
6. What has been the overall effect of this chapter on how you think and feel about
God and the events of your life?
SPECIAL TERMS
Arminian
Calvinist
concurrence
decrees of God
free choices
free will
government
middle knowledge
preservation
primary cause
providence
Reformed
secondary cause
voluntary choices
willing choices
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
352
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter 1,
pp. 38-39. Complete bibliographical data maybe found on pp. 1224-30.)
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1882-92
Litton, 76-90
1930
Thomas, 176-83
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1847
Finney, 515-44
1875-76
Pope, 1:437-56; 2:363 - 67, 386- 90
1892-94
Miley, 1:211-349; 2:271-308
1940
Wiley, 1:478 - 88
1983
Carter, 1:122-24, 130-33, 222-23
1983-
Cottrell, 2:9-228, 265-333, 379-418
1987-90
Oden, 1:270-316
3. Baptist
1767
Gill, 1:246-51, 397-434
1887
Boyce, 115-25, 217-30
1907
Strong, 353 - 70, 410 -43
1917
Mullins, 265-76
1976- 83
Henry, 5:307-33; 6:455-91
1983-85
Erickson, 345-64, 387-432
1987-94
Lewis/Demarest, 1:291-335; 2:71-122
4. Dispensational
1947
Chafer, 1:225-59
1949
Thiessen, 100-110, 119-32
5. Lutheran
1917-24
Pieper, 1:483 - 97
1934
Mueller, 176- 78, 189 -95, 236- 41
6. Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1559
Calvin, 1:197-237,309-407 (1.16-18; 2.4-5)
1724- 58
Edwards, 1:3-93; 2:107-110, 525-43
1861
Heppe, 133-89, 251-80
1871-73
Hodge, 1:535-49, 575-616; 2:280-312
1878
Dabney, 120 - 32, 221-23, 276- 91
1887-1921
Warfield, SSW, 1:93-115; SSW, 2:411-47
1889
Shedd, 1:393 -462, 527 - 33
1937-66
Murray, CW, 3:161-67, 185-89; CW, 2:60-66
1938
Berkhof, 100-108, 165-78
1962
Buswell, 1:163-76
7. Renewal (or charismatic/Pentecostal)
1988-92
Williams, 1:117-40, 215-19
CHAPTER 16 ♦ GOD’S PROVIDENCE
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
1. Roman Catholic: Traditional
1955 Ott, 87-91
2. Roman Catholic: Post-Vatican II
1980 McBrien (no explicit treatment)
353
Other Works
Basinger, David, and Randall Basinger, eds. Predestination and Free Will: Four Views of
Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom. Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press,
1986.
Berkouwer, G. C. The Providence of God. Trans, by Lewis B. Smedes. Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1952.
Cameron, N. M. de S. “Providence.” In NDT, pp. 177-79.
Carson, D. A. Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility: Biblical Perspectives in Ten-
sion. New Foundations Theological Library. Atlanta: John Knox, and London: Mar-
shall, Morgan and Scott, 1981.
• How Long, O Lord ? Reflections on Suffering and Evil. Grand Rapids: Baker, and
Leicester: Inter- Varsity Press, 1990.
Craig, William Lane. The Only Wise God: The Compatibility of Divine Foreknowledge and
Human Freedom. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987.
Feinberg, John. The Many Faces of Evil: Theological Systems and the Problem of Evil.
Zondervan, 1994.
Flavel, John. The Mystery of Providence. Edinburgh and Carlisle, Pa.: Banner of Truth,
1976. Reprint of 1698 edition.
Helm, Paul. The Providence of God. Leicester and Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press,
1994.
Parker, T. H. L. “Providence of God.” In EDT, pp. 890-91.
Pink, Arthur W. The Sovereignty of God. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1930.
Warfield, B. B. Calvin and Calvinism. London and New York: Oxford University Press,
1931.
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
Romans 8:28: We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him,
who are called according to his purpose.
HYMN
“God Moves in a Mysterious Way”
God moves in a mysterious way
his wonders to perform;
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
354
He plants his footsteps in the sea,
and rides upon the storm.
Deep in unfathomable mines
of never-failing skill
He treasures up his bright designs,
and works his sovereign will.
Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;
the clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy, and shall break
in blessings on your head.
Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
but trust him for his grace;
Behind a frowning providence
he hides a smiling face.
His purposes will ripen fast,
unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
but sweet will be the flow’r.
Blind unbelief is sure to err,
and scan his work in vain;
God is his own interpreter,
and he will make it plain.
AUTHOR: WILLIAM COWPER, 1774
Chapter
MIRACLES
What are miracles ? Can they happen today ?
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
A consideration of the subject of miracles is closely connected with God’s providence,
which was considered in the previous chapter. There we argued that God exercises
an extensive, ongoing, sovereign control over all aspects of his creation. This chapter
will assume an understanding of that discussion of providence and will build on it in
approaching the question of miracles.
A. Definition
We may define a miracle as follows: A miracle is a less common kind of God’s activity
in which he arouses people’s awe and wonder and bears witness to himself 1 This definition
takes into account our previous understanding of Gods providence whereby God pre-
serves, controls, and governs all things. If we understand providence in this way, we will
naturally avoid some other common explanations or definitions of miracles.
For example, one definition of miracle is “a direct intervention of God in the world.”
But this definition assumes a deistic view of Gods relationship to the world, in which
the world continues on its own and God only intervenes in it occasionally. This is cer-
tainly not the biblical view, according to which God makes the rain to fall (Matt. 5:45),
causes the grass to grow (Ps. 104:14), and continually carries along all things by his word
of power (Heb. 1:3). Another definition of miracle is “a more direct activity of God in
the world.” But to talk about a “more direct” working of God suggests that his ordinary
providential activity is somehow not “direct” and again hints at a sort of deistic removal
of God from the world.
Another definition is “God working in the world without using means to bring about
the results he wishes.” Yet to speak of God working “without means” leaves us with very
*1 have adapted this definition from unpublished lec-
tures given by John Frame, professor of systematic theology at
Westminster Theological Seminary.
355
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
356
few if any miracles in the Bible, for it is hard to think of a miracle that came about with
no means at all: in the healing of people, for example, some of the physical properties of
the sick persons body were doubtless involved as part of the healing. When Jesus mul-
tiplied the loaves and fishes, he at least used the original five loaves and two fishes that
were there. When he changed water to wine, he used water and made it become wine.
This definition seems to be inadequate. 2
Yet another definition of miracle is “an exception to a natural law” or “God acting
contrary to the laws of nature.” But the phrase “laws of nature” in popular understanding
implies that there are certain qualities inherent in the things that exist, “laws of nature”
that operate independently of God, and that God must intervene or “break” these laws
for a miracle to occur. 3 Once again this definition does not adequately account for the
biblical teaching on providence.
Another definition of miracle is “an event impossible to explain by natural causes.”
This definition is inadequate because (1) it does not include God as the one who brings
about the miracle; (2) it assumes that God does not use some natural causes when he
works in an unusual or amazing way, and thus it assumes again that God only occasionally
intervenes in the world; and (3) it will result in a significant minimizing of actual miracles
and an increase in skepticism, since many times when God works in answer to prayer the
result is amazing to those who prayed but it is not absolutely impossible to explain by
natural causes, especially for a skeptic who simply refuses to see God’s hand at work.
Therefore, the original definition given above, where a miracle is simply a less com-
mon way of God’s working in the world, seems to be preferable and more consistent with
the biblical doctrine of God’s providence. This definition does not say that a miracle is a
different kind of working by God, but only that it is a less common way of God’s working
and that it is done so as to arouse people’s surprise, awe, or amazement in such a way
that God bears witness to himself.
The biblical terminology for miracles frequently points to this idea of God’s power
at work to arouse people’s wonder and amazement. Primarily three sets of terms are
employed: (1) “sign” (Heb. ’ oth ; Gk. semeion ), which means something that points to
or indicates something else, especially (with reference to miracles) God’s activity and
power; (2) “wonder” (Heb. mopeth; Gk. terns), an event that causes people to be amazed
or astonished; 4 and (3) “miracle” or “mighty work” (Heb. ffburah; Gk. dynamis ), an
act displaying great power, especially (with reference to miracles) divine power. 5 Often
“signs and wonders” is used as a stock expression to refer to miracles (Ex. 7:3; Deut.
6:22; Ps. 135:9; Acts 4:30; 5:12; Rom. 15:19, et al.), and sometimes all three terms are
combined, “mighty works and wonders and signs” (Acts 2:22) or “signs and wonders
and mighty works” (2 Cor. 12:12; Heb. 2:4).
2 However, if someone defined a miracle as “a work of God nition is less objectionable because it consciously takes into
apart from the ordinary use of means, to arouse people’s awe account God’s providence. But the phrase “natural law” is not
and wonder,” this would be similar in force to the definition I generally understood that way in English today,
proposed above and would be consistent with the Bible’s teach- 4 The verb thaumazd, “to wonder, be amazed,” is fre-
ing on God’s providence (see L. Berkhof, Systematic Theology, quently used in the Gospels to describe people’s reaction to
pp. 176-77). miracles.
3 If the phrase “natural law” is understood by Christians 5 See the extensive discussion of New Testament vocabu-
simply to refer to the predictable patterns of behavior that God lary for miracles in W. Mundle, O. Hofius, and C. Brown,
gives to and maintains in each created thing, then this defi- “Miracle, Wonder, Sign,” NIDNTT 2:620-35.
CHAPTER 17* MIRACLES
In addition to the meanings of the terms used for miracles, another reason supporting
our definition is the fact that miracles in Scripture do arouse people’s awe and amazement
and indicate that God’s power is at work. The Bible frequently tells us that God himself is
the one who performs “miracles” or “wondrous things.” Psalm 136:4 says that God is the
one “who alone does great wonders” (cf. Ps. 72:18). The song of Moses declares:
Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods?
Who is like you, majestic in holiness,
terrible in glorious deeds, doing wonders? (Ex. 15:11)
Thus, the miraculous signs that Moses did when his staff turned into a snake and back
again, or when his hand became leprous and then clean again (Ex. 4:2-8), were given
that Moses might demonstrate to the people of Israel that God had sent him. Similarly,
the miraculous signs God did by the hand of Moses and Aaron through the plagues,
far surpassing the false miracles or imitation signs done by the magicians in Pharaoh’s
court (Ex. 7:12; 8:18—19; 9:11), showed that the people of Israel were those who wor-
shiped the one true God. When Elijah confronted the priests of Baal on Mount Carmel
(1 Kings 18:17-40), the fire from heaven demonstrated that the Lord was the one true
God.
Now if we accept the definition that a miracle is “a less common kind of God’s activ-
ity in which he arouses people’s awe and wonder and bears witness to himself,” then we
may ask what kinds of things should be considered miracles. Of course, we are right to
consider the incarnation of Jesus as God-man and Jesus’ resurrection from the dead as
the central and most important miracles in all history. The events of the exodus such as
the parting of the Red Sea and the fall of Jericho were remarkable miracles. When Jesus
healed people and cleansed lepers and cast out demons, those were certainly miracles as
well (see Matt. 11:4-5; Luke 4:36-41; John 2:23; 4:54; 6:2; 20:30-31).
But can we consider unusual answers to prayer to be miracles? Apparently so, if they
are remarkable enough to arouse people’s awe and wonder and cause them to acknowl-
edge God’s power at work: the answer to Elijah’s prayer that God would send fire from
heaven was a miracle (1 Kings 18:24, 36—38), as were the answers to his prayers that the
widow’s dead son would come back to life (1 Kings 17:21), or that the rain would stop
and later start again (1 Kings 17:1; 18:41-45 with James 5:17-18). In the New Testa-
ment, the release of Peter from prison in answer to the prayers of the church was cer-
tainly a miracle (Acts 12:5- 17; note also Paul’s prayer for Publius’s father in Acts 28:8).
But there must have been many miracles not nearly as dramatic as those, because Jesus
healed many hundreds of people, “any that were sick with various diseases ” (Luke 4:40).
Paul healed “the rest of the people on the island who had diseases” (Acts 28:9).
On the other hand, Christians see answers to prayer every day, and we should not
water down our definition of miracle so much that every answer to prayer is called a
miracle. But when an answer to prayer is so remarkable that people involved with it are
amazed and acknowledge God’s power at work in an unusual way, then it seems appro-
priate to call it a miracle. 6 This is consistent with our definition and seems supported
6 Others may prefer to be more restrictive in their defini- that absolutely could not have happened by ordinary means
tion of miracles, reserving the term (for example) for events and that are thoroughly witnessed and documented by several
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
358
by the biblical evidence that works of God that aroused people’s awe and wonder were
called miracles (Gk. dynamis). 7
But whether we adopt a broad or narrow definition of miracle, all should agree that if
God really does work in answer to our prayers, whether in common or uncommon ways,
it is important that we recognize this and give thanks to him, and that we not ignore it
or go to great lengths to devise possible “natural causes” to explain away what God has
in fact done in answer to prayer. While we must be careful not to exaggerate in reporting
details of answers to prayer, we must also avoid the opposite error of failing to glorify
and thank God for what he has done.
B. Miracles as Characteristic of the New Covenant Age
In the New Testament, Jesus’ miraculous signs attested that he had come from God:
Nicodemus recognized, “No one can do these signs that you do, unless God is with him”
(John 3:2). Jesus’ changing of water into wine was a “sign” that “manifested his glory;
and his disciples believed in him” (John 2:11). According to Peter, Jesus was “a man
attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs which God did through
him in your midst” (Acts 2:22).
Then in the early church, the apostles and others who preached the gospel performed
miracles that amazed people and gave confirmation of the gospel that was being preached
(Acts 2:43; 3:6- 10; 4:30; 8:6-8, 13; 9:40-42, et al.). Even in churches where no apostles
were present miracles occurred. For example, Paul, in writing to several churches in the
region of Galatia (see Gal. 1:1), assumes this when he asks, “Does he who supplies the
Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with
faith?” (Gal. 3:5). Similarly, he mentions in the church at Corinth “workers of miracles”
(1 Cor. 12:28) and names “the working of miracles” (1 Cor. 12:10) as a gift distributed
by the Holy Spirit. These last two verses are especially significant because 1 Corinthians
12:4-31 is not discussing a specific situation at Corinth but the nature of the church in
general as the “body of Christ” with many members yet one body. 8
impartial observers. In that case, they will see far fewer mir-
acles, especially in a skeptical, anti-supernatural society. But
such a definition may not encompass all the kinds of things Paul
had in mind when he talked about miracles in the churches of
Corinth (1 Cor. 12:10, 28-29) and Galatia (Gal. 3:5), and may
prevent people from recognizing a gift of miracles when it is
given to Christians today. (Of course, Christians who hold such
a restrictive definition will still readily thank God for many
answers to prayer that they would not call miracles.)
7 The appropriateness of such a definition is not lost sim-
ply because the same event might be called a miracle by some
people and an ordinary event by others, for people s evalua-
tion of an event will vary depending on their nearness to the
event, the assumptions of their worldview, and whether they
are Christians or not.
8 Note, for example, that Paul says that God has appointed
in the church, “first apostles ...” (1 Cor. 12:28). But there
were no apostles given specifically to the church at Corinth.
Therefore this passage must be talking about the church in
general.
B. B. Warfield, Counterfeit Miracles (Edinburgh: Banner
of Truth, 1972; first published in 1918), notes that in the
church at Corinth those who took part in the ordinary church
worship service “might often have a miraculous gift to exer-
cise.” He says that “there is no reason to believe that the infant
congregation at Corinth was singular in this. The Apostle
does not write as if he were describing a marvelous state of
affairs peculiar to that church. . . . The hints in the rest of
his letters and in the Book of Acts require us, accordingly, to
look upon this beautiful picture of Christian worship as one
which would be true to life for any of the numerous congre-
gations planted by the Apostles in the length and breadth of
the world visited and preached to by them. . . . We are justi-
fied in considering it characteristic of the Apostolic churches
CHAPTER 17 • MIRACLES
In fact, it seems to be a characteristic of the New Testament church that miracles occur. 9 In
the Old Testament, miracles seemed to occur primarily in connection with one prominent
leader at a time, such as Moses or Elijah or Elisha. In the New Testament, there is a sudden
and unprecedented increase in the miracles when Jesus begins his ministry (Luke 4:36-37,
40-41). However, contrary to the pattern of the Old Testament, the authority to work
miracles and to cast out demons was not confined to Jesus himself, nor did miracles die
out when Jesus returned to heaven. Even during his ministry, Jesus gave authority to heal
the sick and to cast out demons not only to the Twelve, but also to seventy of his disciples
(Luke 10:1, 9, 17- 19; cf. Matt. 10:8; Luke 9:49-50). Moreover, the passages noted above
from 1 Corinthians and Galatians indicate that performing miracles was not confined
to the seventy disciples, but was characteristic of the churches of Galatia and the New
Testament churches generally. This suggests that the occurrence of miracles is a charac-
teristic of the New Testament church and may be seen as an indication of the powerful
new work of the Holy Spirit that began with Pentecost and may be expected to continue
through the church age. 10
C. The Purposes of Miracles
One purpose of miracles is certainly to authenticate the message of the gospel. This
was evident in Jesus’ own ministry, as people like Nicodemus acknowledged: “We know
that you are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do, unless
God is with him” (John 3:2). It also was evident as the gospel was proclaimed by those
who heard Jesus, for as they preached, “God also bore witness by signs and wonders and
various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his own will”
(Heb. 2:4). Whether this purpose was valid only when the gospel was first preached
(before the New Testament was written), or whether it holds good throughout the
church age, depends on what we think the miracles are confirming: are they confirm-
ing only the absolute truthfulness of the words of Scripture (as the very words of God),
or are miracles given to confirm the truthfulness of the gospel generally, whenever it is
preached? In other words, do miracles confirm Scripture or the gospel? As we shall see
below, miracles were not limited to those who wrote Scripture or spoke with absolute
apostolic authority. 11 This suggests that miracles given in confirmation of the gospel
might be expected to continue throughout the church age.
that such miraculous gifts should be displayed in them. The
exception would be, not a church with, but a church without,
such gifts” (pp. 4-5).
Barfield continues, “Everywhere, the Apostolic Church
was marked out as itself a gift from God, by showing forth
the possession of the Spirit in appropriate works of the Spir-
it — miracles of healing and miracles of power, miracles of
knowledge whether in the form of prophecy or of the dis-
cerning of spirits, miracles of speech, whether of the gift of
tongues or of their interpretation. The Apostolic Church was
characteristically a miracle-working church” ( Counterfeit
Miracles, p. 5).
While I would agree with Warfield’s analysis of the New
Testament evidence on this question, there is certainly room
to disagree with his subsequent point, and the main conten-
tion of his book, that the church after the age of the apostles
experienced the cessation of miraculous gifts, and that we
should not expect such gifts today because God intended them
only to confirm the early apostolic message during the time
when the apostles were still alive.
10 See further discussion of this question in chapter
52 below, on spiritual gifts and the question of the time of
cessation of some gifts.
n See Section D below, pp. 361 -68.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
360
When miracles occur, they give evidence that God is truly at work and so serve to
advance the gospel: the Samaritan woman proclaimed to her village, “Come, see a man
who told me all that I ever did” (John 4:29), and many of the Samaritans believed in
Christ. This was frequently true in Jesus’ ministry, but it was also true in the early church:
when Philip went to a city in Samaria,
the multitudes with one accord gave heed to what was said by Philip, when they
heard him and saw the signs which he did. For unclean spirits came out of many
who were possessed, crying with a loud voice; and many who were paralyzed or
lame were healed. So there was much joy in that city. (Acts 8:6-8)
When Aeneas the paralytic was healed, “all the residents of Lydda and Sharon saw him,
and they turned to the Lord” (Acts 9:35). When Tabitha was raised from the dead, “it
became known throughout all Joppa, and many believed in the Lord” (Acts 9:42). 12
In the New Testament, a second purpose of miracles is to bear witness to the fact that
the kingdom of God has come and has begun to expand its beneficial results into people’s
lives, for the results of Jesus’s miracles show the characteristics of God’s kingdom: Jesus
said, “If it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has
come upon you” (Matt. 12:28). His triumph over the destructive forces of Satan showed
what God’s kingdom was like. In this way, every miracle of healing or deliverance from
demonic oppression advanced the kingdom and helped fulfill Jesus’ ministry, for he
came with the Spirit of the Lord on him “to preach good news to the poor. ... to pro-
claim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those
who are oppressed” (Luke 4:18).
Similarly, Jesus gave his disciples “power and authority over all demons and to cure
diseases, and he sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal” (Luke 9:1-2).
He commanded them, “Preach as you go, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’
Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons” (Matt. 10:7-8; cf. Matt.
4:23; 9:35; Acts 8:6-7, 13).
A third purpose of miracles is to help those who are in need. The two blind men near
Jericho cried out, “Have mercy on us,” and Jesus “in pity” healed them (Matt. 20:30, 34).
12 The verses just quoted show the positive value of
miracles in bringing people to faith. Some may object that
when we say that miracles have value in bearing witness to
the gospel this means that we think the gospel message by
itself is weak and unable to bring people to faith (see espe-
cially James M. Boice, “A Better Way: The Power of Word
and Spirit,” in Michael Scott Horton, ed., Power Religion
[Chicago: Moody, 1992], pp. 119-36). But this is not a valid
objection, for Jesus and Paul did not reason that way — both
performed miracles in conjunction with their preaching of
the gospel, and Jesus commanded his disciples to do this as
well (Matt. 10:7-8). We must remember that it is God him-
self who “bore witness” to the gospel “by signs and wonders
and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distrib-
uted according to his own will” (Heb. 2:4), and we cannot
say that he has an inappropriate view of the power of the
gospel message.
John s gospel is especially instructive in showing the value
of miracles in encouraging people to believe in Christ (see John
2:11, 23; 3:2; 4:53-54; 6:2, 14; 7:31; 9:16; 11:48; 12:11; and, in
summary, 20:30-31). This positive emphasis in John stands in
contrast to the view of D. A. Carson in “The Purpose of Signs
and Wonders in the New Testament,” in Horton, Power Reli-
gion pp. 100-101, where he admits but minimizes the positive
role of miracles in bringing people to faith in John’s gospel.
Surprisingly, he fails to discuss several of the positive passages
mentioned above and sees a depreciation of miracles in pas-
sages where no such negative evaluation exists, such as John
2:23-25; 4:48; and 20:29-31. We should not think that when
miracles accompany the gospel those who believe will have
inferior faith (as Carson suggests, p. 101), for that would lead
us to say that those who believed the preaching of Jesus, Peter,
and Paul had inferior faith — a conclusion hardly advanced by
the New Testament!
CHAPTER 17 • MIRACLES
When Jesus saw a great crowd of people, “he had compassion on them, and healed their
sick” (Matt. 14:14; see also Luke 7:13). Here miracles give evidence of the compassion of
Christ toward those in need.
A fourth purpose of miracles, related to the second, is to remove hindrances to people’s
ministries. As soon as Jesus had healed Peter’s mother-in-law, “she rose and served him”
(Matt. 8:15). When God had mercy on Epaphroditus and restored his health (whether
through miraculous means or not, Paul attributes it to God’s mercy in Phil. 2:27), Epaph-
roditus was then able to minister to Paul and complete his function as a messenger
returning to the Philippian church (Phil. 2:25-30). Although the text does not explicitly
say that Tabitha (or Dorcas) resumed her “good works and acts of charity” (Acts 9:36)
after the Lord through Peter raised her from the dead (Acts 9:40-41), by mentioning her
good works and those who bore witness to her selfless care for the needs of others (Acts
9:39), it suggests that she would resume a similar ministry of mercy when she was raised
from the dead. Related to this category would be the fact that Paul expects people to be
edified when miraculous gifts are used in the church (1 Cor. 12:7; 14:4, 12, 26).
Finally, a fifth purpose for miracles (and one to which all the others contribute) is
to bring glory to God. After Jesus healed a paralytic, the crowds “were afraid, and they
glorified God, who had given such authority to men” (Matt. 9:8). Similarly, Jesus said
that the man who had been blind from birth was blind “that the works of God might be
made manifest in him” (John 9:3).
D. Were Miracles Restricted to the Apostles?
1. An Unusual Concentration of Miracles in the Apostles’ Ministry. Some have argued
that miracles were restricted to the apostles or to the apostles and those closely con-
nected with them. Before considering their arguments, it is important to note that there
are some indications that a remarkable concentration of miracles was characteristic of
the apostles as special representatives of Christ. For example, God was pleased to allow
extraordinary miracles to be done through both Peter and Paul. In the very early days
of the church,
many signs and wonders were done among the people by the hands of the apos-
tles And more than ever believers were added to the Lord, multitudes both
of men and women, so that they even carried out the sick into the streets, and
laid them on beds and pallets, that as Peter came by at least his shadow migh t
fall on some of them. The people also gathered from the towns around Jerusa-
lem, bringing the sick and those afflicted with unclean spirits, and they were all
healed. (Acts 5:12-16)
Similarly, when Paul was in Ephesus, “God did extraordinary miracles by the hands of
Paul, so that handkerchiefs or aprons were carried away from his body to the sick, and
diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them” (Acts 19:11 -12). 13 Another
13 In neither case should these events be thought of as give such a full and remarkable empowering to the ministry
some kind of magic that came automatically through Peter’s of these men that on occasion he extended his work beyond
shadow or handkerchiefs that Paul had touched, but rather their individual bodily presence even to things that they came
as an indication of the fact that the Holy Spirit was pleased to near or touched.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
362
example is found in the raising of Tabitha: when she had died, the disciples at Joppa sent
for Peter to come and pray for her to be raised from the dead (Acts 9:36-42), apparently
because they thought that God had given an unusual concentration of miraculous power
to Peter (or to the apostles generally). And Paul’s ministry generally was characterized
by miraculous events, because he summarizes his ministry by telling the Romans of the
things that Christ had worked through him to win obedience from the Gentiles “by the
power of signs and wonders , by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 15:19).
Nevertheless, the unusual concentration of miracles in the ministries of the apos-
tles does not prove that no miracles were performed by others! As we have clearly
seen, the “working of miracles” (1 Cor. 12:10) and other miraculous gifts (1 Cor.
12:4-11 mentions several) were part of the ordinary functioning of the Corinthian
church, and Paul knows that God “works miracles” in the churches of Galatia as well
(Gal. 3:5).
2. What Are the “Signs of an Apostle” in 2 Corinthians 12:12? Why then have some
argued that miracles were uniquely the signs that distinguished an apostle? Their case
is largely based on 2 Corinthians 12:12, where Paul says, “The signs of a true apostle
were performed among you in all patience, with signs and wonders and mighty works”
(2 Cor. 12:12). 14 They say that this implies that others who were not the apostles (or
their close companions) did not have that authority or could not work these miracu-
lous signs. 15 They further maintain that the working of the miracles ceased when the
apostles and their close associates died. Therefore, they conclude, no further mira-
cles are to be expected today. (Those who hold this position are sometimes known as
“ cessationists ,” since they hold to the ceasing or “cessation” of miracles early in the history
of the church.)
In considering this question, it should be remembered that in the key passage used to
establish this point, where Paul talks about “the signs of a true apostle” in 2 Corinthians
12 : 12, he is not attempting to prove that he is an apostle in distinction from other Christians
who are not apostles. He is rather attempting to prove that he is a true representative
of Christ in distinction from others who are “false apostles” (2 Cor. 11:13), false
representatives of Christ, servants of Satan who are disguising themselves as “servants
of righteousness” (2 Cor. 11:14-15). In short, the contrast is not between apostles who
could work miracles and ordinary Christians who could not, but between genuine Chris-
tian apostles through whom the Holy Spirit worked and non-Christian pretenders to the
apostolic office , through whom the Holy Spirit did not work at all. Therefore, even if we
understand the “signs of an apostle” to be miracles, we should recognize that those who
use this passage to argue that miracles cannot be done through Christians today are
taking the phrase “signs of an apostle” out of its context and using it in a way that Paul
14 The word “true” is not actually in the Greek text, 15 See Walter J. Chantry, Signs of the Apostles, 2d ed. (Edin-
which simply says, “the signs of an apostle.” The RSV (which burgh: Banner of Truth, 1976), esp. pp. 17-21; B. B. Warfield,
is quoted here) and NASB have added “true” to give the Counterfeit Miracles; Norman Geisler, Signs and Wonders
sense: Paul is contrasting his ministry with that of the false (Wheaton: Tyndale House, 1988).
apostles.
CHAPTER 17 • MIRACLES
never intended. Paul is distinguishing himself from non- Christians, whereas they use the
passage to distinguish Paul from other Christians.
Moreover, a close examination of 2 Corinthians 12:12 shows it to be very doubtful that
the phrase signs of an apostle” in this passage means miraculous signs. In this very verse,
Paul distinguishes the “signs of a true apostle” from miracles, which he calls “signs and
wonders and mighty works,” noting that the miracles were done along with the signs of an
apostle: “The signs of a true apostle were performed among you in all patience, with signs
and wonders and mighty works” 16 The latter phrase, “with signs and wonders and mighty
works,” has a piling up of all three terms used for miracles and therefore must refer to
miracles (note “signs and wonders” in Acts 4:30; 5:12; 14:3; 15:12; Rom. 15:19; Heb. 2:4,
et al.). Therefore the former phrase, “signs of a true apostle,” must refer to something
different, something that was accompanied by (done “with”) signs and wonders.
In fact, although the word sign in Greek ( semeion ) often refers to miracles, it has a
much broader range of meaning than just miracle: semeion simply means “something
which indicates or refers to something else ” 17 In 2 Corinthians 12:12, the “signs” of an
apostle are best understood as everything that characterized Paul’s apostolic mission
and showed him to be a true apostle. 18 We need not guess at what these signs were, for
elsewhere in 2 Corinthians Paul tells what marked him as a true apostle:
1 . Spiritual power in conflict with evil (10:3-4,8-11;
13:2-4, 10)
2 . Jealous care for the welfare of the churches (11:1-6)
16 The grammar of the Greek text forces us to this distinc-
tion, since “the signs of an apostle” is in the nominative case,
while “signs and wonders and mighty works” is in the dative,
and cannot therefore be simply a restatement of “signs of an
apostle” in apposition to it: nouns in apposition in Greek must
be in the same case. (The NIV ignores the grammar here and
translates the two phrases as if they were in apposition; the RSV
and NASB are more precise.)
17 Many nonmiraculous things are called “signs.” For
example, Paul’s handwritten signature is his “sign” (2 Thess.
3:17; RSV “mark”); circumcision is a “sign” of Abraham’s
imputed righteousness (Rom. 4:11); Judas’s kiss is a “sign” to
the Jewish leaders (Matt. 26:48); the rainbow is a “sign” of the
covenant (Gen. 9:12, LXX); eating unleavened bread during
Passover every year is a “sign” of the Lord’s deliverance (Ex.
13:9, LXX); Rahab’s scarlet cord is a “sign” that the spies told
her to hang in her window (1 Clem. 12:7).
18 Among modern commentators on 2 Corinthians, I found
only three who understand the “signs of a true apostle” in 2
Cor. 12:12 to be miracles: Colin Kruse, The Second Epistle of
Paul to the Corinthians, TNTC (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press,
and Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), p. 209; Jean Hering,
The Second Epistle of Saint Paul to the Corinthians , trans. A.
W. Heathcote and P. J. Allcock (London: Epworth, 1967),
pp. 95-96; and Murray Harris, “2 Corinthians,” EBC, 10:398,
take it that way, but none of them gives any argument to
support this view, and Harris notes an alternative view where
the “signs” are the changed lives of the Corinthians and the
Christlike character of Paul.
The majority of commentators understand “signs of a
true apostle” to have a much broader meaning, including
the qualities of Paul’s life and the character and results of
his ministry: see Philip E. Hughes, Paul's Second Epistle
to the Corinthians , NIC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1962),
pp. 456-58 (following Chrysostom and Calvin); Ralph P.
Martin, II Corinthians , WBC (Waco, Tex.: Word, 1986),
pp. 434-38 (with extensive discussion); Alfred Plummer,
A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Second Epistle
of St. Paul to the Corinthians, ICC (Edinburgh: T. & T.
Clark, 1915), p. 359; R. V. G. Tasker, 2 Corinthians, TNTC
(London: Tyndale Press, 1958), p. 180; Charles Hodge,
An Exposition of 1 and 2 Corinthians (Wilmington, Del.:
Sovereign Grace, 1972 [reprint]), pp. 359-60; John Calvin,
The Second Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians. . . ,
trans. T. A. Smail, ed. by D. W. Torrance and T. F. Torrance
(Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, and Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1964), pp. 163-64; see also J. B. Lightfoot, The Epistle of St.
Paul to the Galatians (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1957),
p. 99. Some of these commentators understand the “signs of
a true apostle” as accompanied by or including miracles, but
none understand the phrase to refer primarily or exclusively
to miracles.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
364
3. True knowledge of Jesus and his gospel plan (11:6)
4. Self-support (selflessness) (11:7-11)
5. Not taking advantage of churches; not striking people
physically (11:20-21)
6. Suffering and hardship endured for Christ (11:23-29)
7. Being caught up into heaven (12:1-6)
8. Contentment and faith to endure a thorn in the flesh (12:7-9)
9. Gaining strength out of weakness (12:10).
The first item may have included miracles, but that is certainly not the primary focus of
his reference to the “signs of a true apostle.”
Another evidence that the “signs of a true apostle” in 2 Corinthians 12:12 were all
these things and not simply miracles is the fact that Paul says, “The signs of a true
apostle were performed among you in all patience” Now it would make little sense to say
that miracles were performed “in all patience,” for many miracles happen quite quickly,
but it would make much sense to say that Paul’s Christlike endurance of hardship for
the sake of the Corinthians was performed “in all patience.”
We should note that nowhere in this list does Paul claim miracles to prove his genuine
apostleship. In fact, most of the things he mentions would not distinguish him from other
true Christians. But these things do distinguish him from servants of Satan, false apostles
who are not Christians at all: their lives will not be marked by humility, but pride; not by
selflessness, but selfishness; not by generosity, but greed; not by seeking the advantage of
others, but by taking advantage of others; not by spiritual power in physical weakness,
but by confidence in their natural strength; not by enduring suffering and hardship, but
by seeking their own comfort and ease. 19 When Paul acted in a Christlike manner among
them, his actions were “signs” that his claim to be an apostle was a true claim: thus, these
things were “signs of a true apostle.” In this context, the “signs” that mark a true apostle
need not be things that showed an absolute difference between him and other Christians,
but rather things that showed his ministry to be genuine, in distinction from false minis-
tries. He is not here telling the Corinthians how to tell who an apostle was in distinction
from other Christians (he did that in 1 Cor. 9:1-2; 15:7- 11; Gal. 1:1, 11-24, mentioning
seeing the risen Christ and being commissioned by him as an apostle), but here he is tell-
ing how to recognize what a genuine, Christ-approved ministry was.
Why then does he add that all these signs of a true apostle were done among the
Corinthians “with signs and wonders and mighty works”? He is simply adding one addi-
tional factor to all the previous marks of his genuine apostleship. Miracles of course had
a significant function in confirming the truth of Paul’s message, and Paul here makes
explicit what the Corinthians may or may not have assumed to be included in the phrase
“signs of a true apostle”: in addition to all these other signs of a true apostle, his ministry
showed miraculous demonstrations of God’s power as well. 20
19 Some interpreters assume that the false apostles were 20 The following verse also gives confirmation to this inter-
working miracles and claiming revelations from God, so that pretation: Paul says, “For in what were you less favored than
Paul would have to claim greater miracles and revelations. But the rest of the churches . . . ?” (2 Cor. 12:13). The fact that they
nothing in 2 Corinthians says that the false apostles claimed were not lacking in any of Paul's care and attention would
miracles or revelations. prove to them that the “signs of a true apostle” were performed
CHAPTER 17 • MIRACLES
There is yet another very significant reason why miracles did not prove someone to
be an apostle. In the larger context of the New Testament it is clear that miracles were
worked by others than apostles, such as Stephen (Acts 6:8), Philip (Acts 8:6-7), Chris-
tians in the several churches in Galatia (Gal. 3:5), and those with gifts of “miracles” in
the body of Christ generally (1 Cor. 12:10, 28). Miracles as such cannot then be regarded
as exclusively signs of an apostle. In fact, “workers of miracles” and “healers” are actu-
ally distinguished from “apostles” in 1 Corinthians 12:28: “And God has appointed in
the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, then
healers ”
Similar evidence is seen in Mark 16:17— 18: Though there are serious questions about
the authenticity of this passage as part of Mark’s gospel, 21 the text is nonetheless very
early 22 and at least bears witness to one strand of tradition within the early church. This
text reports Jesus as saying.
And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast
out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents, and if
they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on
the sick, and they will recover.
Here also the power to work miracles is assumed to be the common possession of Chris-
tians. Those who wrote and passed on this early tradition, and who thought it repre-
sented the genuine teaching of Jesus, were certainly not aware of any idea that miracles
were to be limited to the apostles and their close associates. 23
The argument that many other Christians in the New Testament worked miracles is
sometimes answered by the claim that it was only the apostles and those closely associated
with them or those on whom the apostles laid their hands who could work miracles. 24
However, this really proves very little because the story of the New Testament church is
the story of what was done through the apostles and those closely associated with them.
A similar argument might be made about evangelism or the founding of churches: “In
the New Testament, churches were only founded by the apostles or their close associates;
therefore, we should not found churches today.” Or, “In the New Testament, missionary
work in other countries was only done by the apostles or their close associates; therefore,
we should not do missionary work in other countries today.” These analogies show the
inadequacy of the argument: the New Testament primarily shows how the church should
seek to act, not how it should not seek to act.
But if many other Christians throughout the first-century church were working
miracles by the power of the Holy Spirit, then the power to work miracles could not be
a sign to distinguish the apostles from other Christians.
among them only if these “signs” included all of Paul’s min-
istry to them, but not if the “signs of a true apostle” were just
miracles.
21 The manuscript evidence and considerations of style sug-
gest that these verses were not originally part of the gospel that
Mark wrote. (See discussion of textual variants on p. 96.)
22 It is included in several manuscripts of Tatian’s Diates-
saron (A.D. 170) and is quoted by Irenaeus (d. A.D. 202) and
Tertullian (d. A.D. 220).
23 I am grateful to Professor Harold Hoehner of Dallas
Theological Seminary for suggesting to me the arguments
given here regarding 1 Cor. 12:28 and Mark 16:17-18 (though
he may disagree with my conclusion in this section).
24 So Chantry, Signs , pp. 19-21.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
366
3. Norman Geisler’s Restrictive Definition of Miracles. A more recent attempt to
deny that miracles occur today has been made by Norman Geisler. 25 Geisler has a
much more restrictive definition of miracle than that presented in this chapter, and
he uses that definition to argue against the possibility of contemporary miracles.
Geisler says that “miracles (1) are always successful, (2) are immediate, (3) have no
relapses, and (4) give confirmation of Gods messenger” (pp. 28-30). He finds sup-
port for this thesis largely in the ministry of Jesus, but when he passes beyond the life
of Jesus and attempts to show that others who had the power to work miracles were
never unsuccessful, his thesis is much less convincing. With regard to the demon-
possessed boy whom the disciples could not set free from the demon (Matt. 17:14-21),
Geisler says that “the disciples simply forgot for the moment to faithfully exercise the
power that Jesus had already given them” (p. 150). But this is an unpersuasive argu-
ment: Geisler says that the power to work miracles was always successful, and when
the Bible talks about some who were unsuccessful (and who contradict his thesis)
he simply says they “forgot.” Jesus, however, gives a different reason than Geisler:
“Because of your little faith” (Matt. 17:20). Lesser faith resulted in lesser power to
work miracles.
With regard to Paul’s failure to heal Epaphroditus (Phil. 2:27), Geisler is forced
to make the dubious claim that perhaps Paul never attempted to heal Epaphroditus
(though he had come to him in prison and was so ill he almost died), or that “Paul no
longer possessed the gift of healing at this time” (p. 150). He employs the same claim to
explain the fact that Paul left Trophimus ill at Miletus (2 Tim. 4:20). In these instances
Geisler goes well beyond the usual cessationist claim that miracles ended with the death
of the apostles — he is claiming that miracles ceased in the life of the greatest apostle
before his first Roman imprisonment. That is simply an unconvincing argument with
respect to the apostle whose ministry was repeatedly characterized “by the power of
signs and wonders, by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 15:19), and who could say
with triumph in his last epistle, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I
have kept the faith” (2 Tim. 4:7).
Geisler’s description of miracles does not fit the case of the blind man upon whom
Jesus laid his hands, for at first the man did not see clearly but said he saw men who
“look like trees, walking.” After Jesus laid his hands on him a second time, the man “saw
everything clearly” (Mark 8:24-25). Geisler responds that it was Jesus’ intention to heal
in two stages, to teach the disciples by using an object lesson about the gradual growth of
their spiritual lives (pp. 1 53 - 54) . Though the text says nothing to this effect, it may have
been true, but even so it disproves Geisler’s thesis, for if it was Jesus’ intention to heal in
two stages then, it may also be his intention to heal people in two stages today — or in
three or four or more stages. Once Geisler admits that it may be God’s intention to work
a miracle in stages, in order to accomplish his own purposes, then his entire claim that
miracles must be immediate and complete is lost. 26
25 Norman Geisler, Signs and Wonders . His definition of leave) and Mark 6:5 (where the text says that Jesus was notable
miracles is found on pp. 28-32 and 149-55. to do any miracles in Nazareth because of the unbelief of the
26 Geisler also has much difficulty explaining Mark 5:8 people there) (see pp. 149, 152).
(where Jesus more than once commanded some demons to
CHAPTER 17 • MIRACLES
Instead of accepting Geisler’s definition, it seems better to conclude that even those
whom God gifts with the ability to perform miracles may not be able to perform them
whenever they wish, for the Holy Spirit continually is distributing them to each person
“as he wills” (1 Cor. 12:11; the word distributes is a present participle in Greek, indicating
a continuing activity of the Holy Spirit) . Moreover, there seems no reason to exclude (as
Geisler apparently wants to do) unusual or remarkable answers to prayer from the cat-
egory of “miracle,” thus making the definition extremely restrictive. If God answers per-
sistent prayer, for instance, for a physical healing for which there is no known medical
explanation, and does so only after several months or years of prayer, yet does so in such
a way that it seems quite clearly to be in response to prayer so that people are amazed and
glorify God, there seems no reason to deny that a miracle has occurred simply because
the earlier prayers were not answered immediately. Finally, Geisler fails to recognize
that several New Testament texts indicate that spiritual gifts, whether miraculous or
nonmiraculous in nature, may vary in strength or degree of intensity. 27
4. Hebrews 2:3-4. Another passage that is sometimes used to support the idea that
miracles were limited to the apostles and their close associates is Hebrews 2:3-4. There
the author says that the message of salvation “was declared at first by the Lord, and it
was attested to us by those who heard him, while God also bore witness 28 by signs and
wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to
his own will.”
Since the miracles here are said to come through those who heard the Lord firsthand
( ‘those who heard him”), it is argued that we should not expect them to be done through
others who were not firsthand witnesses to the Lord’s teaching and ministry. 29
But this argument also attempts to draw more from the passage than is there. First,
the phrase those who heard him” (Heb. 2:3) is certainly not limited to the apostles,
for many others heard Jesus as well. But more importantly, this position is claiming
something that the text simply does not say: the fact that (1) the gospel message was
confirmed by miracles when it was preached by those who heard Jesus says nothing at all
about (2) whether it would be confirmed by miracles when preached by others who did
not hear Jesus. Finally, this passage says the message was confirmed not only by “signs
and wonders and various miracles” but also by “gifts of the Holy Spirit.” If someone
argues that this passage limits miracles to the apostles and their companions, then he or
she must also argue that gifts of the Holy Spirit are likewise limited to the first-century
church. But few would argue that there are no gifts of the Holy Spirit today. 30
27 See discussion in chapter 52, pp. 1022-25, below.
28 The KJV translates, “God also bearing them witness,
both with signs and wonders. . . This translation suggests
that the miracles bore witness to the people who heard Jesus
and first preached. But the word “them” is represented by no
word in the Greek text, and this translation is not followed by
modern versions.
29 So Chantry, Signs of the Apostles, pp. 18-19: “New Testa-
ment miracles are viewed in Scripture itself as God’s stamp
of approval upon the message of the apostles, which was an
inspired record of the things they had seen and heard while
with Jesus. Recalling these wonders should deepen our respect
for the authority of their words and prompt us to give the more
careful heed.”
30 Another argument limiting miracles to the first century
is based on the claim that some miracles, such as the gift of
prophecy, always give new Scripture-quality revelation. That
argument is considered in detail in chapters 52-53 below,
pp. 1039-42, 1049-61.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
368
5. Conclusion: Were Miracles Restricted to the Apostles? If ministry in the power and
glory of the Holy Spirit is characteristic of the new covenant age (2 Cor. 3:1-4:18), then
our expectation would be just the opposite: we would expect that second and third and
fourth generation Christians, who also know Christ and the power of his resurrection
(Phil. 3:10), who are continually being filled with the Holy Spirit (Eph. 5:17), who are
participants in a war that is not a worldly war, but one that is carried on with weapons
that have divine power to destroy strongholds (2 Cor. 10:3-4), who have not been given
a spirit of timidity but a “spirit of power and love and self-control” (2 Tim. 1:7), who
are strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might, and who have put on the whole
armor of God in order to be able to stand against principalities and powers and spiritual
hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places (Eph. 6:10-12), would also have the ability to
minister the gospel not only in truth and love but also with accompanying miraculous
demonstrations of God’s power. It is difficult to see, from the pages of the New Testa-
ment, any reason why only the preaching of the apostles should come “not in plausible
words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might
not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God” (1 Cor. 2:4-5).
Though there does seem to have been an unusual concentration of miraculous power
in the ministry of the apostles, this is not a reason for thinking that there would be few
or no miracles following their deaths. Rather, the apostles were the leaders in a new cov-
enant church whose life and message were characterized by the power of the Holy Spirit
at work in miraculous ways. Furthermore, they set a pattern that the church through-
out its history may well seek to imitate in its own life, insofar as God the Holy Spirit is
pleased to work miracles for the edification of the church. 31
E. False Miracles
Pharaoh’s magicians were able to work some false miracles (Ex. 7:11, 22; 8:7), though
they soon had to admit that God’s power was greater (Ex. 8:19). Simon the sorcerer in the
city of Samaria amazed people with his magic (Acts 8:9-11), even though the miracles
done through Philip were much greater (Acts 8:13). In Philippi Paul encountered a slave
girl “who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners much gain by soothsaying”
(Acts 16:16), but Paul rebuked the spirit and it came out of her (Acts 16:18). Moreover,
Paul says that when the man of sin comes it “will be with all power and with pretended
signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are to perish” (2 Thess.
2:9-10), but those who follow them and are deceived do so “because they refused to love
the truth and so be saved” (2 Thess. 2:10). This indicates that those who work false mira-
cles in the end times by the power of Satan will not speak the truth but will preach a false
gospel. Finally, Revelation 13 indicates that a second beast will rise “out of the earth,”
one that has “all the authority of the first beast” and “works great signs, even making fire
31 However, Christians should be very cautious and take great enough to work however he wills, and we should never
extreme care to be accurate in their reporting of miracles if they “embellish” the actual facts of the situation simply to make it
do occur. Much harm can be done to the gospel if Christians sound even more exciting than it actually was. God does exactly
exaggerate or distort, even in small ways, the facts of a situation what he is pleased to do in each situation,
where a miracle has occurred. The power of the Holy Spirit is
CHAPTER 17 • MIRACLES
come down from heaven to earth in the sight of men; and by the signs which it is allowed
to work in the presence of the beast, it deceives those who dwell on earth” (Rev. 13: 1 1 - 14) .
But once again a false gospel accompanies these miracles: this power is exercised in con-
nection with the first beast who utters “haughty and blasphemous words ... it opened
its mouth to utter blasphemies against God, blaspheming his name and his dwelling”
(Rev. 13:5-6).
Two conclusions become clear from this brief survey of false miracles in Scripture: (1)
The power of God is greater than the power of Satan to work miraculous signs, and God’s
people triumph in confrontations of power with those who work evil. In connection
with this, John assures believers that “he who is in you is greater than he who is in the
world” (1 John 4:4). 32 (2) The identity of these workers of false miracles is always known
through their denial of the gospel. There is no indication anywhere in Scripture that genuine
Christians with the Holy Spirit in them will work false miracles. In fact, in a city filled with
idolatry and demon worship (see 1 Cor. 10:20), Paul could say to the Corinthian believ-
ers, many of whom had come out of that kind of pagan background, that “no one can
say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:3). Here he gives them reassur-
ance that those who make a genuine profession of faith in Jesus as Lord do in fact have
the Holy Spirit in them. It is significant that he immediately goes on to a discussion of
spiritual gifts possessed by “each” true believer (1 Cor. 12:7).
This should reassure us that if we see miracles being worked by those who make a
genuine profession of faith (1 Cor. 12:3), who believe in the incarnation and deity of
Christ (1 John 4:2), and who show the fruit of the Holy Spirit in their lives and bear
fruit in their ministry (Matt. 7:20; cf. John 15:5; Gal. 5:22-23), we should not be suspi-
cious that they are false miracles but should be thankful to God that the Holy Spirit is
working, even in those who may not hold exactly the same convictions that we do on
every point of doctrine. 33 Indeed, if God waited to work miracles only through those
who were perfect in both doctrine and conduct of life, no miracles would be worked
until Christ returns.
F. Should Christians Seek Miracles Today?
It is one thing to say that miracles might occur today. It is quite another thing to ask
God for miracles. Is it right then for Christians to ask God to perform miracles?
The answer depends on the purpose for which miracles are sought. Certainly it is
“Some may object that one exception to this may be the
vision of the end times in Rev. 13:7, where the beast “was allowed
to make war on the saints and to conquer them” (Rev. 13:7).
But even here there is no indication that the miraculous powers
of the beast are greater than the power of the Holy Spirit. This
seems to be best understood not as a confrontation of miracu-
lous power but simply as a persecution by military force, for we
read later of “those who had been beheaded for their testimony
to Jesus and for the word of God, and who had not worshiped
the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their
foreheads or their hands” (Rev. 20:4).
33 The fact that people who name the name of Christ are able
to prophesy and cast out demons and do “many mighty works”
in his name (Matt. 7:21-23) does not contradict this, because
these are non- Christians: Jesus says to them, “I never knew
you; depart from me, you evildoers” (Matt. 7:23). Although
it is possible that these are false miracles worked by demonic
power, it seems more likely that they are operations of common
grace (see chapter 31) that God worked through non-Christians,
similar to the effectiveness of the gospel that God sometimes
allows when it is preached by those who have impure motives
and do not know Christ in their hearts (cf. Phil. 1:15-18).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
370
wrong to seek miraculous power to advance one’s own power or fame, as Simon the
magician did: Peter said to him, “your heart is not right before God. Repent therefore of
this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord that, if possible, the intent of your heart
may be forgiven you” (Acts 8:21-22).
It is also wrong to seek miracles simply to be entertained, as Herod did: “When Herod
saw Jesus, he was very glad, for he had long desired to see him, because he had heard
about him, and he was hoping to see some sign done by him” (Luke 23:8). But Jesus
would not even answer Herod’s questions.
It is also wrong for skeptical unbelievers to seek miracles simply to find ground to
criticize those who preach the gospel:
And the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and to test him they asked him to show
them a sign from heaven. He answered them, “. . . An evil and adulterous gen-
eration seeks for a sign, but no sign shall be given to it except the sign of Jonah.”
(Matt. 16:1-4)
This rebuke against seeking signs is repeated elsewhere in the Gospels, but it is impor-
tant to note that rebukes against seeking signs are always directed against hostile un-
believers who are seeking a miracle only as an opportunity to criticize Jesus. 34 Never
does Jesus rebuke anyone who comes in faith, or in need, seeking healing or deliverance
or any other kind of miracle, whether for himself or herself, or for others.
What shall we say then about 1 Corinthians 1:22-24, where Paul says, “For Jews
demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling
block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks,
Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God”? Does Paul mean that he did not work
miracles (“signs”) at Corinth, or perhaps in his evangelistic work generally?
Here Paul cannot be denying that he performed miracles in connection with the
proclamation of the gospel. In fact, in Romans 15:18-19, a passage he wrote while in
Corinth, he said,
For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has wrought
through me to win obedience from the Gentiles, by word and deed, by the
power of signs and wonders , by the power of the Holy Spirit, so that from Jeru-
salem and as far round as Illyricum I have fully preached the gospel of Christ.
And 2 Corinthians 12:12 affirms clearly that Paul did work “signs and wonders and
mighty works” among them.
34 The fact that Jesus only rebukes hostile unbelievers who
seek miracles is surprisingly never mentioned by D. A. Carson,
“The Purpose of Signs and Wonders in the New Testament,”
in M. Horton, ed., Power Religion, pp. 89-118, or by James M.
Boice, “A Better Way: The Power of Word and Spirit,” in Power
Religion, pp. 119-36. Both articles use Jesus’ rebukes as a means
of discouraging believers from seeking miracles today, but to do
this they must apply Jesus’ statements in a way not justified by
the New Testament contexts. (See esp. Boice, p. 126, who quotes
with approval a statement from John Woodhouse, “A desire for
further signs and wonders is sinful and unbelieving.”)
The explicit statement of intent “to test him” is also found
in Mark 8:11 and Luke 11:16, parallel contexts where Jesus
rebukes an evil generation for seeking a sign from him. The
only other context where this rebuke occurs, Matt. 12:38-42,
does not include an explicit statement of the intent to test,
but Jesus is clearly responding to the “scribes and Pharisees”
(v. 38), and the incident follows just after Matt. 12:14, where
the Pharisees “went out and took counsel against him, how to
destroy him,” and Matt. 12:24, where the Pharisees say, “It is
only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this man casts
out demons.”
CHAPTER 17 * MIRACLES
So 1 Corinthians 1:22—24 cannot mean that Paul was denying the validity of wisdom
or the validity of signs, for through Christ he worked signs and he taught wisdom. Rather,
here he is saying that signs and wisdom do not themselves save people, but the gospel
saves people. Signs and the wisdom that Jews and Greeks were seeking were not the signs
and wisdom of Christ but simply signs to entertain or to fuel their hostility and skepti-
cism and wisdom that was the wisdom of the world rather than the wisdom of God.
There is nothing inappropriate in seeking miracles for the proper purposes for which
they are given by God: to confirm the truthfulness of the gospel message, to bring help
to those in need, to remove hindrances to people’s ministries, and to bring glory to God
(see Section C above). In the Gospels many people came to Jesus seeking miracles, and he
healed them for these purposes. Moreover, when he sent his disciples out preaching that the
kingdom of heaven was at hand, he told them, “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers,
cast out demons” (Matt. 10:7-8). How could they do this without seeking God for miracles
everywhere they went? Jesus’ command required them to seek for miracles to happen.
After Pentecost, the early church prayed both for boldness to preach the gospel and for
God to grant miracles to accompany its preaching. They cried out to God,
And now, Lord, look upon their threats, and grant to your servants to speak your
word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal , and signs and won-
ders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus. (Acts 4:29-30)
Far from teaching that we should not ask God for miracles, this example of the early
church gives us some encouragement to do so. Similarly, the disciples in Lydda sent for
Peter to come and pray for Tabitha after she had died, thereby seeking a miraculous inter-
vention by God (Acts 9:38). And James directs that the elders of the church should pray
and seek healing for those who are ill (James 5:14). Of course, we should not assume that
an obviously miraculous answer to prayer is somehow better than one that comes through
ordinary means (such as medical help for sickness), and we must also realize that asking
God for a particular need does not guarantee that the prayer will be answered. On the
other hand, our faith that God will work in powerful and even miraculous ways may be
far too small. We must beware of being infected by a secular worldview that assumes that
God will answer prayer only very seldom, if ever. And we should certainly not be embar-
rassed to talk about miracles if they occur — or think that a nonmiraculous answer to
prayer is better! Miracles are God’s work, and he works them to bring glory to himself
and to strengthen our faith. When we encounter serious needs in people’s lives today, it
is right for us to seek God for an answer, and where miraculous intervention seems to be
needed, then to ask God if he would be pleased to work in that way. 35 This would seem to
be especially appropriate when our motivation is a Christlike compassion for those in need
and a burning desire to see Christ’s kingdom advance and his name glorified.
35 John Walvoord, the former President of Dallas Theologi-
cal Seminary, understands the gift of miracles to be “the power
to perform miracles at will in the name of Christ ” Therefore he
holds that the gift of miracles has ceased. But he still argues that
we can pray for miracles today: “A Christian can still appeal to
God to do wonders, and God does answer prayer. God can still
heal and even raise the dead if he chooses, but these miracles
are sovereign and individual While therefore the gift of
miracles is not part of the present program of God, the power
of God to perform miracles must be affirmed” ( The Holy Spirit
[Wheaton, 111.: Van Kampen, 1954], pp. 179-80).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
372
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. When you first came to faith in Christ, did the stories of miracles in the Bible have
any influence (negative or positive) on your believing the message of Scripture?
2. Before reading this chapter, have you thought of the church at the time of the New
Testament as a church with frequent miracles? Have you thought of the contem-
porary church as one with frequent miracles? After reading this chapter, how has
your position changed, if at all?
3. If you think that miracles should be characteristic of the church until Christ
returns, then why have we not seen very many miracles at many points in the his-
tory of the church, and why do we not see many miracles in large sections of the
Christian church today?
4. If you hold a “cessationist” position, what kinds of unusual answers to prayer might
you still think possible today? (For example, prayer for physical healing, for deliv-
erance from danger, victory over demonic attack through prayer and/or verbal
rebuke of an evil spirit, or sudden and unusual insight into a passage of Scripture
or a situation in someone’s life.) How would you distinguish these things that you
might think possible today from “miracles” according to the definition given in this
chapter? (You may wish to argue for a different definition of “miracle” as well.)
5. Do miracles have to be large and “remarkable” (such as raising the dead or heal-
ing a man blind from birth) to accomplish useful purposes in the church today?
What kinds of “small-scale” miracles might also accomplish some of the purposes
for miracles listed in this chapter? Have you known of any answers to prayer in
your own church (or your own life) that you would characterize as “miraculous”
according to the definition given at the beginning of the chapter?
6. Would you like to see more miraculous power of the Holy Spirit (or more unusual
answers to prayer) at work in your own church today, or not? If more miracles did
occur, what might be the dangers? What might be the benefits?
SPECIAL TERMS
cessationist
mighty work
miracle
natural law
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter 1,
pp. 38-39. Complete bibliographical data maybe found on pp. 1224-30.)
sign
“signs of a true apostle”
wonder
CHAPTER 17- MIRACLES
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1882 -92 Litton (no explicit treatment)
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1875-76 Pope, 1:63-76
1940 Wiley, 1:149, 150, 153, 154
1983- Cottrell, 2:229-604
3. Baptist
1907 Strong, 117-33
1917 Mullins, 172, 193
1983 - 85 Erickson, 406- 10
1987-94 Lewis/Demarest, 1:100-109, 115-18
4. Dispensational
1947 Chafer, 7:239
1949 Thiessen, 11-13
1986 Ryrie, 350-51, 372-73
5. Lutheran
1917-24 Pieper, 1:459-60
1934 Mueller, 174
6. Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1559 Calvin, 1:14-18, 85-88; 2:1453-1455, 1465 -67 (PA, 3;
1.8.5-8; 4.19.6, 18)
1861 Heppe, 263-65
1871-73 Hodge, 1:617-36
1887-1921 Warfield, SSW, 2:167-206
1889 Shedd, 1:533-46
1937-66 Murray, CW, 3:210-14
1938 Berkhof, 176-78
1962 Buswell, 1:176-83
7. Renewal (or charismatic/Pentecostal)
1988-92 Williams, 1:141-68
373
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
1. Roman Catholic: Traditional
1955 Ott (no explicit treatment)
2. Roman Catholic: Post-Vatican II
1980 McBrien, 1:325-28
Other Works
Berkouwer, G. C. “Providence and Miracles.” In The Providence of God. Trans, by Lewis
B. Smedes. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1952, pp. 188-231.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
374
Boice, James Montgomery. “A Better Way: The Power of Word and Spirit” In Power Reli-
gion: The Selling Out of the Evangelical Church? Michael Scott Horton, ed. Chicago:
Moody Press, 1992.
Bridge, Donald. Signs and Wonders Today. Leicester: Inter- Varsity Press, 1985.
Brown, Colin. “Miracle.” In NDT, pp. 433-34.
. That You May Believe: Miracles and Faith — Then and Now. Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1985.
Carson, D. A. “The Purpose of Signs and Wonders in the New Testament,” In Power
Religion: The Selling Out of the Evangelical Church? Michael Scott Horton, ed.
Chicago: Moody Press, 1992.
Deere, Jack. Surprised by the Power of the Spirit: A Former Dallas Seminary Professor
Discovers That God Still Speaks and Heals Today. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1993.
Geisler, Norman. Signs and Wonders. Wheaton: Tyndale, 1988.
. Miracles and Modern Thought With a response by R. C. Sproul. Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, and Dallas: Probe Ministries, 1982.
Greig, Gary S., and Kevin N. Springer, eds. The Kingdom and the Power. Ventura, Calif.:
Regal, 1993.
Gross, Edward N. Miracles , Demons , and Spiritual Warfare: An Urgent Call for Discernment.
Grand Rapids: Baker, 1990.
Grudem, Wayne. Power and Truth: A Response to the Critiques of Vineyard Teaching and
Practice by D. A. Carson, James Montgomery Boice, and John H. Armstrong in “ Power
Religion” Anaheim, Calif.: Association of Vineyard Churches, 1993.
. “Should Christians Expect Miracles Today? Objections and Answers From the
Bible.” In The Kingdom and the Power. Gary Greig and Kevin Springer, eds. Ventura,
Calif.: Regal, 1993, pp. 55- 1 10.
Horton, Michael S., ed. Power Religion: The Selling Out of the Evangelical Church? Chicago:
Moody, 1992.
Kirk, J. A. “Power.” In NDT, pp. 524-25.
Lewis, C. S. Miracles: A Preliminary Study. New York: Macmillan, 1947.
Moule, C. F. D., ed. Miracles. London: Mowbray, 1965.
Spiceland, J. D. “Miracles.” In EDT, pp. 723-24.
Wenham, David, and Craig Blomberg, eds. Miracles of Jesus. Sheffield, England: JSOT,
1986.
Williams, Don. Signs, Wonders, and the Kingdom of God: A Biblical Guide for the Skeptic .
Ann Arbor, Mich.: Servant, 1989.
Wimber, John, with Kevin Springer. Power Evangelism . Revised edition. San Francisco:
Harper and Row, and London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1992.
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
Hebrews 2:3-4: How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared
at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard him, while God also bore
witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed
according to his own will.
CHAPTER 17 * MIRACLES
375
HYMN
“A Mighty Fortress Is Our God”
A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing;
Our helper he amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing.
For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe;
His craft and pow’r are great; and, armed with cruel hate,
On earth is not his equal.
Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing;
Were not the right man on our side, the man of God’s own choosing.
Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is he,
Lord Sabaoth his name, from age to age the same,
And he must win the battle.
And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear, for God hath willed his truth to triumph through us.
The prince of darkness grim, we tremble not for him;
His rage we can endure, for lo! his doom is sure;
One little word shall fell him.
That word above all earthly powers, no thanks to them, abideth;
The Spirit and the gifts are ours through him who with us sideth;
Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also;
The body they may kill: Gods truth abideth still;
His kingdom is forever.
AUTHOR: MARTIN LUTHER, 1529
Chapter 18
PRAYER
Why does God want us to pray ?
How can we pray effectively?
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
The character of God and his relationship to the world, as discussed in the previous
chapters, lead naturally to a consideration of the doctrine of prayer. Prayer may be
defined as follows: Prayer is personal communication with God .
This definition is very broad. What we call “prayer” includes prayers of request for
ourselves or for others (sometimes called prayers of petition or intercession), confes-
sion of sin, adoration, praise and thanksgiving, and also God communicating to us
indications of his response.
A. Why Does God Want Us to Pray?
Prayer is not made so that God can find out what we need, because Jesus tells us,
“Your Father knows what you need before you ask him” (Matt. 6:8). God wants us to
pray because prayer expresses our trust in God and is a means whereby our trust in him
can increase. In fact, perhaps the primary emphasis of the Bible’s teaching on prayer is
that we are to pray with faith, which means trust or dependence on God. God as our
Creator delights in being trusted by us as his creatures, for an attitude of dependence is
most appropriate to the Creator/creature relationship. Praying in humble dependence
also indicates that we are genuinely convinced of God’s wisdom, love, goodness, and
power — indeed of all of the attributes that make up his excellent character. When we
truly pray, we as persons, in the wholeness of our character, are relating to God as a per-
son, in the wholeness of his character. Thus, all that we think or feel about God comes
to expression in our prayer. It is only natural that God would delight in such activity and
place much emphasis on it in his relationship with us.
The first words of the Lord’s Prayer, “Our Father who art in heaven” (Matt. 6:9),
acknowledge our dependence on God as a loving and wise Father and also recognize that
376
CHAPTER 18- PRAYER
he rules over all from his heavenly throne. Scripture many times emphasizes our need to
trust God as we pray. For example, Jesus compares our praying to a son asking his father
for a fish or an egg (Luke 11:9— 12) and then concludes, “If you then, who are evil, know
how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give
the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:13). As children look to their fathers to
provide for them, so God expects us to look to him in prayer. Since God is our Father,
we should ask in faith. Jesus says, “Whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you
have faith” (Matt. 21:22; cf. Mark 11:24; James 1:6—8; 5:14—15).
But God does not only want us to trust him. He also wants us to love him and have
fellowship with him. This, then, is a second reason why God wants us to pray: Prayer
brings us into deeper fellowship with God, and he loves us and delights in our fellow-
ship with him.
A third reason God wants us to pray is that in prayer God allows us as creatures to be
involved in activities that are eternally important. When we pray, the work of the king-
dom is advanced. In this way, prayer gives us opportunity to be involved in a significant
way in the work of the kingdom and thus gives expression to our greatness as creatures
made in God’s image.
B. The Effectiveness of Prayer
How exactly does prayer work? Does prayer not only do us good but also affect God
and the world?
1. Prayer Changes the Way God Acts. James tells us, “You do not have, because you
do not ask” (James 4:2). He implies that failure to ask deprives us of what God would
otherwise have given to us. We pray, and God responds. Jesus also says, “Ask, and it will
be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For every one
who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened”
(Luke 11:9—10). He makes a clear connection between seeking things from God and
receiving them. When we ask, God responds.
We see this happening many times in the Old Testament. The Lord declared to
Moses that he would destroy the people of Israel for their sin (Ex. 32:9-10): “But Moses
besought the Lord his God, and said, ‘O Lord. . . . Turn from your fierce wrath, and
repent of this evil against your people’ ” (Ex. 32:11-12). Then we read, “And the Lord
repented of the evil which he thought to do to his people” (Ex. 32 : 14) . When God threat-
ens to punish his people for their sins he declares, “If my people who are called by my
name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways,
then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land” (2 Chron.
7:14). If and when God’s people pray (with humility and repentance), then he will hear
and forgive them. The prayers of his people clearly affect how God acts. Similarly, “If we
confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all
unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). We confess, and then he forgives. 1
'Other examples of God answering prayer in Scripture are
too numerous to comment on (Gen. 18:22-33; 32:26; Dan.
10:12; Amos 7:1-6; Acts 4:29-31; 10:31; 12:5-11, etal.).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
378
If we were really convinced that prayer changes the way God acts, and that God does
bring about remarkable changes in the world in response to prayer, as Scripture repeatedly
teaches that he does, then we would pray much more than we do. If we pray little, it is
probably because we do not really believe that prayer accomplishes much at all.
2. Effective Prayer Is Made Possible by Our Mediator, Jesus Christ. Because we are
sinful and God is holy, we have no right on our own to enter into his presence. We need
a mediator to come between us and God and to bring us into God’s presence. Scripture
clearly teaches, “There is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the
man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5).
But if Jesus is the only mediator between God and man, will God hear the prayers of
those who do not trust in Jesus? The answer depends on what we mean by “hear.” Since
God is omniscient, he always “hears” in the sense that he is aware of the prayers made by
unbelievers who do not come to him through Christ. God may even, from time to time,
answer their prayers out of his mercy and in a desire to bring them to salvation through
Christ. However, God has nowhere promised to respond to the prayers of unbelievers.
The only prayers that he has promised to “hear” in the sense of listening with a sympa-
thetic ear and undertaking to answer when they are made according to his will, are the
prayers of Christians offered through the one mediator, Jesus Christ (cf. John 14:6).
Then what about believers in the Old Testament? How could they come to God
through Jesus the mediator? The answer is that the work of Jesus as our mediator was
foreshadowed by the sacrificial system and the offerings made by the priests in the tem-
ple (Heb. 7:23-28; 8:1-6; 9:1-14, et al.). There was no saving merit inherent in that
system of sacrifices (Heb. 10:1-4), however. Through the sacrificial system believers
were accepted by God only on the basis of the future work of Christ foreshadowed by
that system (Rom. 3:23-26).
Jesus’ activity as a mediator is especially seen in his work as a priest: he is our “great
high priest who has passed through the heavens,” one who “in every respect has been
tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:14- 15).
As recipients of the new covenant, we do not need to stay “outside the temple,” as all
believers except the priests were required to do under the old covenant. Nor do we need
to stay outside of the “Holy of Holies” (Heb. 9:3), the inner room of the temple where
God himself was enthroned above the ark of the covenant and where only the high priest
could go, and he but once a year. But now, since Christ has died as our mediational
High Priest (Heb. 7:26-27), he has gained for us boldness and access to the very pres-
ence of God. Therefore “we have confidence to enter into the holy places by the blood of
Jesus” (Heb. 10:19, author’s literal translation), that is, into the holy place and into the
holy of holies, the very presence of God himself! We enter “by the new and living way”
(Heb. 10:20) that Christ opened for us. The author of Hebrews concludes that since these
things are true, “and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near
with a true heart in full assurance of faith” (Heb. 10:22). In this way, Christ’s media-
tional work gives us confidence to approach God in prayer.
We do not just come into God’s presence as strangers, or as visitors, or as laypersons,
but as priests — as people who belong in the temple and have a right and even a duty to
CHAPTER 18* PRAYER
be in the most sacred places in the temple. Using imagery from the ceremony for ordina-
tion of priests (see Ex. 29:4, 21), the author of Hebrews pictures all believers as having
been ordained as priests to God and thus able to enter into his presence, for he says that
we draw near “with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bod-
ies washed with pure water” (Heb. 10:22; cf. 1 Peter 2:9). Does all this make sense to a
modern Christian? No one today goes to Jerusalem to enter the temple and there “draw
near” to God. Even if we did go to Jerusalem, we would find no temple standing, since it
was destroyed in A.D. 70. What then does the author of Hebrews mean when he says we
enter into the “holy places”? He is talking about a reality in the unseen spiritual realm:
With Christ as our Mediator we enter not into the earthly temple in Jerusalem, but into
the true sanctuary, into “heaven itself,” where Christ has gone “to appear in the presence
of God on our behalf” (Heb. 9:24).
3. What Is Praying “in Jesus’ Name”? Jesus says, “Whatever you ask in my name , I will
do it, that the Father may be glorified in the Son; if you ask anything in my name, I will
do it” (John 14: 13 - 14). He also says that he chose his disciples “so that whatever you ask
the Father in my name, , he may give it to you” (John 15:16). Similarly, he says, “Truly,
truly, I say to you, if you ask anything of the Father, he will give it to you in my name.
Hitherto you have asked nothing in my name; ask, and you will receive, that your joy
may be full” (John 16:23-24; cf. Eph. 5:20). But what does this mean?
Clearly it does not simply mean adding the phrase “in Jesus’ name” after every prayer,
because Jesus did not say, “If you ask anything and add the words ‘in Jesus’ name’ after
your prayer, I will do it.” Jesus is not merely speaking about adding certain words as if
these were a kind of magical formula that would give power to our prayers. In fact, none
of the prayers recorded in Scripture have the phrase “in Jesus’ name” at the end of them
(see Matt. 6:9-13; Acts 1:24-25; 4:24-30; 2 7:59; 9:13-14; 10:14; Rev. 6:10; 22:20).
To come in the name of someone means that another person has authorized us to
come on his authority, not on our own. When Peter commands the lame man, “in the
name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk” (Acts 3:6), he is speaking on the authority of
Jesus, not on his own authority. When the Sanhedrin asks the disciples, “By what power
or by what name did you do this?” (Acts 4:7), they are asking, “By whose authority did
you do this?” When Paul rebukes an unclean spirit “in the name of Jesus Christ” (Acts
16:18), he makes it clear that he is doing so on Jesus’ authority, not his own. When Paul
pronounces judgment “in the name of the Lord Jesus” (1 Cor. 5:4) on a church member
who is guilty of immorality, he is acting with the authority of the Lord Jesus. Praying in
Jesus' name is therefore prayer made on his authorization.
In a broader sense the “name” of a person in the ancient world represented the person
himself and therefore all of his character. To have a “good name” (Prov. 22:1; Eccl. 7:1)
was to have a good reputation. Thus, the name of Jesus represents all that he is, his entire
character. This means that praying “in Jesus’ name” is not only praying in his authority,
2 In Acts 4:30 the phrase, “through the name of your holy are performed ” It is not a general statement about the way in
servant Jesus,” which appears at the end of a prayer, modifies the which the whole prayer is made,
main clause immediately preceding it, “and signs and wonders
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
380
but also praying in a way that is consistent with his character ; that truly represents him
and reflects his manner of life and his own holy will. 3 In this sense, to pray in Jesus*
name comes close to the idea of praying “according to his will” (1 John 5:14- 15). 4
Does this mean that it is wrong to add “in Jesus* name” to the end of our prayers?
It is certainly not wrong, as long as we understand what is meant by it, and that it is
not necessary to do so. There may be some danger, however, if we add this phrase to
every public or private prayer we make, for very soon it will become to people simply a
formula to which they attach very little meaning and say without thinking about it. It
may even begin to be viewed, at least by younger believers, as a sort of magic formula
that makes prayer more effective. To prevent such misunderstanding, it would probably
be wise to decide not to use the formula frequently and to express the same thought in
other words, or simply in the overall attitude and approach we take toward prayer. For
example, prayers could begin, “Father, we come to you in the authority of our Lord Jesus,
your Son . . .** or, “Father, we do not come on our own merits but on the merits of Jesus
Christ, who has invited us to come before you . . .*’ or, “Father, we thank you for forgiv-
ing our sins and giving us access to your throne by the work of Jesus your Son *’ At
other times even these formal acknowledgments should not be thought necessary, so
long as our hearts continually realize that it is our Savior who enables us to pray to the
Father at all. Genuine prayer is conversation with a Person whom we know well, and
who knows us. Such genuine conversation between persons who know each other never
depends on the use of certain formulas or required words, but is a matter of sincerity in
our speech and in our heart, a matter of right attitudes, and a matter of the condition
of our spirit.
4. Should We Pray to Jesus and to the Holy Spirit? A survey of the prayers of the New
Testament indicates that they are usually addressed neither to God the Son nor to the
Holy Spirit, but to God the Father. Yet a mere count of such prayers may be misleading,
for the majority of the prayers we have recorded in the New Testament are those of Jesus
himself, who constantly prayed to God the Father, but of course did not pray to himself
as God the Son. Moreover, in the Old Testament, the trinitarian nature of God was not
so clearly revealed, and it is not surprising that we do not find much evidence of prayer
addressed directly to God the Son or God the Holy Spirit before the time of Christ.
Though there is a clear pattern of prayer directly to God the Father through the Son
(Matt. 6:9; John 16:23; Eph. 5:20) there are indications that prayer spoken directly to
Jesus is also appropriate. The fact that it was Jesus himself who appointed all of the other
apostles, suggests that the prayer in Acts 1:24 is addressed to him: “Lord, who knows the
hearts of all men, show which one of these two you have chosen. . . .’* The dying Stephen
prays, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit” (Acts 7:59). The conversation between Ananias
3 In fact, Paul says that not just our prayers but everything in accordance with all that the name stands for. It is prayer
we do is to be done in Jesus* name: “And whatever you do, in proceeding from faith in Christ, prayer that gives expression
word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving to a unity with all that Christ stands for, prayer which seeks
thanks to God the Father through him” (Col. 3:17). to set forward Christ himself. And the purpose of it all is the
4 Leon Morris says of John 14:13, “This does not mean sim- glory of God” (The Gospel According to John, p. 646).
ply using the name as a formula. It means that prayer is to be
CHAPTER 18 • PRAYER
and “the Lord” in Acts 9:10-16 is with Jesus, because in verse 17 Ananias tells Saul,
“The Lord Jesus ... has sent me that you may regain your sight.” The prayer, “Our Lord,
come!” (1 Cor. 16:22) is addressed to Jesus, as is the prayer in Revelation 22:20, “Come,
Lord Jesus!” And Paul also prayed to “the Lord” in 2 Corinthians 12:8 concerning his
thorn in the flesh. 5
Moreover, the fact that Jesus is “a merciful and faithful high priest” (Heb. 2:17) who
is able to “sympathize with our weaknesses” (Heb. 4:15), is viewed as an encouragement
to us to come boldly before the “throne of grace” in prayer “that we may receive mercy
and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb. 4:16). These verses must give us encour-
agement to come directly to Jesus in prayer, expecting that he will sympathize with our
weaknesses as we pray.
There is therefore clear enough scriptural warrant to encourage us to pray not only
to God the Father (which seems to be the primary pattern, and certainly follows the
example that Jesus taught us in the Lords Prayer), but also to pray directly to God the
Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Both are correct, and we may pray either to the Father or to
the Son.
But should we pray to the Holy Spirit? Though no prayers directly addressed to the
Holy Spirit are recorded in the New Testament, there is nothing that would forbid such
prayer, for the Holy Spirit, like the Father and the Son, is fully God and is worthy of
prayer and is powerful to answer our prayers. (Note also EzekieTs invitation to the
“breath” or “spirit” in Ezek. 37:9.) To say that we cannot pray to the Holy Spirit is really
saying that we cannot talk to him or relate to him personally, which hardly seems right.
He also relates to us in a personal way since he is a “Comforter” or “Counselor” (John
14:16, 26), believers “know him” (John 14:17), and he teaches us (cf. John 14:26), bears
witness to us that we are children of God (Rom. 8:16), and can be grieved by our sin
(Eph. 4:30). Moreover, the Holy Spirit exercises personal volition in the distribution
of spiritual gifts, for he “continually distributes to each one individually as he wills”
(1 Cor. 12:11, author’s translation) . Therefore, it does not seem wrong to pray directly to
the Holy Spirit at times, particularly when we are asking him to do something that relates
to his special areas of ministry or responsibility. 6 In fact, through the history of the church
several well-used hymns have been prayers to the Holy Spirit (see two at the end of chap-
ter 30, pp. 652-53; one at chapter 52, p. 1048; and one at chapter 53, p. 1088). But this is
not the New Testament pattern, and it should not become the dominant emphasis in
our prayer life.
5. The Role of the Holy Spirit in Our Praying. In Romans 8:26-27 Paul says:
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as
we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words.
And he who searches the hearts of men knows what is the mind of the Spirit,
because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
5 The name Lord (Gk. kyrios ) is used in Acts and the Epistles Spirit is God, it cannot be wrong to invoke and address him if
primarily to refer to the Lord Jesus Christ. there is good reason to do so” ( Keep in Step With the Spirit [Old
6 J. I. Packer says, “Is it proper to pray to the Spirit? There is Tappan, N.J.: Revell, 1984] , p. 261).
no example of doing this anywhere in Scripture, but since the
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
382
Interpreters differ on whether the “sighs too deep for words” are the sighs the Holy
Spirit himself makes or our own sighs and groans in prayer, which the Holy Spirit makes
into effective prayer before God. It seems more likely that the “sighs” or “groans” here
are our groans. When Paul says, “The Spirit helps us in our weakness” (v. 26), the word
translated “helps” (Gk. sunantilambanomai) is the same word used in Luke 10:40, where
Martha wants Mary to come and help her. The word does not indicate that the Holy
Spirit prays instead of us, but that the Holy Spirit takes part with us and makes our weak
prayers effective. 7 Thus, such sighing or groaning in prayer is best understood to be sighs
or groans which we utter, expressing the desires of our heart and spirit, which the Holy
Spirit then makes into effective prayer. 8
Related to this is the question of what it means to pray “in the Spirit.” Paul says,
“Pray at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication” (Eph. 6:18), and Jude
says, “pray in the Holy Spirit” (Jude 20). 9 In order to understand this phrase, we should
realize that the New Testament tells us that many different activities can be done “in the
Holy Spirit.” It is possible just to be “in the Spirit” as John was on the Lords day (Rev.
1:10; cf. 4:2). And it is possible to rejoice in the Holy Spirit (Luke 10:21), to resolve or
decide something in the Holy Spirit (Acts 19:21), to have one's conscience bear witness
in the Holy Spirit (Rom. 9:1), to have access to God in the Holy Spirit (Eph. 2:18), and to
love in the Holy Spirit (Col. 1:8). As we will explain more fully in chapter 30, below (see
pp. 644, 647-49), these expressions seem to refer to dwelling consciously in the presence
of the Holy Spirit himself, a presence characterized by the Godlike qualities of power,
love, joy, truth, holiness, righteousness, and peace. To pray “in the Holy Spirit,” then, is
to pray with the conscious awareness of God s presence surrounding us and sanctifying
both us and our prayers.
C. Some Important Considerations in Effective Prayer
Scripture indicates a number of considerations that need to be taken into account if
we would offer the kind of prayer that God desires from us.
1. Praying According to God’s Will. John tells us, “This is the confidence which we
have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know
that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have obtained the requests made
of him” (1 John 5:14-15). Jesus teaches us to pray, “Your will be done” (Matt. 6:10), and
he himself gives us an example, by praying in the garden of Gethsemane, “Nevertheless,
not as I will, but as you will” (Matt. 26:39).
7 Other reasons why these sighs or groans are best under- “silent or noiseless,” but can rather mean “not able to be put
stood to be our “groanings” in prayer are (1) v. 23 says that into words.”
“we ourselves . . . groan,” using a verb ( stenazd ) that is cog- 8 For a further discussion of Rom. 8:26-27, see chapter 53,
nate to the noun translated “sighs” ( stenagmos ) in v. 26; (2) pp. 1078-79.
such “groanings,” which seem to imply a degree of distress or 9 Some have thought this refers to speaking in tongues,
anguish, are appropriate for creatures (vv. 22, 23) but not for since Paul calls speaking in tongues praying “with the spirit”
the Creator; and (3) v. 26b, which mentions “sighs too deep (1 Cor. 14:15). But that is not a correct understanding, since
for words,” explains the first clause in v. 26, which says that in 1 Cor. 14:15 “the spirit” refers not to the Holy Spirit but
the Spirit “helps” us, not that the Spirit replaces our prayers. to Paul’s own human spirit: note the contrast between “my
The phrase “too deep for words” does not necessarily mean spirit” and “my mind” in v. 14.
CHAPTER 18 * PRAYER
But how do we know what God’s will is when we pray? If the matter we are praying
about is covered in a passage of Scripture in which God gives us a command or a direct
declaration of his will, then the answer to this question is easy: His will is that his Word
be obeyed and that his commands be kept. We are to seek for perfect obedience to God’s
moral will on earth so that God’s will may be done “on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt.
6:10). For this reason knowledge of Scripture is a tremendous help in prayer, enabling
us to follow the pattern of the first Christians who quoted Scripture when they prayed
(see Acts 4:25-26). The regular reading and memorization of Scripture, cultivated over
many years of a Christian’s life, will increase the depth, power, and wisdom of his or her
prayers. Jesus encourages us to have his words within us as we pray, for he says, “If you
abide in me, and my words abide in you , ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for
you” (John 15:7).
This means, for example, that if we are seeking wisdom in the making of an impor-
tant decision, we do not have to wonder whether it is God’s will that we receive wisdom
to act rightly. Scripture has already settled that question for us, because there is a prom-
ise of Scripture that applies:
If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives to all men generously
and without reproaching, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with
no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed
by the wind. For that person must not suppose that a double-minded man,
unstable in all his ways, will receive anything from the Lord. (James 1:5-8)
We should have great confidence that God will answer our prayer when we ask him for
something that accords with a specific promise or command of Scripture like this. In
such cases, we know what God’s will is, because he has told us, and we simply need to
pray believing that he will answer.
However, there are many other situations in life where we do not know what God’s will
is. We may not be sure, because no promise or command of Scripture applies, whether it
is God’s will that we get the job we have applied for, or win an athletic contest in which
we are participating (a common prayer among children, especially), or be chosen to hold
office in the church, and so on. In all of these cases, we should bring to bear as much
of Scripture as we understand, perhaps to give us some general principles within which
our prayer can be made. But beyond this, we often must admit that we simply do not
know what God’s will is. In such cases, we should ask him for deeper understanding
and then pray for what seems best to us, giving reasons to the Lord why, in our present
understanding of the situation, what we are praying for seems to be best. But it is always
right to add, either explicitly or at least in the attitude of our heart, “Nevertheless, if I
am wrong in asking this, and if this is not pleasing to you, then do as seems best in your
sight,” or, more simply, “If it is your will.” Sometimes God will grant what we have asked.
Sometimes he will give us deeper understanding or change our hearts so that we are
led to ask something differently. Sometimes he will not grant our request at all but will
simply indicate to us that we must submit to his will (see 2 Cor. 12:9-10).
Some Christians object that to add the phrase “if it is your will” to our prayers
“destroys our faith.” What it actually does is express uncertainty about whether what
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
384
we pray for is God’s will or not. And it is appropriate when we do not really know what
God’s will is. But at other times this would not be appropriate: to ask God to give us wis-
dom to make a decision and then say, “If it is your will to give me wisdom here” would
be inappropriate, for it would be saying that we do not believe God meant what he said
in James 1:5-8 when he told us to ask in faith and he would grant this request. 10
Even when a command or promise of Scripture applies, there may be nuances of
application that we do not at first fully understand. Therefore it is important in our
prayer that we not only talk to God but also listen to him. We should frequently bring
a request to God and then wait silently before him. In those times of waiting on the
Lord (Pss. 27:14; 38:15; 130:5-6), God may change the desires of our heart, give us
additional insight into the situation we are praying about, grant us additional insight
into his Word, bring a passage of Scripture to mind that would enable us to pray more
effectively, impart a sense of assurance of what his will is, or greatly increase our faith
so that we are able to pray with much more confidence.
2. Praying With Faith. Jesus says, “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer,
believe that you have received it, and it will be yours” (Mark 11:24). Some translations
vary, but the Greek text actually says, “believe that you have received it” Later scribes
who copied the Greek manuscripts and some later commentators have taken it to mean
“believe that you will receive it.” However, if we accept the text as it is in the earliest and
best manuscripts (“believe that you have received it”), Jesus is apparently saying that
when we ask for something, the kind of faith that will bring results is a settled assurance
that when we prayed for something (or perhaps after we had been praying over a period
of time), God agreed to grant our specific request. In the personal communion with
God that occurs in genuine prayer, this kind of faith on our part could only come as God
gives us a sense of assurance that he has agreed to grant our request. Of course, we cannot
“work up” this kind of genuine faith by any sort of frenzied prayer or great emotional
effort to try to make ourselves believe, nor can we force it upon ourselves by saying
words we don’t think to be true. This is something that only God can give us, and that
he may or may not give us each time we pray. This assured faith will often come when
we ask God for something and then quietly wait before him for an answer.
In fact, Hebrews 11:1 tells us that “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the con-
viction of things not seen.” Biblical faith is never a kind of wishful thinking or a vague
hope that does not have any secure foundation to rest upon. It is rather trust in a person,
God himself, based on the fact that we take him at his word and believe what he has said.
This trust or dependence on God, when it has an element of assurance or confidence, is
genuine biblical faith.
Several other passages encourage us to exercise faith when we pray. “Whatever you
ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith,” Jesus teaches his disciples (Matt. 21 :22).
And James tells us we are to “ask in faith, with no doubting” (James 1:6). Prayer is never
10 To add, “If it is your will” to a prayer is still very different far removed from not asking me at all. If they had not asked, I
from not asking at all. If my children come and ask if I will would not have considered going to get ice cream. Once they
take them to get ice cream, but then (feeling in a cooperative ask, even with the qualification, I will often decide to take
mood) add, “but only if you think it’s right, Dad,” that is still them.
CHAPTER 18 • PRAYER
wishful thinking, for it springs from trust in a personal God who wants us to take him
at his word.
3. Obedience. Since prayer is a relationship with God as a person, anything in our lives
that displeases him will be a hindrance to prayer. The psalmist says, “If I had cher-
ished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened” (Ps. 66:18). Though “The
sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord,” by contrast, “the prayer of the
upright is his delight” (Prov. 15:8). Again we read that “the Lord . . . hears the prayer of
the righteous” (Prov. 15:29). But God is not favorably disposed to those who reject his
laws: “If one turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination”
(Prov. 28:9).
The apostle Peter quotes Psalm 34 to affirm that “the eyes of the Lord are upon the
righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer” (1 Peter 3:12). Since the previous verses
encourage good conduct in everyday life, in speaking and turning away from evil and
doing right, Peter is saying that God readily hears the prayers of those who live lives of
obedience to him. Similarly, Peter warns husbands to “live considerately” with their
wives, “in order that your prayers may not be hindered” (1 Peter 3:7). Likewise, John
reminds us of the need for a clear conscience before God when we pray, for he says, “If
our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and we receive from
him whatever we ask, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him”
(1 John 3:21 -22).
Now this teaching must not be misunderstood. We do not need to be freed from sin
completely before God can be expected to answer our prayers. If God only answered the
prayers of sinless people, then no one in the whole Bible except Jesus would have had
his or her prayers answered. When we come before God through his grace, we come
cleansed by the blood of Christ (Rom. 3:25; 5:9; Eph. 2:13; Heb. 9:14; 1 Peter 1:2). Yet we
must not neglect the biblical emphasis on personal holiness of life. Prayer and holy liv ing
go together. There is much grace in the Christian life, but growth in personal holiness is
also a route to much greater blessing, and that is true with respect to prayer as well. The
passages quoted teach that, all other things being equal, more exact obedience will lead
to increased effectiveness in prayer (cf. Heb. 12:14; James 4:3-4).
4. Confession of Sins. Because our obedience to God is never perfect in this life, we
continually depend on his forgiveness for our sins. Confession of sins is necessary in
order for God to “forgive us” in the sense of restoring his day-by-day relationship with
us (see Matt. 6:12; 1 John 1:9). It is good when we pray to confess all known sin to the
Lord and to ask for his forgiveness. Sometimes when we wait on him, he will bring other
sins to mind that we need to confess. With respect to those sins that we do not remember
or are unaware of, it is appropriate to pray the general prayer of David, “Clear me from
hidden faults” (Ps. 19:12).
Sometimes confessing our sins to other trusted Christians will bring an assurance of
forgiveness and encouragement to overcome sin as well. James relates mutual confession to
prayer, for in a passage discussing powerful prayer, James encourages us, “Therefore confess
your sins to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed” (James 5:16).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
386
5. Forgiving Others. Jesus says, “If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly
Father also will forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will
your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matt. 6:14-15). Similarly, Jesus says, “Whenever
you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against any one; so that your Father also
who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses” (Mark 11:25). Our Lord does not have
in mind the initial experience of forgiveness we know when we are justified by faith, for
that would not belong in a prayer that we pray every day (see Matt. 6:12 with vv. 14- 15).
He refers rather to the day-by-day relationship with God that we need to have restored
when we have sinned and displeased him. In fact, Jesus commands us to build into our
prayers a request that God forgive us in the same way that we have forgiven others who
have harmed us (in the same “personal relationship” sense of “forgive” — that is, not
holding a grudge or cherishing bitterness against another person or harboring any desire
to harm them): “Forgive us our sins, as we also have forgiven those who sin against ms”
(Matt. 6:12, author’s translation). If there are those whom we have not forgiven when we
pray this prayer, then we are asking God not to restore a right relationship with us after
we sin, in just the same way as we have refused to do so with others.
Since prayer presumes a relationship with God as a person, this is not surprising. If
we have sinned against him and grieved the Holy Spirit (cf. Eph. 4:30), and the sin has
not been forgiven, it interrupts our relationship with God (cf. Isa. 59:1-2). Until sin is
forgiven and the relationship is restored prayer will, of course, be difficult. Moreover,
if we have unforgiveness in our hearts against someone else, then we are not acting in a
way that is pleasing to God or helpful to us. So God declares (Matt. 6:12, 14- 15) that he
will distance himself from us until we forgive others.
6. Humility. James tells us that “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble”
(James 4:6; also 1 Peter 5:5). Therefore he says, “Humble yourselves before the Lord and
he will exalt you” (James 4:10). Humility is thus the right attitude to have in praying to
God, whereas pride is altogether inappropriate.
Jesus’ parable about the Pharisee and the tax collector illustrates this. When the Phari-
see stood to pray, he was boastful: “God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extor-
tioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, I give tithes
of all that I get” (Luke 18:11 - 12). By contrast, the humble tax collector “would not even
lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ ”
(Luke 18:13). Jesus said that he “went down to his house justified,” rather than the Phari-
see, “for every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will
be exalted” (Luke 18:14). This is why Jesus condemned those who “for a pretense make
long prayers” (Luke 20:47) and those hypocrites who “love to stand and pray in the syna-
gogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by men” (Matt. 6:5).
God is rightly jealous for his own honor. 11 Therefore he is not pleased to answer the
prayers of the proud who take honor to themselves rather than giving it to him. True
humility before God, which will also be reflected in genuine humility before others, is
necessary for effective prayer.
n See discussion of God’s attribute of jealousy, pp. 205-6
above.
CHAPTER 18 • PRAYER
7. Continuing in Prayer Over Time, Just as Moses twice stayed on the mountain forty
days before God for the people of Israel (Deut. 9:25-26; 10:10-11), and just as Jacob said
to God, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me” (Gen. 32:26), so we see in Jesus’ life a
pattern of much time given to prayer. When great multitudes were following him, “he him-
self was often withdrawing into the wilderness regions and praying” (Luke 5:16, author’s
translation). 12 At another time, “ all night he continued in prayer to God” (Luke 6:12).
Sometimes, as in the case of Moses and Jacob, prayer over a long period of time may
be prayer for one specific item (cf. Luke 18:1-8). When we are earnestly seeking God for
an answer to a specific prayer, we may in fact repeat the same request several times. Paul
asked the Lord “three times” (2 Cor. 12:8) that his thorn in the flesh would be taken from
him. Jesus himself, when he was in the garden of Gethsemane, asked the Father, “Remove
this cup from me; yet not what I will, but what you will” (Mark 14:36). Then after he
came and found the disciples sleeping, Jesus prayed again, making the same request in
the same words: “And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words” (Mark
14:39). These are instances of earnest repetition in prayer for a deeply felt need. They are
not examples of what Jesus forbids — the heaping up of “empty phrases” in the mistaken
belief that “many words” will earn a hearing (Matt. 6:7).
There is also an element of a continual fellowship with God in praying over time.
Paul calls on us to “pray constantly” (1 Thess. 5:17), and he encourages the Colossians
to “continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving” (Col. 4:2).
Such continual devotion to prayer even while about daily duties should characterize the
life of every believer. The apostles are a telling example. They freed themselves from
other responsibilities in order to give more time to prayer: “But we will devote ourselves
to prayer and to the ministry of the word” (Acts 6:4).
8. Praying Earnestly. Jesus himself, who is our model for prayer, prayed earnestly. “In
the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and
tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard for his godly fear”
(Heb. 5:7). In some of the prayers of Scripture, we can almost hear the great intensity
with which the saints pour out their hearts before God. Daniel cries out, “O Lord, hear!
O Lord, forgive! O Lord, listen and take action! For Thine own sake, O my God, do
not delay, because Thy city and Thy people are called by Thy name” (Dan. 9:19 NASB).
When God shows Amos the judgment that he is going to bring on his people, Amos
pleads, “O Lord GOD, forgive, I beseech you! How can Jacob stand? He is so small!”
(Amos 7:2).
In personal relationships, if we attempt to fake emotional intensity and put on an
outward show of emotion that is not consistent with the feelings of our hearts, oth-
ers involved will usually sense our hypocrisy at once and be put off by it. How much
more is this true of God, who fully knows our hearts. Therefore, intensity and depth of
emotional involvement in prayer should never be faked: we cannot fool God. Yet, if we
truly begin to see situations as God sees them, if we begin to see the needs of a hurting
12 The periphrastic imperfect tense here (Gk. en hypochoron ) repeated or habitual nature of the activity of withdrawing into
emphasizes, even more than a simple imperfect would, the the wilderness (s eeBDF, 353[1]).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
388
and dying world as they really are, then it will be natural to pray with intense emotional
involvement and to expect God, as a merciful Father, to respond to heartfelt prayer. And
where such intensely felt prayer finds expression in group prayer meetings, Christians
should certainly accept and be thankful for it, for it often indicates a deep work of the
Holy Spirit in the heart of the person praying.
9. Waiting on the Lord. After crying out to God for help in distress, David says, “Wait
for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; yea, wait for the Lord!” (Ps.
27:14). Similarly, he says, “But for you, O Lord, do I wait; it is you, O Lord my God, who
will answer” (Ps. 38:15). The psalmist likewise says,
I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
my soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen for the morning,
more than watchmen for the morning. (Ps. 130:5-6)
An analogy from human experience may help us to appreciate the benefit of waiting
before the Lord for a response to prayer. If I wish to invite someone home for dinner,
there are various ways I can do so. First, I can issue a vague, general invitation: “It would
be nice to have you come to dinner sometime.” Almost no one will come to dinner based
on that kind of invitation alone. This is rather like the vague, general prayer, “God bless
all my aunts and uncles and all the missionaries. Amen.” Second, I could make a specific
but hurried and impersonal kind of invitation: “Fred, can you come to dinner Friday
night at 6:00?” — but as soon as the words are out of my mouth, I rush away leaving Fred
with a puzzled expression on his face because I didn’t allow him time to respond. This
is like many of our prayer requests. We simply speak words to God as if the very act of
voicing them, without any heart involvement in what we are saying, will itself bring an
answer from God. But this kind of request forgets that prayer is a relationship between
two persons, myself and God.
There is a third kind of invitation, one that is heartfelt, personal, and specific. After
waiting until I’m sure I have Fred’s full attention, I can look him directly in the eye and
say, “Fred, Margaret and I would really love to have you come to dinner at our home
this Friday at 6:00 p.m. Could you come?” — and then, continuing to look him in the
eye, I wait silently and patiently while he decides what to answer. He knows from my
facial expression, my tone of voice, my timing, and the setting in which I chose to talk
to him that I am putting my whole self into this request, and that I am relating to him
as a person and as a friend. Waiting patiently for an answer shows my earnestness, my
sense of expectancy, and my respect for him as a person. This third kind of request is
like that of the earnest Christian who comes before God, gains a sense of being in his
presence, earnestly pours out a request to him, and then waits quietly for some sense of
assurance of God’s answer.
This is not to say that all our requests must be of this nature, or even that the first two
kinds of requests are wrong. Indeed, in some situations we pray quickly because we have
little time before we need an answer (see Neh. 2:4). And sometimes we do pray gener-
CHAPTER 18 • PRAYER
ally because we do not have more specific information about a situation, or because it
is far removed from us or because of shortness of time. But the material in Scripture on
earnest prayer and on waiting for the Lord, and the fact that prayer is personal commu-
nication between ourselves and God, do indicate that prayers such as the third kind of
request are much deeper and will undoubtedly bring many more answers from God.
10. Praying in Private. Daniel went to his upper chamber and “got down upon his
knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God” (Dan. 6:10). 13 Jesus
frequently went out into solitary places to be alone to pray (Luke 5:16 et al.). And he
also teaches us, “When you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your
Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Matt. 6:6).
This statement is in the context of avoiding the error of the hypocrites who loved to pray
at the street corners “that they may be seen by men” (Matt. 6:5). There is wisdom in
Jesus’ encouragement to pray in secret, not only that we might avoid hypocrisy, but also
that we might not be distracted by the presence of other people and therefore modify
our prayers to suit what we think they will expect to hear. When we are truly alone with
God, in the privacy of a room to which we have “shut the door” (Matt. 6:6), then we can
pour out our hearts to him. 14
The need to pray in private may also have implications for small-group or church
prayer meetings: when believers come together to seek the Lord earnestly about a spe-
cific matter, it is often helpful if they can be in the privacy of a home where the door
is shut and they can collectively cry out to God. Apparently this was the way the early
Christians prayed when they were making earnest supplication to God for the release of
Peter from prison (see Acts 12:5, 12-16).
11. Praying With Others. Believers find strength in praying together with others. In
fact, Jesus teaches us, “Again, I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything
they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are
gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matt. 18:19-20). 15
There are many other examples in Scripture where groups of believers prayed together
or where one person led the entire congregation in prayer (note Solomon’s prayer “in the
presence of all the assembly of Israel” at the dedication of the temple in 1 Kings 8:22 - 53
or the prayer of the early church in Jerusalem when “they lifted their voices together
to God” in Acts 4:24). Even the Lord’s Prayer is put in the plural: It does not say, “Give
me this day my daily bread” but “Give us this day our daily bread” and “Forgive us our
13 Though Daniel’s enemies saw him praying, it was only
because they “came by agreement” and apparently spied
on him.
14 At this point we may also mention that Paul discusses a
use of the gift of speaking in tongues during private prayer: “If
I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful.
What am I to do? I will pray with the spirit and I will pray with
the mind also; I will sing with the spirit and I will sing with
the mind also” (1 Cor. 14:14-15). When Paul says “my spirit
prays,” he is not referring to the Holy Spirit but to his own
human spirit, for the contrast is with “my mind.” His own
spirit is pouring out requests before God, and those requests
are understood by God and result in personal edification: “He
who speaks in a tongue edifies himself” (1 Cor. 14:4). This gift
will be discussed more fully in chapter 53, below.
15 Although the previous four verses (vv. 15-18) have to do
with church discipline, the word “again” at the beginning of v.
19 signals a slight change in subject, and it is not inappropri-
ate to take vv. 19-20 as a broader statement about prayer in
general in the context of the church.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
390
sins” and “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil” (Matt. 6:11 - 13, author’s
translation). Praying with others, then, is also right and often increases our faith and
the effectiveness of our prayers.
12. Fasting. Prayer is often connected with fasting in Scripture. Sometimes these are
occasions of intense supplication before God, as when Nehemiah, on hearing of the
ruin of Jerusalem, “continued fasting and praying before the God of Heaven” (Neh.
1:4), or when the Jews learned of the decree of Ahasuerus that they would all be killed,
and “there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting and weeping and lament-
ing” (Esth. 4:3), or when Daniel sought the Lord “by prayer and supplications with
fasting and sackcloth and ashes” (Dan. 9:3). At other times fasting is connected with
repentance, for God says to the people who have sinned against him, “ ‘Yet even now,’
says the Lord, ‘return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with
mourning’” (Joel 2:12).
In the New Testament, Anna was “worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day”
(Luke 2:37) in the temple, and the church at Antioch was “worshiping the Lord and
fasting ” when the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work
to which I have called them” (Acts 13:2). The church responded with further fasting
and prayer before sending Barnabas and Saul on their first missionary journey: “Then
after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off” (Acts 13:3).
In fact, fasting was a routine part of seeking the Lord’s guidance with regard to church
officers, for on Paul’s first missionary journey, we read that he and Barnabas, as they
traveled back through the churches they had founded, “appointed elders for them in
every church, with prayer and fasting” (Acts 14:23).
So fasting appropriately accompanied prayer in many situations: in times of intensive
intercession, repentance, worship, and seeking of guidance. In each of these situations,
several benefits come from fasting, all of which affect our relationship to God: (1) Fast-
ing increases our sense of humility and dependence on the Lord (for our hunger and
physical weakness continually remind us how we are not really strong in ourselves but
need the Lord). (2) Fasting allows us to give more attention to prayer (for we are not
spending time on eating), and (3) it is a continual reminder that, just as we sacrifice
some personal comfort to the Lord by not eating, so we must continually sacrifice all
of ourselves to him. 16 Moreover, (4) fasting is a good exercise in self-discipline, for as
we refrain from eating food, which we would ordinarily desire, it also strengthens our
ability to refrain from sin, to which we might otherwise be tempted to yield. If we train
ourselves to accept the small “suffering” of fasting willingly, we will be better able to
accept other suffering for the sake of righteousness (cf. Heb. 5:8; 1 Peter 4:1-2). (5)
Fasting also heightens spiritual and mental alertness and a sense of God’s presence as
we focus less on the material things of this world (such as food) and as the energies of
our body are freed from digesting and processing food. This enables us to focus on
16 Similar reasons (devoting more time to prayer and giving consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to
up some personal pleasure) probably explain Paul’s permis- prayer” (1 Cor. 7:5 NIV).
sion to married couples to give up sexual relations “by mutual
CHAPTER 18 • PRAYER
eternal spiritual realities that are much more important. 17 Finally, (6) fasting expresses
earnestness and urgency in our prayers: if we continued to fast, eventually we would die.
Therefore, in a symbolic way, fasting says to God that we are prepared to lay down our
lives that the situation be changed rather than that it continue. In this sense fasting is
especially appropriate when the spiritual state of the church is low.
“Yet even now,” says the Lord,
“return to me with all your heart,
with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
and rend your hearts and not your garments.” (Joel 2:12- 13a)
Though the New Testament does not specifically require that we fast, or set special
times when we must fast, Jesus certainly assumes that we will fast, for he says to his
disciples, “And when you fast” (Matt. 6:16). Moreover, Jesus also says, “The days will
come, when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast” (Matt.
9:15). He is the Bridegroom, we are his disciples, and during this present church age he
has been “taken” away from us until the day he returns. Most western Christians do
not fast, but, if we were willing to fast more regularly — even for one or two meals — we
might be surprised how much more spiritual power and strength we would have in our
lives and in our churches.
13. What About Unanswered Prayer? We must begin by recognizing that as long as
God is God and we are his creatures, there must be some unanswered prayers. This is
because God keeps hidden his own wise plans for the future, and even though people
pray, many events will not come about until the time that God has decreed. The Jews
prayed for centuries for the Messiah to come, and rightly so, but it was not until “the
time had fully come” that “God sent forth his Son” (Gal. 4:4). The souls of martyrs in
heaven, free from sin, cry out for God to judge the earth (Rev. 6:10), but God does not
immediately answer; rather he tells them to rest a little longer (Rev. 6:11). It is clear that
there can be long periods of delay during which prayers go unanswered, because the
people praying do not know God’s wise timing.
Prayer will also be unanswered because we do not always know how to pray as we
ought (Rom. 8:26), we do not always pray according to God’s will (James 4:3), and we do
not always ask in faith (James 1:6-8). And sometimes we think that one solution is best,
but God has a better plan, even to fulfill his purpose through suffering and hardship.
Joseph no doubt prayed earnestly to be rescued from the pit and from being carried off
into slavery in Egypt (Gen. 37:23—36), but many years later he found how in all of these
events “God meant it for good” (Gen. 50:20).
17 In Mark 9:29, when the disciples asked why they could not
drive out a certain demon, Jesus replied, “This kind cannot be
driven out by anything but prayer .” Many early and quite reli-
able Greek manuscripts and several early manuscripts in other
languages read “by prayer and fasting” In either case, it cannot
mean prayer that is spoken at the time the demon is being cast
out, for Jesus simply cast out the demon with a word and did not
engage in an extended time of prayer. It must mean rather that
the disciples had not previously been spending enough time in
prayer and that their spiritual strength was weak. Therefore the
“fasting” that is mentioned in many ancient manuscripts fits
the pattern of an activity that increases one’s spiritual strength
and power.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
392
When we face unanswered prayer, we join the company of Jesus, who prayed, “Father,
if you are willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless not my will, but yours, be
done” (Luke 22:42). We join also the company of Paul, who asked the Lord “three times”
that his thorn in the flesh be removed, but it was not; rather, the Lord told him, “My
grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:8-9).
We join the company of David, who prayed for his son's life to be saved, but it was not,
so he “went into the house of the Lord, and worshiped” and said of his son, “I shall go
to him, but he will not return to me” (2 Sam. 12:20, 23). We join the company of the
martyrs throughout history who prayed for deliverance that did not come, for they
“loved not their lives even unto death” (Rev. 12:11).
When prayer remains unanswered we must continue to trust God, who “causes all
things to work together for good” (Rom. 8:28 NASB), and to cast our cares on him,
knowing that he continually cares for us (1 Peter 5:7). We must keep remembering that
he will give strength sufficient for each day (Deut. 33:25) and that he has promised, “I
will never fail you nor forsake you” (Heb. 13:5; cf. Rom. 8:35-39).
We also must continue to pray. Sometimes an answer, long awaited, will suddenly be
given, as it was when Hannah after many years bore a child (1 Sam. 1:19-20), or when
Simeon saw with his own eyes the long-expected Messiah come to the temple (Luke
2:25-35).
But sometimes prayers will remain unanswered in this life. At times God will answer
those prayers after the believer dies. At other times he will not, but even then the faith
expressed in those prayers and their heartfelt expressions of love for God and the people he
has made will still ascend as a pleasing incense before God’s throne (Rev. 5:8; 8:3-4) and
will result in “praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:7).
D. Praise and Thanksgiving
Praise and thanksgiving to God, which will be treated more fully in chapter 51, are
an essential element of prayer. The model prayer that Jesus left us begins with a word of
praise: “Hallowed be your name” (Matt. 6:9). And Paul tells the Philippians, “in every-
thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to
God” (Phil. 4:6), and the Colossians, “Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in
it with thanksgiving ” (Col. 4:2). Thanksgiving, like every other aspect of prayer, should
not be a mechanical mouthing of a “thank you” to God, but the expression of words that
reflect the thankfulness of our hearts. Moreover, we should never think that thanking
God for the answer to something we ask for can somehow force God to give it to us, for
that changes the prayer from a genuine, sincere request to a demand that assumes we
can make God do what we want him to do. Such a spirit in our prayers really denies the
essential nature of prayer as dependence on God.
By contrast, the kind of thanksgiving that appropriately accompanies prayer must
express thankfulness to God for all circumstances, for every event of life that he allows
to come to us. When we join our prayers with humble, childlike thanksgiving to God
“in all circumstances” (1 Thess. 5:18), they will be acceptable to God.
CHAPTER 18 • PRAYER
393
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. Do you often have difficulty with prayer? What things in this chapter have been
helpful to you in this regard?
2. When have you known the most effective times of prayer in your own life? What
factors contributed to making those times more effective? Which other factors
need most attention in your prayer life? What can you do to strengthen each of
these areas?
3. How does it help and encourage you (if it does) when you pray together with other
Christians?
4. Have you ever tried waiting quietly before the Lord after making an earnest prayer
request? If so, what has been the result?
5. Do you have a regular time each day for private Bible reading and prayer? Are you
sometimes easily distracted and turned aside to other activities? If so, how can
distractions be overcome?
6. Do you enjoy praying? Why or why not?
SPECIAL TERMS
faith prayer
“in Jesus’ name” waiting for the Lord
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter 1,
pp. 38-39. Complete bibliographical data maybe found on pp. 1224-30.)
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1882 -92 Litton, 431-32
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1940 Wiley, 3:40-44, 153
1960 Purkiser, 421 -24
1983 - Cottrell, 2:353- 708
3. Baptist
1907 Strong, 433-39
1917 Mullins, 119, 192, 224, 274, 348
1983 - 85 Erickson, 405 - 6
4. Dispensational
1947
Chafer, 5:220-31; 7:252-54
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
394
1949 Thiessen, 298 - 301
1986 Ryrie, 381-82
5. Lutheran
1917-24 Pieper, 3:215-19
1934 Mueller, 428-34, 467-69
6. Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1559 Calvin, 2:850-920 (3.20)
1724-58 Edwards, 2:74- 88, 113-18
1871-73 Hodge, 3:692-709
1878 Dabney, 713-25
1937-66 Murray, CW y 3:168-71
7. Renewal (or charismatic/Pentecostal)
1988-92 Williams, 2:295-98, 3:95-98
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
1. Roman Catholic: Traditional
1955 Ott, 91
2. Roman Catholic: Post-Vatican II
1980 McBrien, 1:331-32; 2:1057-99
Other Works
Bennett, Arthur, ed. The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayer and Devotions.
Edinburgh and Carlisle, Pa.: Banner of Truth, 1975.
Bounds, E. M. Power Through Prayer. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1963.
Brother Lawrence. The Practice of the Presence of God. New York: Revell, 1895.
Carson, D. A., ed. Teach Us To Pray: Prayer in the Bible and the World. Grand Rapids: Baker,
and Exeter: Paternoster, 1990.
Clowney, Edmund. Christian Meditation. Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed,
1979.
. “Prayer, Theology of.” In NDT, pp. 526-27.
Forsyth, P. T. The Soul of Prayer. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1967 (reprint).
Foster, Richard J. Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth. San Francisco:
Harper and Row, 1988.
Hallesby, O. Prayer. Trans, by Clarence J. Carlsen. Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1959 (reprint).
Houston, James. The Transforming Friendship. Oxford and Batavia, 111.: Lion, 1989.
Hunter, W. Bingham. The God Who Hears. Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press, 1986.
Kelly, Thomas R. A Testament of Devotion. New York: Harper, 1941.
Law, William. A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1948
(reprint).
CHAPTER 18 • PRAYER
395
M’lntyre, D. M. The Hidden Life of Prayer. Minneapolis: Bethany Fellowship Press, 1962
(reprint), (The author’s name is sometimes spelled MacIntyre in other editions of
this book.)
Murray, Andrew. The Ministry of Intercessory Prayer. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1981
(reprint; originally published in 1897 as The Ministry of Intercession).
Ortlund, Raymond C., Jr. A Passion for God: Prayers and Meditations on the Book of Romans.
Wheaton, 111.: Crossway, 1994.
Prince, Derek. Shaping History Through Prayer and Fasting. Old Tappan, N.J.: Fleming H.
Revell, 1973.
Smith, David R. Fasting: A Neglected Discipline. Fort Washington, Pa.: Christian Literature
Crusade, 1969.
Spear, Wayne. The Theology of Prayer. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979.
Thomas k Kempis. The Imitation of Christ. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1973 (reprint).
Unknown Christian. The Kneeling Christian. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1945.
Wallis, Arthur. God’s Chosen Fast: A Spiritual and Practical Guide to Fasting. Fort
Washington, Pa.: Christian Literature Crusade, 1987.
White, John. Daring to Draw Near. Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press, 1977.
Willard, Dallas. The Spirit of the Disciplines. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1988.
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
Hebrews 4:14— 16: Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heav-
ens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we have not a high priest who
is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted
as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that
we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
HYMN
“From Every Stormy Wind”
From ev’ry stormy wind that blows,
from ev’ry swelling tide of woes,
There is a calm, a sure retreat;
’tis found beneath the Mercy Seat.
There is a place where Jesus sheds
the oil of gladness on our heads,
A place than all besides more sweet;
it is the blood-stained Mercy Seat.
There is a spot where spirits blend,
where friend holds fellowship with friend,
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
396
Tho’ sundered far; by faith they meet
around the common Mercy Seat.
Ah, whither could we flee for aid,
when tempted, desolate, dismayed,
Or how the hosts of hell defeat,
had suff ’ring saints no Mercy Seat?
There, there on eagle wings we soar,
and time and sense seem all no more,
And heav’n comes down our souls to greet,
and glory crowns the Mercy Seat.
O may my hand forget her skill,
my tongue be silent, cold, and still,
This bounding heart forget to beat,
if I forget the Mercy Seat.
AUTHOR: HUGH STOWELL, 1828, 1831
Chapter
ANGELS
What are angels ? Why did God create them ?
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
A. What Are Angels?
We may define angels as follows : Angels are created, spiritual beings with moral judgment
and high intelligence, but without physical bodies.
1. Created Spiritual Beings. Angels have not always existed; they are part of the universe
that God created. In a passage that refers to angels as the “host” of heaven (or “armies
of heaven ), Ezra says, You are the Lord, you alone; you have made heaven, the heaven
of heavens, with all their host . . . and the host of heaven worships you” (Neh. 9:6; cf.
Ps. 148:2, 5). Paul tells us that God created all things “visible and invisible” through
Christ and for him, and then specifically includes the angelic world with the phrase
“whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities” (Col. 1:16).
That angels exercise moral judgement is seen in the fact that some of them sinned and
fell from their positions (2 Peter 2:4; Jude 6; see chapter 20). Their high intelligence is
seen throughout Scripture as they speak to people (Matt. 28:5; Acts 12:6-11, et al.) and
sing praise to God (Rev. 4:11; 5:11).
Since angels are spirits (Heb. 1:14) or spiritual creatures, they do not ordinarily
have physical bodies (Luke 24:39). Therefore they cannot usually be seen by us unless
God gives us a special ability to see them (Num. 22:31; 2 Kings 6:17; Luke 2:13). In their
ordinary activities of guarding and protecting us (Ps. 34:7; 91:11; Heb. 1:14), and join-
ing with us in worship to God (Heb. 12:22), they are invisible. However, from time to
time angels took on a bodily form to appear to various people in Scripture (Matt. 28:5;
Heb. 13:2).
2. Other Names for Angels. Scripture sometimes uses other terms for angels, such as “sons
of God” (Job^l:6; 2:1), “holy ones” (Ps. 89:5, 7), “spirits” (Heb. 1:14), “watchers” (Dan.
4:13, 17, 23), “thrones,” “dominions,” “principalities,” and “authorities” (Col. 1:16).
397
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
3. Other Kinds of Heavenly Beings. There are three other specific types of heavenly
beings named in Scripture. Whether we think of these as special types of “angels” (in a
broad sense of the term), or whether we think of them as heavenly beings distinct from
angels, they are nonetheless created spiritual beings who serve and worship God.
a. The “Cherubim”: 1 The cherubim were given the task of guarding the entrance to the
Garden of Eden (Gen. 3:24), and God himself is frequently said to be enthroned on the
cherubim or to travel with the cherubim as his chariot (Ps. 18:10; Ezek. 10:1-22). Over
the ark of the covenant in the Old Testament were two golden figures of cherubim with
their wings stretched out above the ark, and it was there that God promised to come to
dwell among his people: “There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat,
from between the two cherubim that are upon the ark of testimony, I will speak with
you of all that I will give you in commandment for the people of Israel” (Ex. 25:22; cf.
vv. 18-21).
b. The “Seraphim”: 2 Another group of heavenly beings, the seraphim, are mentioned
only in Isaiah 6:2-7, where they continually worship the Lord and call to one another,
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory” (Isa. 6:3).
c. The Living Creatures: Both Ezekiel and Revelation tell us of yet other kinds of heavenly
beings known as “living creatures” around God's throne (Ezek. 1:5-14; Rev. 4:6-8). 3
With their appearances like a lion, an ox, a man, and an eagle, they are the mightiest
representatives of various parts of God's entire creation (wild beasts, domesticated ani-
mals, human beings, and birds), and they worship God continually: “Day and night they
never cease to sing, ‘Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to
come!"' (Rev. 4:8)
4. Rank and Order Among the Angels. Scripture indicates that there is rank and order
among the angels. One angel, Michael, is called an “archangel” in Jude 9, a title that indi-
cates rule or authority over other angels. He is called “one of the chief princes” in Daniel
10:13. Michael also appears to be a leader in the angelic army: “Now war arose in heaven,
Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought,
but they were defeated” (Rev. 12:7-8). And Paul tells us that the Lord will return from
heaven “with the archangel’s call” (1 Thess. 4:16). Whether this refers to Michael as the
only archangel, or whether there are other archangels, Scripture does not tell us.
5. Names of Specific Angels. Only two angels are specifically named in Scripture. 4
Michael is mentioned in Jude 9 and Revelation 12:7-8 as well as in Daniel 10:13, 21,
*111 Hebrew, the word cherub is singular, while the plural
form is cherubim.
2 The Hebrew word seraph is singular, while seraphim is the
plural form.
3 The descriptions differ somewhat between Ezekiel and
Revelation but also have many similarities. It is difficult to
tell whether these are different groups of creatures or whether
those in Revelation have been transformed from the form they
took in Ezekiel’s vision.
4 I have not counted Satan here, who is a fallen angel, and
who is sometimes called by other names as well. (See chapter
20, on Satan and demons.)
CHAPTER 19 -ANGELS
where he is called Michael, one of the chief princes” (v. 13). The angel Gabriel is men-
tioned in Daniel 8:16 and 9:21 as a messenger who comes from God to speak to Daniel.
Gabriel is also identified as God’s messenger to Zechariah and Mary in Luke 1: the angel
answers Zechariah, “I am Gabriel, who stand in the presence of God” (Luke 1:19). Then
we read, “In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee
named Nazareth, to a virgin ... and the virgin’s name was Mary” (Luke 1:26-27).
6. Only One Place at One Time. Scripture frequently represents angels as traveling from
one place to another, as in the verse mentioned above where Gabriel “was sent from God
to a city of Galilee named Nazareth” (Luke 1:26). This is made explicit when an angel
comes to Daniel and says:
I have come because of your words. The prince of the kingdom of Persia with-
stood me twenty-one days; but Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help
me, so I left him there with the prince of the kingdom of Persia and came to
make you understand what is to befall your people in the latter days. (Dan.
10:12-14)
The idea that an angel can be in only one place at one time is consistent with the fact
that angels are created beings. Unlike God, who is omnipresent, they are finite creatures
and therefore limited to being in one place at one time, as is everything else that God
has created. 5
7. How Many Angels Are There? Though Scripture does not give us a figure for the
number of angels God created, it is apparently a very great number. We read that God
on Mount Sinai came from the ten thousands of holy ones, with flaming fire at his right
hand (Deut. 33:2). We also learn that, the chariots of God are tens of thousands and
thousands of thousands” (Ps. 68:17 NIV). When we come to worship we come into the
presence of innumerable angels (Heb. 12:22). 6 Their number is even more strikingly
emphasized in Revelation 5:11, where John says, “I heard around the throne and the liv-
ing creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and
thousands of thousands.” This expression indicates an amazingly large number (from a
human standpoint) — an innumerable assembly of angelic beings praising God.
8. Do People Have Individual Guardian Angels? Scripture clearly tells us that God sends
angels for our protection: “He will give his angels charge of you to guard you in all your
ways. On their hands they will bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone”
(Ps. 91:11-12). But some people have gone beyond this idea of general protection and
Nevertheless, it seems that a very large number of angels
can be in one place at the same time, at least if the example of
evil angels or demons is a good indication of this fact. When
Jesus asked the demonic forces in the Gadarene demoniac,
“What is your name?” he said, “Legion”; for “many demons
had entered him” (Luke 8:30). Even if we do not understand
this literally to mean a number equal to a legion of the Roman
army (3,000-6,000 men), and even if we allow that since
Satan is the father of lies, the demons in the man could be
greatly exaggerating, Luke still says that “many demons had
entered him.”
6 The Greek term myrias (“myriad”) is an expression refer-
ring to “a very large number, not exactly defined” (BAGD,
p. 529). (See also Jer. 33:22.)
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
400
wondered if God gives a specific “guardian angel” for each individual in the world, or at
least for each Christian. Support for this idea has been found in Jesus’ words about little
children, “in heaven their angels always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven”
(Matt. 18:10) . However, our Lord may simply be saying that angels who are assigned the
task of protecting little children have ready access to God’s presence. (To use an athletic
analogy, the angels may be playing “zone” rather than “man-on-man” defense.) 7 When
the disciples in Acts 12:15 say that Peter’s “angel” must be knocking at the door, this does
not necessarily imply belief in an individual guardian angel. It could be that an angel was
guarding or caring for Peter just at that time. There seems to be, therefore, no convincing
support for the idea of individual “guardian angels” in the text of Scripture.
9. Angels Do Not Marry. Jesus taught that in the resurrection people “neither marry nor
are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven” (Matt. 22:30; cf. Luke 20:34-36).
This would suggest that angels do not have the kind of family relationships that exist
among human beings. Scripture is otherwise silent on this point, so it is wise not to
attempt to engage in speculation. 8
10. The Power of Angels. Angels apparently have very great power. They are called “you
mighty ones who do his word” (Ps. 103:20) and “powers” (cf. Eph. 1:21) and domin-
ions” and “authorities” (Col. 1:16). Angels are seemingly “greater in might and power”
than rebellious human beings (2 Peter 2:11; cf. Matt. 28:2). At least for the time of their
earthly existence, human beings are made “lower than the angels” (Heb. 2:7). Though
the power of angels is great, it is certainly not infinite, but it is used to battle against the
7 Another possibility is that “angel” in Matt. 18:10 and in
Acts 12:15 (where the disciples think that Peter’s “angel” is
knocking at the gate) means not an angelic being but the “spirit”
of the person who has died: for a defense of this view see B. B.
Warfield, “The Angels of Christ’s ‘Little Ones,’-” in Selected
Shorter Writings , ed. John E. Meeter (Nutley, N.J.: Presbyterian
and Reformed, 1970), 1:253-66; also D. A. Carson, “Matthew,”
EBC, 8:400-401.
The problem with this interpretation is that not one
clear example has been found where the word angel (Gk.
angelos ) means “spirit of a person who has died.” Warfield
(pp. 265-66), followed by Carson, quotes two supposed
examples from extrabiblical Jewish literature, 1 Enoch 51:4
and 2 Baruch 51:5, 12. But these texts are not convincing:
1 Enoch 51:4 simply says, “And the faces of [all] the angels
in heaven shall be lighted up with joy” (R. H. Charles, The
Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament , 2 vols.
[Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913], 2:219), but does not say
that people will become angels. 2 Baruch 51:5 states that the
righteous will be transformed “into the splendor of angels”
(Charles, 2:508), but this simply means that they will have
brightness like the angels, not that they will become angels.
In two related passages, 2 Baruch 51:12 states that the
righteous will have excellency “surpassing that in the angels,”
and 2 Baruch 51:10 says that “they shall be made like unto the
angels” (Charles, 2:509), but these texts do not say that people
will become angels, either. Moreover, since no extant Greek
text is available for any of these three passages (1 Enoch is an
Ethiopic text with some Greek fragments and 2 Baruch is a
Syriac text), they are not useful for determining the meaning
of the Greek word angelos.
Warfield also cites Acts of Paul and Thecla , ed. Tischen-
dorf, p. 42, para. 5, ad finem, as saying, “Blessed are they that
fear God, for they shall become angels of God,” but the text
dates from the late second century A.D. (ODCC, p. 1049) and
is an unreliable source of information about what the early
church believed or what the New Testament teaches.
8 We should note that this statement of Jesus is given in
answer to the Sadducees’ question about a woman who had
been married seven times, and that Jesus said that their ques-
tion showed lack of knowledge both of Scripture and of the
power of God” (Matt. 22:29). Jesus’ answer, therefore, should
comfort us and not trouble us: we should contemplate heaven
not with sorrow at the anticipation of diminished interper-
sonal relationships, but with joy at the prospect of enriched
relationships. (See chapter 20, p. 414, for a discussion of the
“sons of God” in Gen. 6:2, 4.)
CHAPTER 19 -ANGELS
evil demonic powers under the control of Satan (Dan. 10:13; Rev. 12:7-8; 20:1 -3). 9
Nonetheless, when the Lord returns, we will be raised to a position higher than that of
angels (1 Cor. 6:3; see section C.l, below).
11. Who Is the Angel of the Lord? Several passages of Scripture, especially in the Old
Testament, speak of the angel of the Lord in a way that suggests that he is God himself
taking on a human form to appear briefly to various people in the Old Testament.
In some passages the angel of the Lord” (not “ an angel of the Lord”) is spoken of as
the Lord himself. So the angel of the Lord” who found Hagar in the wilderness prom-
ises her, “I will so greatly multiply your descendants that they cannot be numbered for
multitude” (Gen. 16:10), and Hagar responds by calling “the name of the Lord who spoke
to her ; You are a God of seeing’” (Gen. 16:13). Similarly, when Abraham is about to
sacrifice his son Isaac, “the angel of the Lord” calls to him from heaven and says, “Now
I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from
me (Gen. 22:12). When “the angel of God” appeared to Jacob in a dream, he said, “I
am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar and made a vow to me” (Gen. 31:11,
13). Again, when “the angel of the Lord” appeared to Moses in a flame of fire out of the
midst of a bush, he then said, “7 am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God
of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Ex. 3:2, 6). These are clear instances of the angel of the
Lord or the angel of God appearing as God himself, perhaps more specifically as God the
Son taking on a human body for a short time in order to appear to human beings.
At other times the angel of the Lord seems to be distinguished from God (see 2 Sam.
24:16; Ps. 34:7; Zech. 1:11-13), and passages that mention “an angel of the Lord” (e.g.,
Luke 1:11) usually indicate an angel sent by God.
B. When Were Angels Created?
All the angels must have been created before the seventh day of creation, for we read,
“Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them” (Gen. 2:1,
understanding host to be the heavenly creatures that inhabit God’s universe). Even
more explicit than this is the statement, “In six days the Lord made heaven and earth,
the sea, and all that is in them , and rested the seventh day” (Ex. 20:11). Therefore all the
angels were created at least by the sixth day of creation.
But can we be any more specific? There may be a hint at the creation of angelic beings
on the first day of creation when we read that “in the beginning God created the heav-
ens and the earth (Gen. 1:1), and then immediately after we read that “the earth was
without form and void (Gen. 1:2), but with no mention of the heavens in this second
verse. This may suggest that the uninhabitable state of the earth is contrasted with the
heavens where, perhaps, God had already created angelic beings and assigned them vari-
ous roles and orders. This idea is made more plausible when we read that “the morning
stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy” at the time when God laid
Whether the angels who sinned lost some of their power whether their power is still the same as it was when they were
when they rebelled against God and became demons, or angels, Scripture does not tell us.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
402
the “cornerstone” of the earth and sunk its “bases” in the process of forming or founding
it (Job 38:6-7). If the angels (“the sons of God”) shouted for joy when God was making
the earth inhabitable, this could imply that God created the angelic beings early on the
first day.
However, since we have only hints in Scripture, we must remain content with the fact
that God has not given us much information about the time of the creation of the angels.
Further speculation, apart from clear scriptural data, would seem to be useless. “The
secret things belong to the Lord our God; but the things that are revealed belong to us
and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law” (Deut. 29:29).
Some time before Satan tempted Eve in the garden (Gen. 3:1), a number of angels
sinned and rebelled against God (2 Peter 2:4; Jude 6). This event occurred apparently
after the sixth day of creation when “God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it
was very good” (Gen. 1:31), but beyond this, Scripture gives us no further information.
C. The Place of Angels in God’s Purpose
1. Angels Show the Greatness of God’s Love and Plan for Us. Human beings and angels
(using the term broadly) are the only moral, highly intelligent creatures that God has
made. Therefore we can understand much about God’s plan and love for us when we
compare ourselves with angels.
The first distinction to be noted is that angels are never said to be made “in the image
of God,” while human beings are several times said to be in God’s image (Gen. 1:26-27;
9:6). Since being in the image of God means to be like God, 10 it seems fair to conclude
that we are more like God even than the angels are.
This is supported by the fact that God will someday give us authority over angels, to
judge them: “Do you not know that we are to judge angels ?” (1 Cor. 6:3). Though we are
“for a little while lower than the angels” (Heb. 2:7), when our salvation is complete we will
be exalted above angels and rule over them. In fact, even now, angels already serve us: “Are
they not all ministering spirits sent forth to serve , for the sake of those who are to obtain
salvation?” (Heb. 1:14).
The ability of human beings to bear children like themselves (Adam “became the
father of a son in his own likeness, after his image,” Gen. 5:3) is another element of
our superiority to angels, who apparently cannot bear children (cf. Matt. 22:30; Luke
20:34-36).
Angels also demonstrate the greatness of God’s love for us in that, though many angels
sinned, none were saved. Peter tells us that “God did not spare the angels when they sinned ,
but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of nether gloom to be kept until the
judgment” (2 Peter 2:4). Jude says that “the angels that did not keep their own position
but left their proper dwelling have been kept by him in eternal chains in the nether
gloom until the judgment of the great day” (Jude 6). And we read in Hebrews, “For
surely it is not with angels that he is concerned but with the descendants of Abraham”
(Heb. 2:16).
10 See chapter 21, pp. 442-44.
CHAPTER 19 - ANGELS
We see, therefore, that God created two groups of intelligent, moral creatures. Among
the angels, many sinned, but God decided to redeem none of them. This was perfectly
just for God to do, and no angel can ever complain that he has been treated unfairly
by God.
Now among the other group of moral creatures, human beings, we also find that a
large number (indeed, all) have sinned and turned away from God. As with the angels
that sinned: God could have let all of us go on our self-chosen path toward eternal con-
demnation. Had God decided to save no one out of the entire sinful human race, he
would be perfectly just to do so, and no one could complain of unfairness on his part.
But God decided to do much more than merely meet the demands of justice. He
decided to save some sinful human beings. If he had decided to save only five human
beings out of the entire human race, that would have been much more than justice: it
would have been a great demonstration of mercy and grace. If he had decided to save only
one hundred out of the whole human race, it would have been an amazing demonstration
of mercy and love. But God in fact has chosen to do much more than that. He has decided
to redeem out of sinful mankind a great multitude, whom no man can number, “from
every tribe and tongue and people and nation” (Rev. 5:9). This is incalculable mercy
and love, far beyond our comprehension. It is all undeserved favor: it is all of grace. The
striking contrast with the fate of angels brings this truth home to us.
The fact that we have been saved from a life of rebellion against God means that we
are able to sing songs that angels will never be able to sing for all eternity.
Redeemed — how I love to proclaim it!
Redeemed by the blood of the lamb;
Redeemed through his infinite mercy —
His child, and forever, I am.
This song, and all the great songs proclaiming our redemption in Christ, are ours alone
to sing. Unfallen angels see us sing these songs and they rejoice (Luke 15:10), but they
will never be able to make them their own.
2. Angels Remind Us That the Unseen World Is Real. Just as the Sadducees in Jesus’ day
said that “there is no resurrection, nor angel, nor spirit” (Acts 23:8), so many in our day
deny the reality of anything they cannot see. But the biblical teaching on the existence of
angels is a constant reminder to us that there is an unseen world that is very real. It was
only when the Lord opened the eyes of Elisha’s servant to the reality of this invisible world
that the servant saw that “the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round
about Elisha” (2 Kings 6:17; this was a great angelic army sent to Dothan to protect Elisha
from the Syrians). The psalmist, too, shows an awareness of the unseen world when he
encourages the angels, “Praise him, all his angels, praise him, all his host!” (Ps. 148:2).
The author of Hebrews reminds us that when we worship we come into the heavenly
Jerusalem to gather with “innumerable angels in festal gathering” (Heb. 12:22), whom
we do not see, but whose presence should fill us with both awe and joy. An unbelieving
world may dismiss talk of angels as mere superstition, but Scripture offers it as insight
into the state of affairs as they really are.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
404
3. Angels Are Examples for Us. In both their obedience and their worship angels provide
helpful examples for us to imitate. Jesus teaches us to pray, “Your will be done, on earth
as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10). In heaven God’s will is done by angels, immediately, joy-
fully, and without question. We are to pray daily that our obedience and the obedience
of others would be like that of the angels in heaven. Their delight is to be God’s humble
servants, each faithfully and joyfully performing their assigned tasks, whether great or
small. Our desire and prayer should be that we ourselves and all others on earth would
do the same.
Angels also serve as our examples in their worship of God. The seraphim before God’s
throne see God in his holiness and continue to cry out, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of
hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory” (Isa. 6:3). And John sees around God’s throne
a great angelic army, “numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, say-
ing with a loud voice, ‘Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth
and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!’ ” (Rev. 5:11 - 12). As angels
find it their highest joy to praise God continuously, should we not also delight each day
to sing God’s praise, counting this as the highest and most worthy use of our time and
our greatest joy?
4. Angels Carry Out Some of God’s Plans. Scripture sees angels as God’s servants who
carry out some of his plans in the earth. They bring God’s messages to people (Luke
1:11-19; Acts 8:26; 10:3-8, 22; 27:23-24). They carry out some of God’s judgments,
bringing a plague upon Israel (2 Sam. 24:16- 17), smiting the leaders of the Assyrian army
(2 Chron. 32:21), striking King Herod dead because he did not give God glory (Acts 12:23),
or pouring out bowls of God’s wrath on the earth (Rev. 16:1). When Christ returns,
angels will come with him as a great army accompanying their King and Lord (Matt.
16:27; Luke 9:26; 2 Thess. 1:7).
Angels also patrol the earth as God’s representatives (Zech. 1:10-11) and carry out
war against demonic forces (Dan. 10:13; Rev. 12:7-8). John in his vision saw an angel
coming down from heaven, and he records that the angel “seized the dragon, that ancient
serpent, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and threw
him into the pit . . (Rev. 20:1-3). When Christ returns, an archangel will proclaim his
coming (1 Thess. 4:16; cf. Rev. 18:1-2, 21; 19:17-18, et al.).
5. Angels Directly Glorify God. Angels also serve another function: they minister
directly to God by glorifying him. Thus, in addition to human beings, there are other
intelligent, moral creatures who glorify God in the universe.
Angels glorify God for who he is in himself, for his excellence.
Bless the Lord, O you his angels,
you mighty ones who do his word,
hearkening to the voice of his word!
(Ps. 103:20; cf. 148:2)
The seraphim continually praise God for his holiness (Isa. 6:2-3), as do the four living
creatures (Rev. 4:8).
CHAPTER 19 -ANGELS
Angels also glorify God for his great plan of salvation as they see it unfold. When
Christ was born in Bethlehem, a multitude of angels praised God and said, “Glory to God
in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased!” (Luke 2:14;
cf. Heb. 1:6). Jesus tells us, “There is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who
repents (Luke 15:10), indicating that angels rejoice every time someone turns from his
or her sins and trusts in Christ as Savior.
When Paul proclaims the gospel so that people from diverse racial backgrounds, both
Jews and Greeks, are brought into the church, he sees God’s wise plan for the church as
being displayed before the angels (and demons), for he says that he was called to preach to
the Gentiles that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made
known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places” (Eph. 3:10). And Peter tells
us that angels long to look” (1 Peter 1:12) into the glories of the plan of salvation as it
works out in the lives of individual believers each day. 11 Paul also notes that Christ was
“seen by angels” (1 Tim. 3:16), suggesting that they glorified God for Christ’s life of obe-
dience. Moreover, the fact that women were to have clothing that appropriately signaled
that they were women, “because of the angels” (1 Cor. 11:10), when the church assembled
for worship, indicates that angels witness the lives of Christians and glorify God for our
worship and obedience. Indeed, Paul reminds Timothy, when he wants to emphasize
the seriousness of a command, that our actions are carried out in the presence of angelic
witnesses: In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and of the elect angels I charge you
to keep these rules without favor, doing nothing from partiality” (1 Tim. 5:21; cf. 1 Cor.
4:9). If Timothy follows Paul’s instructions, angels will witness his obedience and glorify
God; if he neglects to obey, angels will also see and be grieved.
D. Our Relationship to Angels
1. We Should Be Aware of Angels in Our Daily Lives. Scripture makes it clear that God
wants us to be aware of the existence of angels and of the nature of their activity. We should
not therefore assume that its teaching about angels has nothing whatsoever to do with our
lives today. Rather, there are several ways in which our Christian lives will be enriched by
an awareness of the existence and ministry of angels in the world even today.
When we come before God in worship, we are joining not only with the great company
of believers who have died and come into God’s presence in heaven, “the spirits of just
men made perfect,” but also with a great throng of angels, “innumerable angels in festal
gathering (Heb. 12:22—23). Though we do not ordinarily see or hear evidence of this
heavenly worship, it certainly enriches our sense of reverence and joy in God’s presence
if we appreciate the fact that angels join us in the worship of God.
Moreover, we should be aware that angels are watching our obedience or disobedi-
ence to God through the day. Even if we think our sins are done in secret and bring
grief to no one else, we should be sobered by the thought that perhaps even hundreds
The present tense verb epithymousin t long, gives the find ever fuller realization in the lives of individual Christians
sense "are continually longing, even at the present time” to throughout the history of the church. (See discussion in Wayne
look into these things. This longing includes a holy curiosity Grudem, 1 Peter, p. 73.)
to watch and delight in the glories of Christ’s kingdom as they
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
406
of angels witness our disobedience and are grieved. 12 On the other hand, when we are
discouraged and think that our faithful obedience to God is witnessed by no one and is
an encouragement to no one, we can be comforted by the realization that perhaps hun-
dreds of angels witness our lonely struggle, daily “longing to look” at the way Christ’s
great salvation finds expression in our lives.
As if to make the reality of angelic observation of our service to God more vivid, the
author of Hebrews suggests that angels can sometimes take human form, apparently
to make “inspection visits,” something like the newspaper’s restaurant critic who dis-
guises himself and visits a new restaurant. We read, “Do not neglect to show hospitality
to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares” (Heb. 13:2; cf. Gen.
18:2-5; 19:1-3). This should make us eager to minister to the needs of others whom
we do not know, all the while wondering if someday we will reach heaven and meet the
angel whom we helped when he appeared temporarily as a human being in distress here
on earth.
When we are suddenly delivered from a danger or distress, we might suspect that
angels have been sent by God to help us, and we should be thankful. An angel shut
the mouths of the lions so they would not hurt Daniel (Dan. 6:22), delivered the apos-
tles from prison (Acts 5:19-20), later delivered Peter from prison (Acts 12:7-11), and
ministered to Jesus in the wilderness at a time of great weakness, immediately after his
temptations had ended (Matt. 4: 11). 13
When a car suddenly swerves from hitting us, when we suddenly find footing to keep
from being swept along in a raging river, when we walk unscathed in a dangerous neigh-
borhood, should we not suspect that God has sent his angels to protect us? Does not
Scripture promise, “For he will give his angels charge of you to guard you in all your
ways. On their hands they will bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone”
(Ps. 91:11 - 12)? Should we not therefore thank God for sending angels to protect us at
such times? It seems right that we should do so.
2. Cautions Regarding Our Relationship to Angels.
a. Beware of Receiving False Doctrine From Angels: The Bible warns against receiving
false doctrine from supposed angels: “But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should
preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we preached to you, let him be accursed”
(Gal. 1:8). Paul makes this warning because he knows that there is a possibility of decep-
tion. He says, “Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light” (2 Cor. 11:14). Similarly,
the lying prophet who deceived the man of God in 1 Kings 13 claimed, “An angel spoke
to me by the word of the Lord, saying, ‘Bring him back with you into your house that he
may eat bread and drink water’ ” (1 Kings 13:18). Yet the text of Scripture immediately
adds in the same verse, “But he lied to him.”
12 This is not to deny that the primary deterrent against sin-
ning must be fear of displeasing God himself; it is just to say that
as the presence of other human beings serves as an additional
deterrent, so the knowledge of the presence of angels should also
serve as a deterrent to us.
13 Note also the report in Luke 22:43 that when Jesus was
praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, “there appeared to him
an angel from heaven, strengthening him.” This text has sub-
stantial ancient attestation.
CHAPTER 19 -ANGELS
407
These are all instances of false doctrine or guidance being conveyed by angels. It is
interesting that these examples show the clear possibility of satanic deception tempting
us to disobey the clear teachings of Scripture or the clear commands of God (cf. 1 Kings
13:9). These warnings should keep any Christians from being fooled by the claims of
Mormons, for example, that an angel (Moroni) spoke to Joseph Smith and revealed to
him the basis of the Mormon religion. Such “revelation” is contrary to the teachings of
Scripture at many points (with respect to such doctrines as the Trinity, the person of
Christ, justification by faith alone, and many others), and Christians should be warned
against accepting these claims. 14 The closing of the canon of Scripture (see chapter 3)
should also warn us that no further revelation of doctrine is to be given by God today,
and any claims to have received additional revelation of doctrine from angels today
should be immediately rejected as false.
b. Do Not Worship Angels, Pray to Them, or Seek Them: “Worship of angels” (Col.
2:18) was one of the false doctrines being taught at Colossae. Moreover, an angel speak-
ing to John in the book of Revelation warns John not to worship him: “You must not do
that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brethren who hold the testimony of Jesus.
Worship God” (Rev. 19:10).
Nor should we pray to angels. We are to pray only to God, who alone is omnipotent
and thus able to answer prayer and who alone is omniscient and therefore able to hear
the prayers of all his people at once. By virtue of omnipotence and omniscience, God the
Son and God the Holy Spirit are also worthy of being prayed to, but this is not true of any
other being. Paul warns us against thinking that any other “mediator” can come between
us and God, “for there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men,
the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5). If we were to pray to angels, it would be implicitly
attributing to them a status equal to God, which we must not do. There is no example in
Scripture of anyone praying to any specific angel or asking angels for help.
Moreover, Scripture gives us no warrant to seek for appearances of angels to us. They
manifest themselves unsought. To seek such appearances would seem to indicate an
unhealthy curiosity or a desire for some kind of spectacular event rather than a love for
God and devotion to him and his work. Though angels did appear to people at various
times in Scripture, the people apparently never sought those appearances. Our role is
rather to talk to the Lord, who is himself the commander of all angelic forces. However,
it would not seem wrong to ask God to fulfill his promise in Psalm 91:11 to send angels
to protect us in times of need.
c. Do Angels Appear to People Today? In the earliest period of the church’s history
angels were active. An angel told Philip to travel south on a road that goes from Jerusalem
to Gaza (Acts 8:26), instructed Cornelius to send a messenger to get Peter to come from
Joppa (Acts 10:3-6), urged Peter to get up and walk out of the prison (Acts 12:6-11),
and promised Paul that no one on his ship would be lost and that he himself would
14 Of course, there were times in Scripture when doctrinal Acts 1:11; Heb. 2:2). The warning passages mentioned above
truth came through angels (Luke 1:13—20, 30—37; 2:10—14; forbid receiving doctrine contrary to Scripture from angels.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
408
stand before Caesar (Acts 27:23-24). Moreover, the author of Hebrews encourages his
readers, none of whom are apostles or even first-generation believers associated with
the apostles (see Heb. 2:3), that they should continue to show hospitality to strangers,
apparently with the expectation that they too might sometime entertain angels without
realizing it (Heb. 13:2).
There seems, therefore, no compelling reason to rule out the possibility of angelic
appearances today. Some would dispute this on the grounds that the sufficiency of Scrip-
ture (see chapter 8) and the closing of its canon (see chapter 3) rule out the possibility
of angelic manifestations now. 15 They would say that we are not to expect God to com-
municate to us through angels. However, this conclusion does not follow. Though angels
would not add to the doctrinal and moral content of Scripture, God could communicate
information to us through angels as he also does through prophecy 16 or through ordi-
nary communication from other persons, or through our observation of the world. If
God can send another human being to warn us of danger or encourage us when we are
downcast, there seems no inherent reason why he could not occasionally send an angel
to do this as well.
However, we should use extreme caution in receiving guidance from an angel should
such an unusual event happen. (It is perhaps noteworthy that very few instances of such
events are recorded today, and many of these involve the communication of antiscrip-
tural doctrine, indicating that they are actually demonic appearances.) The fact that
demons can appear as angels of light (see 2 Cor. 11:14) should warn us that the appear-
ance of any angel-like creature does not guarantee that this being speaks truthfully:
Scripture is our guide, and no angelic creature can give authoritative teaching that is
contrary to Scripture (see Gal. 1:8).
An angelic appearance today would be unusual. If one should (apparently) occur, we
should evaluate it with caution. But there is no convincing reason for saying that such an
event absolutely could not happen, particularly in a time of extreme danger or intense
conflict with the forces of evil.
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. How might this chapter affect how you think about angels from now on? What
difference would it make in your attitude in worship if you consciously thought
about being in the presence of angels when you were singing praises to God?
2. Do you think there are angels watching you right now? What attitude or attitudes
do you think they have as they watch you? Have you ever experienced a remarkably
elevated sense of joy just after praying with someone to receive Christ as personal
Savior? Do you think one aspect contributing to that joy might be that angels are
also rejoicing with you because a sinner has repented (Luke 15:10)?
15 See the discussion of the cessation of some spiritual gifts 16 See chapter 53, pp. 1049-61.
in chapter 52, below.
CHAPTER 19 -ANGELS
409
3. Have you had a remarkable rescue from physical or other kinds of danger and
wondered if angels were involved in helping you at the time?
4. How can the example of angels who joyfully and faithfully perform their assigned
tasks, whether great or small, be of help to you in the responsibilities that you face
today, whether at work or at home or in the church?
5. How do you think you will feel when God asks you to judge angels (1 Cor. 6:3)?
Explain what that fact tells you about the greatness of your humanity as created in
the image of God.
SPECIAL TERMS
angel
angel of the Lord
archangel
cherubim
living creature
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter 1,
pp. 38-39. Complete bibliographical data maybe found on pp. 1224-30.)
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1882-92 Litton, 125-29
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1892-94
Miley, 2:490-96
1940
Wiley, 1:472- 76
1983
Carter, 2:1047-69
3. Baptist
1767
Gill, 1:375-84, 434-35
1887
Boyce, 174-81
1907
Strong, 443-64
1917
Mullins, 276-80
1976 - 83
Henry, 6:229-50
1983-85
Erickson, 433-51
4. Dispensational
1947
Chafer, 2:3-32
1949
Thiessen, 133-50
1986
Ryrie, 121-34
Michael
principalities and powers
seraphim
sons of God
watchers
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
410
5. Lutheran
1917-24 Pieper, 1:498-508
1934 Mueller, 196-202
6. Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1559 Calvin, 1:163-72(1.14.3-12)
1724-58 Edwards, 2:604-7, 612- 17
1861 Heppe, 201 - 19
1871-73 Hodge, 1:637-43
1878 Dabney, 264-75
1938 Berkhof, 141-48
1962 Buswell, 1:130-34
7. Renewal (or charismatic/Pentecostal)
1988-92 Williams, 1:169-96
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
1. Roman Catholic: Traditional
1955 Ott, 114-21
2. Roman Catholic: Post-Vatican II
1980 McBrien (no explicit treatment)
Other Works
Bromiley, G. W. “Angel.” In EDT, pp. 46-47.
Dickason, C. Fred. Angels, Elect and Evil. Chicago: Moody, 1975.
Graham, Billy. Angels: God’s Secret Agents. Revised and expanded edition. Waco, Tex.: Word,
1986.
Joppie, A. S. The Ministry of Angels. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1953.
McComiskey, T. E. “Angel of the Lord.” In EDT, pp. 47-48.
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
Revelation 5:11-12: Then I looked , and I heard around the throne and the living creatures
and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of
thousands, saying with a loud voice, “ Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power
and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing !”
HYMN
“Angels From the Realms of Glory”
Angels, from the realms of glory,
wing your flight o’er all the earth
CHAPTER 19 -ANGELS
411
Ye who sang creation’s story,
now proclaim Messiah’s birth:
Come and worship, come and worship,
worship Christ the newborn King.
Shepherds, in the fields abiding,
watching o’er your flocks by night;
God with man is now residing,
yonder shines the infant light:
Come and worship, come and worship,
worship Christ the newborn King.
Sages, leave your contemplations,
brighter visions beam afar;
Seek the great desire of nations;
ye have seen his natal star:
Come and worship, come and worship,
worship Christ the newborn King.
Saints, before the altar bending,
watching long in hope and fear,
Suddenly the Lord, descending,
in his temple shall appear:
Come and worship, come and worship,
worship Christ the newborn King.
All creation, join in praising
God the Father, Spirit, Son;
Evermore your voices raising
to th’ eternal Three in One:
Come and worship, come and worship,
worship Christ the newborn King.
AUTHOR: JAMES MONTGOMERY, 1816
Chapter
SATAN AND DEMONS
How should Christians think of Satan and demons
today? Spiritual warfare.
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
The previous chapter leads naturally to a consideration of Satan and demons, since
they are evil angels who once were like the good angels but who sinned and lost their
privilege of serving God. Like angels, they are also created, spiritual beings with moral
judgment and high intelligence but without physical bodies. We may define demons as
follows: Demons are evil angels who sinned against God and who now continually work evil
in the world.
A. The Origin of Demons
When God created the world, he “saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was
very good” (Gen. 1:31). This means that even the angelic world that God had created did
not have evil angels or demons in it at that time. But by the time of Genesis 3, we find that
Satan, in the form of a serpent, was tempting Eve to sin (Gen. 3:1-5). Therefore, some-
time between the events of Genesis 1:31 and Genesis 3:1, there must have been a rebellion
in the angelic world with many angels turning against God and becoming evil.
The New Testament speaks of this in two places. Peter tells us, “God did not spare the
angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of nether
gloom to be kept until the judgment” (2 Peter 2:4 ). 1 Jude also says that “the angels that
did not keep their own position but left their proper dwelling have been kept by him in
^his does not mean that these sinful angels have no current
influence on the world, for in v. 9 Peter says that the Lord also
knows how “to keep the unrighteous under punishment until
the day of judgment,” here referring to sinful human beings who
were obviously still having influence in the world and even trou-
bling Peter’s readers. 2 Peter 2:4 simply means that the wicked
angels have been removed from the presence of God and are
kept under some kind of restraining influence until the final
judgment, but this does not rule out their continued activity in
the world meanwhile.
412
CHAPTER 20 • SATAN AND DEMONS
413
eternal chains in the nether gloom until the judgment of the great day” (Jude 6). Once
again the emphasis is on the fact that they are removed from the glory of God’s presence
and their activity is restricted (metaphorically, they are in “eternal chains”), but the text
does not imply either that the influence of demons has been removed from the world or
that some demons are kept in a place of punishment apart from the world while others
are able to influence it. 2 Rather, both 2 Peter and Jude tell us that some angels rebelled
against God and became hostile opponents to his Word. Their sin seems to have been
pride, a refusal to accept their assigned place, for they “did not keep their own position
but left their proper dwelling” (Jude 6).
It is also possible that there is a reference to the fall of Satan, the prince of demons, in
Isaiah 14. As Isaiah is describing the judgment of God on the king of Babylon (an earthly,
human king), he then comes to a section where he begins to use language that seems too
strong to refer to any merely human king:
How you are fallen from heaven,
0 Day Star, 3 son of Dawn!
How you are cut down to the ground,
you who laid the nations low!
You said in your heart,
“7 will ascend to heaven;
above the stars of God
1 will set my throne on high;
I will sit on the mount of assembly
in the far north;
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds,
I will make myself like the Most High”
But you are brought down to Sheol,
to the depths of the Pit. (Isa. 14:12-15)
This language of ascending to heaven and setting his throne on high and saying, “I will
make myself like the Most High” strongly suggests a rebellion by an angelic creature of
great power and dignity. It would not be uncommon for Hebrew prophetic speech to pass
from descriptions of human events to descriptions of heavenly events that are parallel
to them and that the earthly events picture in a limited way. 4 * 6 If this is so, then the sin of
Satan is described as one of pride and attempting to be equal to God in status and author-
ity. (Also, Ezek. 28:11-19 possibly alludes to Satan's fall.)
2 2 Peter 2:4 does not say, “God did not spare some of the
angels when they sinned,” or, “God cast some of the sinning
angels into hell,” but it speaks generally of “the angels” when
they sinned, implying all of them who sinned. Similarly, Jude
6 speaks of “the angels that did not keep their own position,”
implying all who sinned. Therefore, these verses must say
something that is true of all demons. Their current home,
their dwelling place, is “hell” and “pits of nether gloom,”
although they can range from there to influence people in the
world.
3 The K J V translates “Day Star” as “Lucifer,” a name mean-
ing “bearer of light ” The name Lucifer does not appear else-
where in the KJV and does not appear at all in more modern
translations of the Bible.
4 See, for example, Ps. 45, which moves from a description
of an earthly king to a description of a divine Messiah.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
414
However, it is unlikely that Genesis 6:2-4 refers to the fall of demons. In these verses,
we are told that “the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were fair; and they took
to wife such of them as they chose. . . . The Nephilim were on the earth in those days,
and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore
children to them.” Although some have thought that the “sons of God” in this passage
are angels who sinned by marrying human women, this is not a likely interpretation, for
the following reasons: 5
Angels are nonmaterial beings and according to Jesus do not marry (Matt. 22:30),
facts that cast doubt on the idea that “the sons of God” are angels who married human
wives. Moreover, nothing in the context of Genesis 6 itself indicates that the “sons of
God” should be understood as angels (this makes this passage unlike Job 1-2, for exam-
ple, where the context of a heavenly council makes it clear to the reader that angels are
being referred to). It is far more likely that the phrase “sons of God” here (as in Deut.
14:1) refers to people belonging to God and, like God, walking in righteousness (note
Gen. 4:26 as an introduction to Gen. 5, marking the beginning of Seth’s line at the same
time as “men began to call upon the name of the Lord”). In fact, there is an emphasis on
sonship as including likeness to one’s father in Genesis 5:3. Moreover, the text traces the
descendants from God through Adam and Seth to many “sons” in all of chapter 5. The
larger purpose of the narrative seems to be to trace the parallel development of the godly
(ultimately messianic) line of Seth and the ungodly descendants of the rest of mankind.
Therefore, the “sons of God” in Genesis 6:2 are men who are righteous in their imitation
of the character of their heavenly Father, and the “daughters of men” are the ungodly
wives whom they marry.
B. Satan as Head of the Demons
“Satan” is the personal name of the head of the demons. This name is mentioned in
Job 1:6, where “the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan
also came among them” (see also Job l:7-2:7). Here he appears as the enemy of the Lord
who brings severe temptations against Job. Similarly, near the end of David’s life, “Satan
stood up against Israel, and incited David to number Israel” (1 Chron. 21:1). Moreover,
Zechariah saw a vision of “Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord,
and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him” (Zech. 3:1). The name “Satan” is a
Hebrew word ( satan ) that means “adversary.” 6 The New Testament also uses the name
“Satan,” simply taking it over from the Old Testament. So Jesus, in his temptation in the
wilderness, speaks to Satan directly saying, “Begone, Satan!” (Matt. 4:10), or “I saw Satan
fall like lightning from heaven” (Luke 10:18).
The Bible uses other names for Satan as well. He is called “the devil” 7 (only in the
New Testament: Matt. 4:1; 13:39; 25:41; Rev. 12:9; 20:2, et al.), “the serpent” (Gen. 3:1,
5 For a more detailed argument see W. Grudem, The First
Epistle of Peter, pp. 211 - 13, which is summarized in the discus-
sion here. Later Jewish interpreters of these verses were about
equally divided between those who thought the “sons of God”
were angels and those who thought they were human beings.
6 BDB, p. 966.
7 The word devil is an English translation of Greek diabo-
los, which means “slanderer” (BAGD, p. 182). In fact, the
English word devil is ultimately derived from this same Greek
word, but the sound of the word changed considerably as the
word passed from Greek to Latin to Old English to modern
English.
CHAPTER 20 ■ SATAN AND DEMONS
14; 2 Cor. 11:3; Rev. 12:9; 20:2), “Beelzebul” (Matt. 10:25; 12:24, 27; Luke 11:15), “the
ruler of this world” (John 12:31; 14:30; 16: 11), 8 “the prince of the power of the air” (Eph.
2:2), or “the evil one” (Matt. 13:19; 1 John 2:13). When Jesus says to Peter, “Get behind
me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me; for you are not on the side of God, but of men”
(Matt. 16:23), he recognizes that Peter’s attempt to keep him from suffering and dying
on the cross is really an attempt to keep him from obedience to the Father’s plan. Jesus
realizes that opposition ultimately comes not from Peter, but from Satan himself.
C. The Activity of Satan and Demons
1. Satan Was the Originator of Sin. Satan sinned before any human beings did so, as
is evident from the fact that he (in the form of the serpent) tempted Eve (Gen. 3:1-6;
2 Cor. 11:3). The New Testament also informs us that Satan was a “murderer from the
beginning” and is “a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44). It also says that “the devil
has sinned from the beginning” (1 John 3:8). In both of these texts, the phrase “from the
beginning” does not imply that Satan was evil from the time God began to create the
world (“from the beginning of the world”) or from the beginning of his existence (“from
the beginning of his life”), but rather from the “beginning” parts of the history of the
world (Genesis 3 and even before). The devil’s characteristic has been to originate sin
and tempt others to sin.
2 . Demons Oppose and Try to Destroy Every Work of God. Just as Satan tempted Eve to
sin against God (Gen. 3:1 —6), so he tried to get Jesus to sin and thus fail in his mission as
Messiah (Matt. 4:1 — 11). The tactics of Satan and his demons are to use lies (John 8:44),
deception (Rev. 12:9), murder (Ps. 106:37; John 8:44), and every other kind of destruc-
tive activity to attempt to cause people to turn away from God and destroy themselves. 9
Demons will try every tactic to blind people to the gospel (2 Cor. 4:4) and keep them in
bondage to things that hinder them from coming to God (Gal. 4:8). They will also try to
use temptation, doubt, guilt, fear, confusion, sickness, envy, pride, slander, or any other
means possible to hinder a Christian’s witness and usefulness.
3. Yet Demons Are Limited by God’s Control and Have Limited Power. The story of
Job makes it clear that Satan could only do what God gave him permission to do and
nothing more (Job 1:12; 2:6). Demons are kept in “eternal chains” (Jude 6) and can
be successfully resisted by Christians through the authority that Christ gives them
(James 4:7).
Moreover, the power of demons is limited. After rebelling against God they do not
have the power they had when they were angels, for sin is a weakening and destructive
influence. The power of demons, though significant, is therefore probably less than the
power of angels.
8 John frequently uses “the world” or “this world” to refer over the system of sinful opposition to God. Compare Paul’s
to the present evil world system in opposition to God: John 7:7; phrase “the god of this world” (2 Cor. 4:4).
8:23; 12:31; 14:17, 30; 15:18, 19; 16:11; 17:14. Scripture does not 9 Cf. John 10:10: “The thief comes only to steal and kill
teach that Satan rules over the entire world, but that he is ruler and destroy.”
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
416
In the area of knowledge, we should not think that demons can know the future or that
they can read our minds or know our thoughts. In many places in the Old Testament, the
Lord shows himself to be the true God in distinction from the false (demonic) gods of
the nations by the fact that he alone can know the future: “I am God, and there is none like
me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done”
(Isa. 46:9- 10). 10
Even angels do not know the time of Jesus’ return (Mark 13:32), and there is no indi-
cation in Scripture that they or demons know anything else about the future either.
With respect to knowing our thoughts, the Bible tells us that Jesus knew people’s thoughts
(Matt. 9:4; 12:25; Mark 2:8; Luke 6:8; 11:17) and that God knows people’s thoughts (Gen.
6:5; Ps. 139:2, 4, 23; Isa. 66:18), but there is no indication that angels or demons can know
our thoughts. In fact, Daniel told King Nebuchadnezzar that no one speaking by any other
power than the God of heaven could tell the king what he had dreamed:
Daniel answered the king, “No wise men, enchanters, magicians, or astrologers
can show to the king the mystery which the king has asked, but there is a God in
heaven who reveals mysteries, and he has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar
what will be in the latter days. Your dream and the visions of your head as you
lay in bed are these ” (Dan. 2:27-28) n
But if demons cannot read people’s minds, how shall we understand contemporary
reports of witch doctors, fortune-tellers, or other people evidently under demonic influ-
ence who are able to tell people accurate details of their lives which they thought no one
knew, such as (for example) what food they had for breakfast, where they keep some
hidden money in their house, etc.? Most of these things can be explained by realizing
that demons can observe what goes on in the world and can probably draw some con-
clusions from those observations. A demon may know what I ate for breakfast simply
because it saw me eat breakfast! It may know what I said in a private telephone conversa-
tion because it listened to the conversation. Christians should not be led astray if they
encounter members of the occult or of other false religions who seem to demonstrate
such unusual knowledge from time to time. These results of observation do not prove
that demons can read our thoughts, however, and nothing in the Bible would lead us to
think they have that power.
4. There Have Been Differing Stages of Demonic Activity in the History of
Redemption.
a. In the Old Testament: Because in the Old Testament the word demon is not often
used, it might at first seem that there is little indication of demonic activity. However,
10 See the discussion of God’s knowledge of the future in
chapter 11, pp. 171-72, 190-93.
ll Paul also says, “For what person knows a man’s thoughts
except the spirit of the man which is in him?” (1 Cor. 2:11),
suggesting that there is no other creature who can know a per-
son’s thoughts (although admittedly the inclusion of angelic
or demonic creatures in Paul’s idea is not made explicit in this
context as it is in Dan. 2). See also 1 Cor. 14:24-25, where
the disclosure of the “secrets” of a visitor’s heart is clear evi-
dence that God himself is present, working through the gift of
prophecy. This is significant in Corinth, which was filled with
demon worship in idol temples (1 Cor. 10:20) — it indicates
that demons could not know the secret thoughts in a person’s
heart. (On Acts 16:16, see the next paragraph.)
CHAPTER 20 * SATAN AND DEMONS
the people of Israel often sinned by serving false gods, and when we realize that these
false “gods” were really demonic forces, we see that there is quite a bit of Old Testament
material referring to demons. This identification of false gods as demons is made explicit,
for example, when Moses says,
“They stirred him [God] to jealousy with strange gods;
with abominable practices they provoked him to anger.
They sacrificed to demons which were no gods ,
to gods they had never known.” (Deut. 32:16-17)
Moreover, in reflecting on the horrible practice of child sacrifice, which the Israelites
imitated from the pagan nations, the psalmist says,
“They mingled with the nations
and learned to do as they did.
They served their idols,
which became a snare to them.
They sacrificed their sons
and their daughters to the demons .” (Ps. 106:35-37)
These references demonstrate that the worship offered to idols in all the nations sur-
rounding Israel was really worship of Satan and his demons. This is why Paul can say of
the false religions of the first-century Mediterranean world, “What pagans sacrifice they
offer to demons and not to God” (1 Cor. 10:20). It is thus fair to conclude that all the nations
around Israel that practiced idol worship were engaging in the worship of demons. The
battles the Israelites fought against pagan nations were battles against nations who were
controlled by demonic forces and thus “in the power of the evil one” (cf. 1 John 5:19). They
were as much spiritual battles as physical battles: the people of Israel needed to depend on
God’s power to help them in the spiritual realm as much as in the physical.
In light of this, it is significant that there is no clear instance of the casting out of
demons in the Old Testament. The nearest analogy is the case of David playing the lyre
for King Saul: And whenever the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, David took the
lyre and played it with his hand; so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit
departed from him (1 Sam. 16:23). However, Scripture speaks of this as a recurring event
(“whenever”), indicating that the evil spirit returned after David left Saul. This was not
the completely effective triumph over evil spirits that we find in the New Testament.
Consistent with the purpose of Satan to destroy all the good works of God, pagan wor-
ship of demonic idols was characterized by destructive practices such as the sacrifice of
children (Ps. 106:35-37), inflicting bodily harm on oneself (1 Kings 18:28; cf. Deut. 14:1),
and cult prostitution as a part of pagan worship (Deut. 23:17; 1 Kings 14:24; Hos. 4:14). 12
Worship of demons will regularly lead to immoral and self-destructive practices.
12 Even today, one distinguishing mark of many non-
Christian religions is that their most devoted adherents engage
in religious rituals that destroy one or several aspects of human-
ity, such as their physical health, their mental or emotional sta-
bility, or their human sexuality as God intended it to function.
Such things clearly fulfill the goals of Satan to destroy every-
thing that God has created good (cf. 1 Tim. 4:1-3). Since Satan
is “a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44), distortion or denial
of the truth is always present in false religions as well, particu-
larly when there is strong demonic influence.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
418
b. During the Ministry of Jesus: After hundreds of years of inability to have any effec-
tive triumph over demonic forces, 13 it is understandable that when Jesus came casting
out demons with absolute authority, the people were amazed: “And they were all amazed,
so that they questioned among themselves, saying, £ What is this? A new teaching! With
authority he commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him’ ” (Mark 1:27). Such
power over demonic forces had never before been seen in the history of the world.
Jesus explains that his power over demons is a distinguishing mark on his minis-
try to inaugurate the reign of the kingdom of God among mankind in a new and
powerful way:
But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God
has come upon you. Or how can one enter a strong man’s house and plunder his
goods, unless he first binds the strong man? Then indeed he may plunder his
house. (Matt. 12:28-29)
The “strong man” is Satan, and Jesus had bound him, probably at the time of his triumph
over him in the temptation in the wilderness (Matt. 4:1-11). During his earthly minis-
try, Jesus had entered the strong man’s “house” (the world of unbelievers who are under
the bondage of Satan), and he was plundering his house, that is, freeing people from
satanic bondage and bringing them into the joy of the kingdom of God. It was “by the
Spirit of God” that Jesus did this; the new power of the Holy Spirit working to triumph
over demons was evidence that in the ministry of Jesus “the kingdom of God has come
upon you.”
c. During the New Covenant Age: This authority over demonic powers was not limited
to Jesus himself, for he gave similar authority first to the Twelve (Matt. 10:8; Mark 3:15),
and then to seventy disciples. After a period of ministry, the seventy “returned with joy,
saying, ‘Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!’ ” (Luke 10:17). Then Jesus
13 There were Jewish exorcists in the period between the Old
and the New Testaments who attempted to deal with demonic
forces, but it is doubtful whether they were very effective:
Acts 19:13 mentions some “itinerant Jewish exorcists” who
attempted to use the name of the Lord Jesus as a new magic
formula, though they were not Christians and did not have any
spiritual authority from Jesus himself. They met with disastrous
results (vv. 15-16). Also when confronting the Pharisees, Jesus
said, “If I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons
cast them out?” (Matt. 12:27) . His statement does not mean that
their sons were very successful but only that they were casting
out demons, or were trying to, with some limited success. In
fact, Jesus' argument works very well if they generally failed:
“If my great success in casting out demons is due to Satan, then
what is your sons' limited success due to? Presumably a power
less than Satan; certainly not God!” The suggestion is that the
Jewish exorcists’ limited power was not from God but was from
Satan.
Josephus does record an apparently effective example of
exorcism by a Jew named Eleazar who used an incantation
said to be derived from Solomon ( Antiquities 8:45-48; cf. a
rabbinic story in Numbers Rabbah 19:8; Tobit 8:2-3; and
The Testament of Solomon, throughout). It is difficult to
know exactly how widespread and how successful such prac-
tices were. On the one hand, God himself could have granted
some degree of spiritual power over demons to the faithful
remnant of Jewish believers in all ages: he certainly did pro-
tect the faithful people of Israel in general from the demonic
forces of the nations around them. On the other hand, it is not
impossible that Satan would work among unbelieving Jews, as
well as among many other unbelieving cultures, to give some
appearance of limited power to exorcists, witch doctors, etc.,
but always with the result of bringing people ultimately into
greater spiritual bondage. What is certain is that Jesus came
with much more spiritual power over demons than the people
had ever seen before, and they were amazed. (An extensive dis-
cussion of Jewish exorcism is found in Emil Schiirer, The His-
tory of the Jewish people in the Age of Jesus Christ, rev. English
ed., ed. G. Vermes et al. [3 vols. in 4; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark,
1973-87], vol. 3.1, pp. 342-61, 376, 440.)
CHAPTER 20 • SATAN AND DEMONS
responded, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven” (Luke 10:18), indicating agai n a
distinctive triumph over Satan’s power (once again, this was probably at the time of Jesus’
victory in the temptation in the wilderness, but Scripture does not explicitly specify
that time). 14 Authority over unclean spirits later extended beyond the seventy disciples
to those in the early church who ministered in Jesus’ name (Acts 8:7; 16:18; James 4:7;
1 Peter 5:8-9), a fact consistent with the idea that ministry in Jesus’ name in the new
covenant age is characterized by triumph over the powers of the devil (1 John 3:8).
d. During the Millennium: During the millennium, the future thousand-year reign of
Christ on earth mentioned in Revelation 20, 15 the activity of Satan and demons will
be further restricted. Using language that suggests a much greater restriction of Satan’s
activity than we see today, John describes his vision of the beginning of the millennium
as follows:
Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key
of the bottomless pit and a great chain. And he seized the dragon, that ancient
serpent, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and
threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, that he should deceive
the nations no more, till the thousand years were ended. After that he must be
loosed for a little while. (Rev. 20: 1 -3)
Here Satan is described as completely deprived of any ability to influence the earth. Dur-
ing the millennium, however, there will still be sin in the hearts of the unbelievers, which
will grow until the end of the thousand years when there will be a large-scale rebellion
against Christ, led by Satan who, having been “loosed from his prison” (Rev. 20:7), will
come to lead that rebellion (Rev. 20:8—9). The fact that sin and rebelliousness persist
in people’s hearts apart from the activity of Satan, even during the thousand-year reign
of Christ, shows that we cannot blame all sin in the world on Satan and his demons.
Even when Satan is without influence in the world, sin will remain and be a problem in
people’s hearts.
e. At the Final Judgment: At the end of the millennium, when Satan is loosed and gath-
ers the nations for battle, he will be decisively defeated and “thrown into the lake of fire
and sulphur” and “tormented day and night for ever and ever” (Rev. 20:10). Then the
judgment of Satan and his demons will be complete.
D. Our Relationship to Demons
1- Are Demons Active in the World Today? Some people, influenced by a naturalistic
worldview that only admits the reality of what can be seen or touched or heard, deny
that demons exist today and maintain that belief in their reality reflects an obsolete
worldview taught in the Bible and other ancient cultures. For example, the German New
Another interpretation says that in the mission of the sev- 15 See chapter 55 for a discussion of the millennium,
enty Jesus saw the fall of Satan.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
420
Testament scholar Rudolf Bultmann emphatically denied the existence of a supernatu-
ral world of angels and demons. He argued that these were ancient “myths” and that
the New Testament message had to be “demythologized” by removing such mythologi-
cal elements so that the gospel could be received by modern, scientific people. Others
have thought that the contemporary equivalent to the (unacceptable) demonic activity
mentioned in Scripture is the powerful and sometimes evil influence of organizations
and “structures” in our society today — evil governments and powerful corporations
that control thousands of people are sometimes said to be “demonic,” especially in the
writings of more liberal theologians.
However, if Scripture gives us a true account of the world as it really is, then we must
take seriously its portrayal of intense demonic involvement in human society. Our failure
to perceive that involvement with our five senses simply tells us that we have some defi-
ciencies in our ability to understand the world, not that demons do not exist. In fact, there
is no reason to think that there is any less demonic activity in the world today than there
was at the time of the New Testament. We are in the same time period in God’s overall
plan for history (the church age or the new covenant age), and the millennium has not yet
come when Satan’s influence will be removed from the earth. Much of our western secular-
ized society is unwilling to admit the existence of demons — except perhaps in “primitive”
societies — and relegates all talk of demonic activity to a category of superstition. But the
unwillingness of modern society to recognize the presence of demonic activity today is,
from a biblical perspective, simply due to people’s blindness to the true nature of reality.
But what kind of activity do demons engage in today? Are there some distinguishing
characteristics that will enable us to recognize demonic activity when it occurs?
2. Not All Evil and Sin Is From Satan and Demons, but Some Is. If we think of the over-
all emphasis of the New Testament epistles, we realize that very little space is given to
discussing demonic activity in the lives of believers or methods to resist and oppose such
activity. The emphasis is on telling believers not to sin but to live lives of righteousness. For
example, in 1 Corinthians, when there is a problem of “dissensions,” Paul does not tell the
church to rebuke a spirit of dissension, but simply urges them to “agree” and “be united in
the same mind and the same judgment” (1 Cor. 1:10). When there is a problem of incest,
he does not tell the Corinthians to rebuke a spirit of incest, but tells them that they ought
to be outraged and that they should exercise church discipline until the offender repents (1
Cor. 5:1-5). When there is a problem of Christians going to court to sue other believers,
Paul does not command them to cast out a spirit of litigation (or selfishness, or strife),
but simply tells them to settle those cases within the church and to be willing to give up
their own self-interest (1 Cor. 6:1 -8). When there is disorder at the Lord’s Supper, he does
not command them to cast out a spirit of disorder or gluttony or selfishness, but simply
tells them that they should “wait for one another” and that each person should “examine
himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup” (1 Cor. 11:33, 28). These examples
could be duplicated many times in the other New Testament epistles.
With regard to preaching the gospel to unbelievers, the New Testament pattern is
the same: although occasionally Jesus or Paul would cast out a demonic spirit that was
causing significant hindrance to proclaiming the gospel in a certain area (see Mark
CHAPTER 20 • SATAN AND DEMONS
5:1-20 [Gerasene demoniac]; Acts 16:16-18 [soothsaying girl at Philippi]), that is not
the usual pattern of ministry presented, where the emphasis is simply on preaching the
gospel (Matt. 9:35; Rom. 1:18-19; 1 Cor. 1:17-2:5). Even in the examples above, the
opposition was encountered in the process of gospel proclamation. In marked contrast
to the practice of those who today emphasize “strategic level spiritual warfare,” in no
instance does anyone in the New Testament (1) summon a “territorial spirit” upon enter-
ing an area to preach the gospel (in both examples above the demon was in a person
and the demon-influenced person initiated the confrontation), or (2) demand informa-
tion from demons about a local demonic hierarchy, (3) say that we should believe or teach
information derived from demons, or (4) teach byword or example that certain “demonic
strongholds” over a city have to be broken before the gospel can be proclaimed with effec-
tiveness. Rather, Christians just preach the gospel, and it comes with power to change
lives! (Of course, demonic opposition may arise, or God himself may reveal the nature
of certain demonic opposition, which Christians would then pray and battle against,
according to 1 Cor. 12:10; 2 Cor. 10:3-6; Eph. 6:12).
Therefore, though the New Testament clearly recognizes the influence of demonic
activity in the world, and even, as we shall see, upon the lives of believers, its primary
focus regarding evangelism and Christian growth is on the choices and actions taken by
people themselves (see also Gal. 5:16-26; Eph. 4:1— 6:9; Col. 3:l-4:6, et al.). Similarly,
this should be the primary focus of our efforts today when we strive to grow in holiness
and faith and to overcome the sinful desires and actions that remain in our lives (cf. Rom.
6:1—23) and to overcome the temptations that come against us from an unbelieving
world (1 Cor. 10:13). 16 We need to accept our own responsibility to obey the Lord and
not to shift blame for our own misdeeds onto some demonic force.
Nevertheless, a number of passages show that the New Testament authors were defi-
nitely aware of the presence of demonic influence in the world and in the lives of Chris-
tians themselves. Writing to the church at Corinth, which was filled with temples devoted
to worship of idols, Paul said that “what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not
to God” (1 Cor. 10:20), a situation true not only of Corinth but also of most other cit-
ies in the ancient Mediterranean world. Paul also warned that in the latter days some
would “depart from the faith by giving heed to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons”
(1 Tim. 4:1), and that this would lead to claims for avoiding marriage and avoiding cer-
tain foods (v. 3), both of which God had created as “good” (v. 4). Thus he saw some false
doctrine as being demonic in origin. In 2 Timothy, Paul implies that those who oppose
sound doctrine have been captured by the devil to do his will: “And the Lord’s servant
must not be quarrelsome but kindly to every one, an apt teacher, forbearing, correcting
his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant that they will repent and come
to know the truth, and they may escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by
him to do his will” (2 Tim. 2:24-26).
Jesus had similarly asserted that the Jews who obstinately opposed him were following
their father the devil: “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s
16 A common way of summarizing the three sources of evil
in our lives today is “the world, the flesh, and the devil” (where
“flesh” refers to our own sinful desires).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
422
desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and has nothing to do with the truth,
because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature,
for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44).
Emphasis on the hostile deeds of unbelievers as having demonic influence or some-
times demonic origin is made more explicit in John’s first epistle. He makes a general
statement that “he who commits sin is of the devil” (1 John 3:8), and goes on to say, “By
this it may be seen who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil:
whoever does not do right is not of God, nor he who does not love his brother” (1 John
3:10). Here John characterizes all those who are not born of God as children of the devil
and subject to his influence and desires. So Cain, when he murdered Abel, “was of the
evil one and murdered his brother” (1 John 3:12), even though there is no mention of
influence by Satan in the text of Genesis (Gen. 4:1 - 16). John also says, “We know that
we are of God, and the whole world is in the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19). Then
in Revelation Satan is called “the deceiver of the whole world” (Rev. 12:9). As we noted
above, Satan is also called “the ruler of this world” (John 14:30), “the god of this world”
(2 Cor. 4:4), and “the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience” (Eph. 2:2).
When we combine all of these statements and see that Satan is thought of as the
originator of lies, murder, deception, false teaching, and sin generally, then it seems
reasonable to conclude that the New Testament wants us to understand that there is
some degree of demonic influence in nearly all wrongdoing and sin that occurs today.
Not all sin is caused by Satan or demons, nor is the major influence or cause of sin
demonic activity, but demonic activity is probably a factor in almost all sin and almost
all destructive activity that opposes the work of God in the world today.
In the lives of Christians, as we noted above, the emphasis of the New Testament is not
on the influence of demons but on the sin that remains in the believer’s life. Neverthe-
less, we should recognize that sinning (even by Christians) does give a foothold for some
kind of demonic influence in our lives. Thus Paul could say, “Be angry but do not sin; do
not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil” (Eph. 4:26).
Wrongful anger apparently can give opportunity for the devil (or demons) to exert some
kind of negative influence in our lives — perhaps by attacking us through our emotions
and perhaps by increasing the wrongful anger that we already feel against others. Simi-
larly, Paul mentions “the breastplate of righteousness” (Eph. 6:14) as part of the armor
that we are to use standing against “the wiles of the devil” and in contending “against
the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness,
against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:11-12). If we
have areas of continuing sin in our lives, then there are weaknesses and holes in our
“breastplate of righteousness,” and these are areas in which we are vulnerable to demonic
attack. By contrast, Jesus, who was perfectly free from sin, could say of Satan, “He has
no power over me” (John 14:30). We may also note the connection between not sinning
and not being touched by the evil one in 1 John 5:18: “We know that any one born of
God does not sin, 17 but He who was born of God keeps him, and the evil one does not
touch him.”
17 The present tense of the Greek verb here gives the sense
“does not continue to sin.”
CHAPTER 20 • SATAN AND DEMONS
The preceding passages suggest, then, that where there is a pattern of persistent sin
in the life of a Christian in one area or another, the primary responsibility for that sin
rests with the individual Christian and his or her choices to continue that wrongful pat-
tern (see Rom. 6, esp. w. 12—16; also Gal. 5:16—26). Nevertheless, there could possibly
be some demonic influence contributing to and intensifying that sinful tendency. For a
Christian who has prayed and struggled for years to overcome a bad temper, for example,
there might be a spirit of anger that is one factor in that continued pattern of sin. A Chris-
tian who has struggled for some time to overcome a sense of depression may have been
under attack by a spirit of depression or discouragement, and this could be one factor
contributing to the overall situation. 18 A believer who has struggled in other areas, such as
unwillingness to submit to rightful authority, or lack of self-control in eating, or laziness,
or bitterness, or envy, etc., may consider whether a demonic attack or influence could be
contributing to this situation and hindering his or her effectiveness for the Lord.
3. Can a Christian Be Demon Possessed? The term demon possession is an unfortunate
term that has found its way into some English translations of the Bible but is not really
reflected in the Greek text. The Greek New Testament can speak of people who “have a
demon” (Matt. 11:18; Luke 7:33; 8:27; John 7:20; 8:48, 49, 52; 10:20), or it can speak of
people who are suffering from demonic influence (Gk. daimonizomai), 19 but it never uses
language that suggests that a demon actually “possesses” someone.
The problem with the terms demon possession and demonized is that they give the
nuance of such strong demonic influence that they seem to imply that the person who is
under demonic attack has no choice but to succumb to it. They suggest that the person
is unable any longer to exercise his or her will and is completely under the domination
of the evil spirit. While this may have been true in extreme cases such as that of the Ger-
asene demoniac (see Mark 5:1—20; note that after Jesus cast the demons out of him, he
was then “in his right mind,” v. 15), it is certainly not true with many cases of demonic
attack or conflict with demons in many people’s lives.
So what should we say to the question, “Can a Christian be demon possessed?” The
answer depends on what someone means by “possessed.” Since the term does not reflect
any word found in the Greek New Testament, people can define it to mean various things
without having clear warrant to anchor it to any verse of Scripture, and it becomes dif-
ficult to say that one person’s definition is right and another one’s wrong. My own
18 Not all depression is demonic in origin. Some may be
caused by chemical factors that will respond to medical treat-
ment. Other depression may be due to a variety of behavioral
patterns or interpersonal relationships that are not being con-
ducted according to biblical standards. But we should not rule
out demonic influence as a possible factor.
19 This word diamonizomai , which may be translated
“under demonic influence” or “to be demonized” occurs
thirteen times in the New Testament, all in the Gospels: Matt.
4:24; 8:16, 28, 33; 9:32; 12:22; 15:22 (“badly demonized”);
Mark 1:32; 5:15, 16, 18; Luke 8:36; and John 10:21. All of these
instances indicate quite severe demonic influence. In light of
this, it is perhaps better to reserve the English word demonized
for more extreme or severe cases such as those represented by
the instances that are used in the Gospels. The word demonized
in English seems to me to suggest very strong demonic influ-
ence or control. (Cf. other similar “-ized” words: pasteurized,
homogenized, tyrannized, materialized, nationalized, etc.
These words all speak of a total transformation of the object
being spoken about, not simply of mild or moderate influence.)
But it has become common in some Christian literature today
to speak of people under any kind of demonic attack as being
“demonized.” It would be wiser to reserve the term for more
severe cases of demonic influence.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
424
preference, for reasons explained above, is not to use the phrase demon possessed at all,
for any kinds of cases.
But if people explain clearly what they mean by “demon possessed,” then an answer
can be given depending on the definition they give. If by “demon possessed” they mean
that a person’s will is completely dominated by a demon, so that a person has no power
left to choose to do right and obey God, then the answer to whether a Christian could be
demon possessed would certainly be no, for Scripture guarantees that sin shall have no
dominion over us since we have been raised with Christ (Rom. 6:14, see also w. 4, 11).
On the other hand, most Christians would agree that there can be differing degrees
of demonic attack or influence in the lives of believers (see Luke 4:2; 2 Cor. 12:7; Eph.
6:12; James 4:7; 1 Peter 5:8). A believer may come under demonic attack from time to
time in a mild or more strong sense. 20 (Note the “daughter of Abraham” whom “Satan
bound for eighteen years” so that she “had a spirit of infirmity” and “was bent over and
could not fully straighten herself” [Luke 13:16, 11].) Though Christians after Pentecost
have a fuller power of the Holy Spirit working within them to enable them to triumph
over demonic attacks, 21 they do not always call upon or even know about the power that
is rightfully theirs. So how severe can demonic influence become in the life of a Christian
after Pentecost who is indwelt by the Holy Spirit?
Before answering this question, we should note that it is similar to a question about
sin: “How much can a genuine Christian let his or her life be dominated by sin, and still
be a born-again Christian?” It is difficult to answer that question in the abstract, because
we realize that when Christians are not living as they ought to live, and when they are
not benefiting from regular fellowship with other Christians and from regular Bible
study and teaching, they can stray into significant degrees of sin and still can be said to
be born-again Christians. But the situation is abnormal; it is not what the Christian life
should be and can be. Similarly, if we ask how much demonic influence can come into
the life of a genuine Christian, it is hard to give an answer in the abstract. We are simply
asking how abnormal a Christian’s life can become, especially if that person does not
know about or make use of the weapons of spiritual warfare that are available to Chris-
tians, persists in some kinds of sin that give entrance to demonic activity, and is outside
the reach of any ministry that is accustomed to giving spiritual help against demonic
attack. It would seem that in such cases the degree of demonic attack or influence in a
Christian’s life could be quite strong. It would not be correct to say there can be no such
influence because the person is a Christian. Therefore when someone asks, “Can a Chris-
tian be demon possessed?” but really means, “Can a Christian come under quite strong
influence or attack by demons?” then the answer would have to be a positive one but
with the caution that the word possessed is here being used in a confusing way. Since the
term demon possessed is a misleading one to use in all cases, especially when referring to
Christians, I would prefer to avoid it altogether. It seems better simply to recognize that
20 It does not seem very helpful to attempt to define cat- complicated what is a simple truth: that there can be varying
egories or degrees of demonic influence, as has sometimes degrees of demonic attack or influence in a person’s life,
been done, with words such as “depressed,” “oppressed,” 21 See chapter 30, p. 640, and chapter 39, pp. 770-72, for a
“obsessed,” etc., for Scripture does not define a list of categories discussion of the greater power of the Holy Spirit at work in
like this for us to use, and such categories only tend to make believers’ lives after Pentecost.
CHAPTER 20 • SATAN AND DEMONS
425
there can be varying degrees of demonic attack or influence on people, even on Chris-
tians, and to leave it at that. In all cases the remedy will be the same anyway: rebuke the
demon in the name of Jesus and command it to leave (see discussion below).
4. How Can Demonic Influences Be Recognized? In severe cases of demonic influ-
ence, as reported in the Gospels, the affected person would exhibit bizarre and often
violent actions, especially opposition to the preaching of the gospel. When Jesus came
into the synagogue in Capernaum, “immediately there was in their synagogue a man
with an unclean spirit; and he cried out, ‘What have you to do with us, Jesus of Naza-
reth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God’ ” (Mark
1:23-24). The man stood up and interrupted the service by shouting these things (or,
more precisely, the demon within the man shouted them).
After Jesus came down from the Mount of Transfiguration, a man brought his son to
Jesus saying, “He has a dumb spirit; and wherever it seizes him, it dashes him down; and
he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid.” Then they brought the boy to Jesus,
“and when the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground
and rolled about, foaming at the mouth.” The father said, “It has often cast him into the
fire and into the water, to destroy him” (Mark 9:17-18, 20, 22). Such violent actions,
especially those tending toward destruction of the affected person, were clear indications
of demonic activity. Similar actions are seen in the case of the Gerasene demoniac,
a man with an unclean spirit, who lived among the tombs; and no one could
bind him any more, even with a chain; for he had often been bound with fet-
ters and chains, but the chains he wrenched apart, and the fetters he broke in
pieces; and no one had the strength to subdue him. Night and day among the
tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out, and bruising himself
with stones. (Mark 5:2-5)
When Jesus cast out the demons so that they could not destroy the man in whom they
had lived, they destroyed the herd of swine into which they immediately entered (Mark
5:13). Satanic or demonic activity always tends toward the ultimate destruction of parts
of God’s creation and especially of human beings who are made in the image of God (cf.
Ps. 106:37, on child sacrifice).
In this regard, it is interesting to note that in one case when Jesus healed an epileptic
he did it by casting out a demon (Matt. 17:14—18), but elsewhere epileptics are distin-
guished from those who are under demonic influence: “They brought him all the sick,
those afflicted with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics, and
he healed them (Matt. 4:24). So it is with other cases of physical sickness: in some
cases, Jesus simply prayed for the person or spoke a word and the person was healed. In
other cases there are hints or implicit statements of demonic influence in the affliction:
a woman who had had “a spirit of infirmity for eighteen years” (Luke 13:11) was healed
by Jesus, and then he explicitly said that she was “a daughter of Abraham whom Satan
bound for eighteen years” (Luke 13:16). In healing Peter’s mother-in-law, Jesus “rebuked
the fever, and it left her” (Luke 4:39), suggesting that there was some personal influence
(probably therefore demonic) that was capable of receiving a rebuke from Jesus.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
426
In other cases, the Epistles indicate that demonic influence will lead to blatantly false
doctrinal statements, such as exclaiming, “Jesus be cursed” (1 Cor. 12:3), or a refusal
to confess “that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh” (1 John 4:2-3). In both instances,
the context deals with the testing of people who may be “false prophets” and who want
to use spiritual gifts to speak in the assembly of the church (1 Cor. 12) or specifically to
prophesy (1 John 4:1-6). These passages do not indicate that all false doctrine should
be thought to be demonically inspired, but blatantly false doctrinal statements made by
those who profess to be speaking by the power of the Holy Spirit would certainly fall
into this category. When at Corinth there was active, entrenched opposition to Paul’s
apostolic authority by those who claimed to be apostles but were not, Paul saw them as
servants of Satan disguised as servants of righteousness (2 Cor. 11:13-15).
In addition to these outwardly evident indications, demonic activity was sometimes
recognized by a subjective sense of the presence of an evil spiritual influence. In 1 Corin-
thians 12:10, Paul mentions “the ability to distinguish between spirits” (“discerning of
spirits,” KJV) as one kind of spiritual gift. This gift would seem to be an ability to sense
or discern the difference in the working of the Holy Spirit and the working of evil spirits
in a person’s life. 22 The gift would apparently include an awareness of demonic influence
that would be registered both in terms of objective, observable facts, and also in terms of
emotional and/or spiritual uneasiness or perception of the presence of evil.
But does this ability to perceive demonic influence have to be limited to those with this
special gift? As with all spiritual gifts, it would seem that there are degrees of intensity or
strength in the development of this gift as well. 23 So some may have this gift developed
to a very high degree and others may find it functioning only occasionally. Moreover,
in the lives of all believers, there may be something analogous to this gift, some kind of
ability to sense in their spirits the presence of the Holy Spirit or to sense demonic influ-
ence from time to time in other people. In fact, Paul speaks of a positive kind of spiritual
perception that believers have when they encounter him and his co-workers: “For we
are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who
are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life
to life” (2 Cor. 2:15- 16). In the ordinary course of life today, sometimes Christians will
have a subjective sense that someone else is a Christian before they have opportunity to
find out that that is in fact the case. And it seems likely that an opposite spiritual percep-
tion could also occur from time to time, whereby the believer would sense the presence
of demonic influence in a person’s life before there were other, more objective indications
of that fact.
Moreover, sometimes a person who is under spiritual attack from a demonic power
will know it or sense it. A mature pastor or a Christian friend, in counseling someone
about a difficult problem, may find it wise to ask, “Do you think that an attack by any
evil spiritual force could be a factor in this situation?” The person may simply say, “No,”
22 For an extensive analysis of the meaning of the Greek 23 See chapter 52, pp. 1022-25, on the fact that spiritual
phrase diakriseis pneumaton, “distinguishing between spir- gifts may vary in strength,
its,” in 1 Cor. 12:10, see W. Grudem, “A Response to Gerhard
Dautzenberg on 1 Corinthians 12:10,” in Biblische Zeitschrift,
NF, 22:2 (1978), pp. 253-70.
CHAPTER 20 • SATAN AND DEMONS
but in many instances the person being counseled will have thought of that possibility
or even have been quite clearly aware of it, but afraid to say anything for fear of being
thought strange. Such a person will be encouraged that another Christian would consider
this as a possible factor.
In all of these attempts to recognize demonic influence, we must remember that no
spiritual gift functions perfectly in this age, nor do we have a full knowledge of people’s
hearts. “We all make many mistakes,” as James recognizes (James 3:2). There are many
cases where we are somewhat unsure whether a person is a genuine Christian or not, or
where we are somewhat unsure whether a persons motives are sincere. There are also
times when we are unclear as to the direction God is leading us in our lives, or we may be
uncertain about whether it is appropriate to speak or remain silent about a certain matter.
So it should not surprise us that there may be some degree of uncertainty in our percep-
tion of the presence of demonic influence as well. This does not mean that we should
ignore the possibility of demonic influence, however, and as we grow in spiritual maturity
and sensitivity, and as we gain experience in ministering to the needs of others, our ability
to recognize demonic influence in various situations will no doubt increase.
5. Jesus Gives All Believers Authority to Rebuke Demons and Command Them to
Leave. When Jesus sent the twelve disciples ahead of him to preach the kingdom of God,
he “gave them power and authority over all demons” (Luke 9:1). After the seventy had
preached the kingdom of God in towns and villages, they returned with joy, saying,
“Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name! n (Luke 10:17), and Jesus told them,
“I have given you authority . . . over all the power of the enemy” (Luke 10:19). When
Philip, the evangelist, went down to Samaria to preach the gospel of Christ, “unclean
spirits came out of many who had them” (Acts 8:7, author’s translation), and Paul used
spiritual authority over demons to say to a spirit of divination in a soothsaying girl, “I
charge you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her” (Acts 16:18).
Paul was aware of the spiritual authority he had, both in face-to-face encounters such
as he had in Acts 16, and in his prayer life as well. He said, “For though we live in the
world we are not carrying on a worldly war, for the weapons of our warfare are not
worldly but have divine power to destroy strongholds” (2 Cor. 10:3-4). Moreover, he
spoke at some length of the struggle Christians have against “the wiles of the devil” in his
description of conflict against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places”
(see Eph. 6:10-18). James tells all his readers (in many churches) to “ resist the devil and
he will flee from you” (James 4:7). Similarly, Peter tells his readers in many churches in
Asia Minor, Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking some
one to devour. Resist him , firm in your faith” (1 Peter 5:8-9). 24
Some may object that Jude 9 teaches that Christians should not command or rebuke
evil spirits. It says: ‘But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, disputed
about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a reviling judgment upon
him, but said, ‘The Lord rebuke you.’ ”
24 ° f course > our greatest example of dealing with demonic the Gospels, and by example and word he taught the disciples
powers by speaking to them directly and commanding them to to imitate him.
leave is the example of Jesus himself, who frequently did this in
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
428
However, in context Jude is not talking about Christians in their encounters with
demonic forces, but is pointing out the error of immoral and rebellious false teachers who
“reject authority” in general and “slander celestial beings” (v. 8 NIV): on their own author-
ity they foolishly speak blasphemous words against heavenly beings, whether angelic or
demonic. The reference to Michael is simply to show that the greatest angelic creature, no
matter how powerful, did not presume to go beyond the limits of the authority that God
had given him. The false teachers, however, have far overstepped their bounds, and they
show their foolishness when they “revile whatever they do not understand” (v. 10). The
lesson of the verse is simply, “Don’t try to go beyond the authority God has given you!”
When Jude 9 is viewed in this way, the only question that arises for a Christian from this
verse is, “What authority has God given us over demonic forces? ” And the rest of the New
Testament speaks clearly to that in several places. Not only Jesus, and not only his twelve
disciples, but also the seventy disciples, and Paul, and Philip (who was not an apostle)
are given authority over demons by the Lord Jesus (see verses above). Jude 9 therefore
simply cannot mean that it is wrong for human beings to rebuke or command demons,
or that it is wrong for any but the apostles to do so. In fact, both Peter and James encour-
age all Christians to “resist” the devil, and Paul encourages believers in general to put on
spiritual armor and prepare for spiritual warfare.
Before we examine in more detail how that authority works out in practice, it is impor-
tant, first, that we recognize that the work of Christ on the cross is the ultimate basis for
our authority over demons. 25 Though Christ won a victory over Satan in the wilderness,
the New Testament epistles point to the cross as the moment when Satan was decisively
defeated. Jesus took on flesh and blood, “that through death He might render powerless
him who had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Heb. 2:14 NASB). At the cross God
“disarmed the principalities and powers and made a public example of them, triumphing
over them in him” (Col. 2:15). Therefore Satan hates the cross of Christ, because there he
was decisively defeated forever. Because the blood of Christ speaks clearly of his death, we
read in Revelation of those who overcame Satan by Christ’s blood during conflict in this
world: “And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their
testimony” (Rev. 12:11). Because of Christ’s death on the cross, our sins are completely
forgiven, and Satan has no rightful authority over us.
Second, our membership as children in God’s family is the firm spiritual position
from which we engage in spiritual warfare. Paul says to every Christian, “For in Christ
Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith” (Gal. 3:26). When Satan comes to attack
us, he is attacking one of God’s own children, a member of God’s own family: this truth
gives us authority to successfully wage war against him and defeat him. 26
If we as believers find it appropriate to speak a word of rebuke to a demon, it is impor-
tant to remember that we need not fear demons. Although Satan and demons have much
less power than the power of the Holy Spirit at work within us, one of Satan’s tactics is
to attempt to cause us to be afraid. Instead of giving in to such fear, Christians should
remind themselves of the truths of Scripture, which tell us, “You are of God, and have
25 In this paragraph and the following one on adoption I am 26 See chapter 37, pp. 736-45, on adoption,
indebted to the fine work of Timothy M. Warner, Spiritual War-
fare (Wheaton, 111.: Crossway, 1991), pp. 55-63.
CHAPTER 20 • SATAN AND DEMONS
429
overcome them; for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4), and
God did not give us a spirit of timidity but a spirit of power and love and self-control”
(2 Tim. 1:7). What Paul says about the Philippians in their relationship to human oppo-
nents can also be applied when facing demonic opposition to the gospel— Paul tells them
to stand firm and to be “not frightened in anything by your opponents. This is a clear omen
to them of their destruction, but of your salvation, and that from God” (Phil. 1:28). He
also tells the Ephesians that in their spiritual warfare they are to use the “shield of faith”
with which they can “quench all the flaming darts of the evil one” (Eph. 6:16). This is
very important, since the opposite of fear is faith in God. He also tells them to be bold in
their spiritual conflict, so that, having taken the whole armor of God, they “may be able
to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand” (Eph. 6:13). In their conflict
with hostile spiritual forces, Paul’s readers should not run away in retreat or cower in fear,
but should stand their ground boldly, knowing that their weapons and their armor “have
divine power to destroy strongholds” (2 Cor. 10:4; cf. 1 John 5:18).
We may ask, however, why does God want Christians to speak directly to the demon
who is troubling someone rather than just praying and asking God to drive away the
demon for them? In a way, this is similar to asking why Christians should share the gos-
pel with another person rather than simply praying and asking God to reveal the gospel
to that person directly. Or why should we speak words of encouragement to a Christian
who is discouraged rather than just praying and asking God himself to encourage that
person directly? Why should we speak a word of rebuke or gentle admonition to a Chris-
tian whom we see involved in some kind of sin, rather than just praying and asking
God to take care of the sin in that person’s life? The answer to all these questions is that
in the world that God has created, he has given us a very active role in carrying out his
plans, especially his plans for the advancement of the kingdom and the building up of the
church. In all of these cases, our direct involvement and activity is important in addition to
our prayers. And so it seems to be in our dealing with demonic forces as well. Like a wise
father who does not settle all of his children’s disputes for them, but sometimes sends
them back out to the playground to settle a dispute themselves, so our heavenly Father
encourages us to enter directly into conflict with demonic forces in the name of Christ
and in the power of the Holy Spirit. Thereby he enables us to gain the joy of participating
in eternally significant ministry and the joy of triumphing over the destructive power of
Satan and his demons in people s lives. It is not that God could not deal with demonic
attacks every time we prayed and asked him to do so, for he certainly could and he no
doubt sometimes does. But the New Testament pattern seems to be that God ordinarily
expects Christians themselves to speak directly to the unclean spirits.
In actual practice, this authority to rebuke demons may result in briefly speaking a
command to an evil spirit to leave when we suspect the presence of demonic influence in
our personal lives or the lives of those around us. 27 We are to “resist the devil” (James 4:7),
and he will flee from us. 28 Sometimes a very brief command in the name of Jesus will be
enough. At other times it will be helpful to quote Scripture in the process of commanding
Because Scripture gives no indication that demons can 28 For example, if we or one of our children wakes up with
know our thoughts (see above, pp. 415- 16), it would seem that a frightening dream, in addition to praying to Jesus for com-
the command should be spoken audibly. fort and protection, we might also say, “In the name of Jesus,
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
430
an evil spirit to leave a situation. Paul speaks of “the sword of the Spirit, which is the
word of God” (Eph. 6 : 17). 29 And lesus, when he was tempted by Satan in the wilderness,
repeatedly quoted Scripture in response to Satan’s temptations (Matt. 4:1-11). Appropri-
ate Scriptures may include general statements of the triumph of Jesus over Satan (Matt.
12:28-29; Luke 10:17- 19; 2 Cor. 10:3-4; Col. 2:15; Heb. 2:14; James 4:7; 1 Peter 5:8-9;
1 John 3:8; 4:4; 5:18), 30 but also verses that speak directly to the particular temptation or
difficulty at hand.
In our own personal lives, if we find sinful emotions that are unusually strong welling
up in our minds or hearts (whether they be emotions of irrational fear, anger, hatred, bit-
terness, lust, greed, etc.), in addition to praying and asking Jesus for help in overcoming
them, it would also be appropriate for us to say something like, “Spirit of fear, in Jesus’
name, I command you, go away from here and don’t return!” Even though we may be
unsure whether there is a demonic factor in that particular situation, and even though
a demon’s presence may be only one factor contributing to the situation, nonetheless,
such words of rebuke will sometimes be very effective. Though we do not have in the
New Testament a complete record of the personal prayer life of the apostle Paul, he talks
openly about wrestling “not . . . against flesh and blood, but . . . against the spiritual hosts
of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12) and about “not carrying on a worldly
war” (2 Cor. 10:3). It is reasonable to think that his own extensive prayer life included this
kind of verbal rebuke of demonic forces as one aspect of his spiritual warfare.
Moreover, such wrestling against “the spiritual hosts of wickedness” may mean that
in our private times of intercessory prayer for others we will include an element of verbal
rebuke to demonic forces that may be a component in situations for which we are pray-
ing. (This kind of spiritual warfare would not be in the presence of the person for whom
we are concerned, who in many cases would be confused or frightened unnecessarily.)
For example, parents may appropriately include a brief word of rebuke to a spirit of rebel-
liousness in one child, of laziness in another, or of anger in yet another, in addition to
praying that the Lord would give victory in those areas, and in addition to teaching and
disciplining their children. 31
6. Appropriate Use of the Christian’s Spiritual Authority in Ministry to Other People.
When we pass from the discussion of private spiritual warfare in our own personal lives
and perhaps the lives of close family members, we move to the question of direct personal
I command any evil spirit causing this frightening dream, [twice]), and that is the sense in which Paul seems to use it in
begone!” Children from a very young age can be taught to say, Eph. 6:17: as we speak the words of Scripture they are accom-
“In Jesus’ name, go away!” to any images of witches, goblins, panied by the work of the Holy Spirit and have the power of a
etc. that may appear in their dreams or in mental images that spiritual sword.
trouble them at night, and then to pray to Jesus for protection 30 It would be good for Christians to memorize the verses
and happy thoughts of him. Such action by those little ones who in the list just mentioned so as to be able to speak them from
trust in Christ will often be remarkably effective, for their faith memory when involved in any spiritual warfare,
in Jesus is very simple and genuine (see Matt. 18:1-4). 31 Since Scripture gives no indication that demons can read
29 The Greek word here translated “word” is rhema, which our minds, such rebukes against demons would probably have
usually refers to spoken words (whether by God or by oth- to be spoken audibly, even if softly. By contrast, God of course
ers). It is sometimes used to speak of the words of Scripture knows our thoughts, and prayer to him can be in our minds
when they are spoken by God or by people quoting Scripture only, without being spoken aloud.
(Matt. 4:4; John 15:7; 17:8; Rom. 10:17; Heb. 6:5; 1 Peter 1:25
CHAPTER 20 • SATAN AND DEMONS
ministry to others who have come under spiritual attack. For example, we may at times
be involved in counseling or prayer with another person when we suspect that demonic
activity is a factor in their situation. In these cases, some additional considerations must
be kept in mind.
First, it is important not to frighten people by talking very glibly about an area that
may be familiar to us but quite unfamiliar and somewhat frightening to others. The
Holy Spirit is a Spirit of gentleness and peace (see 1 Cor. 14:33). Because of this, it is often
considerate simply to ask questions of the person we are helping. We might ask, “Do you
think an evil spirit may be attacking you in this situation?” or “Would you mind if I
spoke a word of rebuke to any evil spirit that may be a factor in this?” It would also be
important to assure the person that if there is a demonic factor involved, it should not
be thought of as a negative reflection on the person’s spiritual condition but may simply
indicate that Satan is trying to attack the person to keep him or her from more effec-
tive ministry for the Lord. Each Christian is a soldier in the Lord’s spiritual army and
therefore subject to attacks from the forces of the enemy.
If the other person gives permission to do so, a brief command should be spoken aloud,
telling the evil spirit to leave. 32 Since the person under attack will often have had a sense
of a demonic presence, it would be appropriate, after commanding the evil spirit to leave,
to ask the person if he or she felt or sensed anything different when those words were
spoken. If there really was a demonic influence in the situation, the person may express
an immediate feeling of relief or freedom, often with a sense of joy and peace as well.
All of this does not have to be a highly dramatic or emotionally charged procedure.
Some contemporary stories tell of long, drawn-out battles in which the Christian coun-
selor argues with the demon and shouts at it repeatedly over a period of several hours.
But there is no indication in the New Testament that demons are hard of hearing, nor
are there examples of such long periods of conflict in order to get a demon to leave. Jesus
simply cast out the spirits with a word” (Matt. 8:16), even though in one case (with the
Gerasene demoniac) the evil spirit showed some initial resistance (see Mark 5:8; Luke
8:29). Jesus then asked its name and then cast out many demons at once (Mark 5:9-13;
Luke 8:30—33). The power to cast out demons comes not from our own strength or the
power of our own voice, but from the Holy Spirit (Matt. 12:28; Luke 1 1 :20) . Thus, a quiet,
confident, authoritative tone of voice should be sufficient.
Second, to avoid being drawn into a long conversation or battle with the demon itself
the Christian counselor should focus not on the demon but on the person being minis-
tered to and the truths of the Bible that need to be affirmed and believed. The “belt of
truth” (Eph. 6:14 NIV) is part of the armor that protects us against Satan, as is the “sword
of the Spirit, which is the word of God (Eph. 6 : 17) . If the person who is receiving ministry
will focus on and believe the truth of Scripture and will renounce sin and thereby put on
the “breastplate of righteousness” (Eph. 6:14), then the evil spirit will have no foothold in
that persons life. If the demon refuses to leave in spite of the command given in the name
The verb exorcise in English means to drive out (an evil 19:13 mentions Jewish exorcists). Because these terms are used
spirit) by a magic formula or a spoken command.” An “exor- in pagan as well as Christian contexts throughout history, there
cism” is defined as the action of driving out an evil spirit in is room for Christians to differ over whether it is wise to use
this way. These words do not occur in the Bible (although Acts them to refer to Christian practices today.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
432
of Jesus, then it may be best to wait until another time after more prayer and personal
spiritual preparation on the part of the person being ministered to and the persons who
are engaging in this ministry (Matt. 17:19-20; Mark 9:29; see discussions below). 33
Third, it is important for Christians not to become overly curious in this area of
demonic conflict. Though it is a ministry that the Lord gives all Christians authority to
engage in, Scripture nonetheless tells us that we are to be “babes in evil” (1 Cor. 14:20).
That is, we are not to become overly fascinated with matters of evil and attempt to become
“experts” in some kinds of evil just to satisfy our curiosity. 34
Fourth, if the person being ministered to is not a Christian, it is important that he
or she be urged to come to Christ as Savior immediately after the demon is cast out so
that the Holy Spirit will reside in the person and protect him or her from future attacks.
Otherwise there may be a worse result later.
When the unclean spirit has gone out of a man, he passes through waterless
places seeking rest, but he finds none. Then he says, “I will return to my
house from which I came.” And when he comes he finds it empty, swept,
and put in order. Then he goes and brings with him seven other spirits more
evil than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that
man becomes worse than the first. So shall it be also with this evil generation.
(Matt. 12:43-45)
Fifth, effectiveness in difficult cases of demonic influence may be related to our own
spiritual condition. When Jesus had cast a demon out of an epileptic boy, and “the boy
was cured instantly,” the disciples privately came to Jesus and asked, “Why could we not
cast it out?” (Matt. 17:18- 19). Jesus said to them, “Because of your little faith” (Matt
17:20). Mark’s gospel reports that Jesus also said in response to the disciples, “This kind
cannot be driven out by anything but prayer” (Mark 9:29). The disciples apparently were
at that time weak in faith; they had not spent enough time in prayer recently and they
were not walking fully in the power of the Holy Spirit. 35
Jesus issues a clear warning that we should not rejoice too much or become proud in
our power over demons, but that we should rejoice rather in our great salvation. We must
keep this in mind lest we become proud and the Holy Spirit withdraw his power from
us. When the seventy returned with joy saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us
in your name!” (Luke 10:17) Jesus told them, “Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are
subject to you; but rejoice that your names are written in heaven” (Luke 10:20). 36
33 It would often be wise, in difficult cases, to have help from
someone with more maturity and experience in this area.
34 Christians should therefore not be preoccupied with
matters concerning the occult or the New Age movement. We
should think about things that are “honorable” and “pure”
and “worthy of praise” (Phil. 4:8).
35 When Jesus said, “This kind cannot be driven out by
anything but prayer” (Mark 9:29), he cannot have meant that
it was necessary to pray for a long time about that specific
situation before the demon would be cast out, for he did not
pray at all but simply spoke a word and cast out the demon
at once. He must have meant, rather, that a continual life of
prayer and abiding in God will result in a spiritual prepared-
ness and a possession of a spiritual power through the anoint-
ing of the Holy Spirit that will be effective in conflict even over
very severe demonic attack or influence.
36 Jesus cannot mean that it is wrong to rejoice when the
enemy is vanquished and people are set free from bondage,
for that is certainly a good reason for rejoicing. He must rather
be putting a relative contrast in absolute terms in telling the
disciples that the greatness of their salvation is the primary
thing that they should be rejoicing in.
CHAPTER 20 • SATAN AND DEMONS
7. We Should Expect the Gospel to Come in Power to Triumph Over the Works of the
Devil. When Jesus came preaching the gospel in Galilee, “demons also came out of many”
(Luke 4:41). When Philip went to Samaria to preach the gospel, “unclean spirits came
out of many . . . crying with a loud voice” (Acts 8:7). Jesus commissioned Paul to preach
among the Gentiles that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of
Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are
sanctified by faith in me” (Acts 26:18). Paul’s proclamation of the gospel, he said, was
not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that
your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God” (1 Cor. 2:4-5;
cf. 2 Cor. 10:3—4). If we really believe the scriptural testimony to the existence and activ-
ity of demons, and if we really believe that “the reason the Son of God appeared was to
destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8), then it would seem appropriate to expect that
even today when the gospel is proclaimed to unbelievers, and when prayer is made for
believers who have perhaps been unaware of this dimension of spiritual conflict, there
will be a genuine and often immediately recognizable triumph over the power of the
enemy. We should expect that this would happen, think of it as a normal part of the work
of Christ in building up his kingdom, and rejoice in Christ’s victory in it.
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. Before reading this chapter, did you think that most demonic activity was confined
to the time of the New Testament or to other cultures than your own? After reading
this chapter, are there areas in your own society where you think there might be
some demonic influence today? Do you feel some fear at the prospect of encounter-
ing demonic activity in your own life or the lives of others around you? What does
the Bible say that will specifically address that feeling of fear? Do you think that
the Lord wants you to feel that fear, if you do?
2. Are there any areas of sin in your own life now that might give a foothold to some
demonic activity? If so, what would the Lord have you do with respect to that sin?
3. Are there cases where you have had victory over some demonic force by speaking
to it in the name of Jesus? How can the material in this chapter help you be more
effective in this kind of spiritual conflict? What are the dangers of becoming too
interested in or too deeply involved in this kind of ministry? How can you safe-
guard against that excessive emphasis? What do you think Paul’s procedure was
when he came to preach the gospel in city after city where it had never been heard
before and where there was demon worship? How could the church today profit
from Paul’s example?
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
434
SPECIAL TERMS
demonized distinguishing between spirits
demon possession exorcism
demons Satan
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter 1,
pp. 38-39. Complete bibliographical data maybe found on pp. 1224-30.)
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1882-92 Litton, 129-36
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1892-94
Miley, 1:539-40; 2:497-504
1940
Wiley, 1:476-77
1983
Carter, 2:1069-97
3. Baptist
1767
Gill, 1:435 -440
1887
Boyce, 181-89
1907
Strong, 450-64
1917
Mullins, 279-80
1976-83
Henry, 6:229-50
1983-85
Erickson, 445-51
1987-94
Lewis/Demarest, 2:257-63
4. Dispensational
1947
Chafer, 2:33-124
1949
Thiessen, 133-50
1986
Ryrie, 135-68
5. Lutheran
1917-24
Pieper, 1:504-14
1934
Mueller, 202-4
6. Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1559
Calvin, 1:172 - 79 (1.14.13-19)
1724- 58
Edwards, 2:607-12
1861
Heppe, 201-19
1871-73
Hodge, 1:643-48
1937 -66
Murray, CW, 2:67-70
1938
Berkhof, 148-49
CHAPTER 20 • SATAN AND DEMONS
435
7. Renewal (or charismatic/Pentecostal)
1988-92 Williams, 1:173,224-36
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
1. Roman Catholic: Traditional
1955 Ott, 119-24
2. Roman Catholic: Post-Vatican II
1980 McBrien, 1:329; 2:1105, 1153 -54
Other Works
Anderson, Neil. The Bondage Breaker. Eugene, Ore.: Harvest House, 1990.
. Victory Over the Darkness. Ventura, Calif.: Regal, 1990.
Dickason, C. Fred. Angels, Elect and Evil. Chicago: Moody, 1975.
. Demon Possession and the Christian: A New Perspective. Westchester, 111.: Crossway,
1991.
Green, Michael. I Believe in Satan’s Downfall. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981.
Lewis, C. S. The Screwtape Letters. New York: Macmillan, 1961.
MacMillan, John A. The Authority of the Believer: A Compilation of “ The Authority of
the Believer and “The Authority of the Intercessor.” Harrisburg, Pa.: Christian
Publications, 1980.
McClelland, S. E. “Demon, Demon Possession.” In EDT, pp. 306-8.
Mallone, George. Arming for Spiritual Warfare. Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press,
1991.
Penn-Lewis, Jessie, with Evan Roberts. War on the Saints. Unabridged ed. New York:
Thomas E. Lowe, 1973.
Pentecost, Dwight. The Adversary, the Devil. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1969.
Twelftree, G. H. “Devil and Demons.” In NDT, pp. 196-98.
Unger, M. F. “Satan.” In EDT, pp. 972-73.
. Demons in the World Today: A Study of Occultism in the Light of God’s Word.
Wheaton, 111.: Tyndale, 1971.
Warner, Timothy M. Spiritual Warfare: Victory Over the Powers of This Dark World.
Wheaton, 111.: Crossway, 1991.
Wright, Nigel. The Satan Syndrome: Putting the Power of Darkness In Its Place. Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 1990.
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
James 4:7-8: Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify
your hearts, you men of double mind.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
436
HYMN
“Christian, Dost Thou See Them?”
Christian, dost thou see them on the holy ground,
How the pow’rs of darkness rage thy steps around?
Christian, up and smite them, counting gain but loss,
In the strength that cometh by the holy Cross.
Christian, dost thou feel them, how they work within,
Striving, tempting, luring, goading into sin?
Christian, never tremble; never be downcast;
Gird thee for the battle, watch and pray and fast.
Christian, dost thou hear them, how they speak thee fair?
“Always fast and vigil? Always watch and prayer?”
Christian, answer boldly, “While I breathe I pray!”
Peace shall follow battle, night shall end in day.
Hear the words of Jesus: “O my servant true;
Thou art very weary, I was weary too;
But that toil shall make thee some day all mine own,
And the end of sorrow shall be near my throne.”
AUTHOR: JOHN MASON NEALE, 1862
Alternative hymns: “Soldiers of Christ Arise”; “Lead On, O King Eternal”; or “Onward,
Christian Soldiers.”
Part
THE DOCTRINE
OF MAN
Chapter
THE CREATION OF MAN
Why did God create us? How did God
make us like himself? How can we please him
in everyday living?
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
The previous chapters have discussed the nature of God and his creation of the uni-
verse, the spiritual beings that he created, and his relationship to the world in terms of
working miracles and answering prayer. In this next section, we focus on the pinnacle of
God’s creative activity, his creation of human beings, both male and female, to be more
like him than anything else he has made. We will consider first God’s purpose in creating
man and the nature of man as God created him to be (chapters 21-23). Then we will look
at the nature of sin and man’s disobedience to God (chapter 24). Finally, we will examine
the initiation of God’s plan for saving man, discussing man’s relationship to God in the
covenants that God established (chapter 25).
A. The Use of the Word Man to Refer
to the Human Race
Before discussing the subject matter of this chapter, it is necessary to consider briefly
whether it is appropriate to use the word man to refer to the entire human race (as in the
title for this chapter). Some people today object to ever using the word “man” to refer to
the human race in general (including both men and women), because it is claimed that
such usage is insensitive to women. Those who make this objection would prefer that we
only use “gender neutral” terms such as “humanity,” “humankind,” “human beings,” or
“persons” to refer to the human race.
After considering this suggestion, I decided to continue to use the word “man” (as
well as several of these other terms) to refer to the human race in this book because such
usage has divine warrant in Genesis 5, and because I think there is a theological issue at
stake. In Genesis 5:1-2 we read, “When God created man, he made him in the likeness of
439
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
440
God. Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when
they were created” (cf. Gen. 1:27). The Hebrew term translated “Man” is y adam , the same
term used for the name of Adam, and the same term that is sometimes used of man in
distinction from woman (Gen. 2:22, 25; 3:12; Eccl. 7:28). Therefore the practice of using
the same term to refer (1) to male human beings and (2) to the human race generally is
a practice that originated with God himself, and we should not find it objectionable or
insensitive.
Someone might object that this is just an accidental feature of the Hebrew language,
but this argument is not persuasive because Genesis 5:2 specifically describes God’s
activity of choosing a name that would apply to the human race as a whole.
I am not here arguing that we must always duplicate biblical patterns of speech, or
that it is wrong to use gender-neutral terms sometimes to refer to the human race (as I
just did in this sentence), but rather that God’s naming activity reported in Genesis 5:2
indicates that the use of “man” to refer to the entire race is a good and very appropriate
choice, and one that we should not avoid. 1
The theological issue is whether there is a suggestion of male leadership or headship
in the family from the beginning of creation. The fact that God did not choose to call
the human race “woman,” but “man,” probably has some significance for understanding
God’s original plan for men and women. 2 Of course, this question of the name we use to
refer to the race is not the only factor in that discussion, but it is one factor, and our use
of language in this regard does have some significance in the discussion of male-female
roles today. 3
B. Why Was Man Created?
1. God Did Not Need to Create Man, Yet He Created Us for His Own Glory. In the dis-
cussion of God’s independence in chapter 11 (see pp. 160-63), we noted several Scripture
passages that teach that God does not need us or the rest of creation for anything, yet we
and the rest of creation glorify him and bring him joy. Since there was perfect love and
fellowship among members of the Trinity for all eternity (John 17:5, 24), God did not cre-
ate us because he was lonely or because he needed fellowship with other persons — God
did not need us for any reason.
Nevertheless, God created us for his own glory. In our treatment of his independence
we noted that God speaks of his sons and daughters from the ends of the earth as those
“whom I created for my glory” (Isa. 43:7; cf. Eph. 1:11-12). Therefore, we are to “do all
to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31).
however, the question of whether to use “man” to refer “Male-Female Equality and Male Headship: Genesis 1-3,”
to a person indefinitely, as in, “If any man would come after in Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response
me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow to Evangelical Feminism, ed. John Piper and Wayne Grudem
me (Luke 9:23),” is a different question, because the naming (Wheaton, 111.: Crossway, 1991, p. 98).
of the human race is not in view. In these cases, considerate- 3 This is probably also recognized by many of those who
ness toward women as well as men, and present-day language raise the most objection to the use of “man” to refer to the race
patterns, would make it appropriate to use gender-neutral (namely, feminists who oppose any unique male headship in
language such as, “If any one would come after me.” the family) .
2 See chapter 22, p. 463; also Raymond C. Ortlund, Jr.,
CHAPTER 21 - THE CREATION OF MAN
This fact guarantees that our lives are significant. When we first realize that God did
not need to create us and does not need us for anything, we could conclude that our lives
have no importance at all. But Scripture tells us that we were created to glorify God,
indicating that we are important to God himself. This is the final definition of genuine
importance or significance to our lives: If we are truly important to God for all eternity,
then what greater measure of importance or significance could we want?
2. What Is Our Purpose in Life? The fact that God created us for his own glory deter-
mines the correct answer to the question, “What is our purpose in life?” Our purpose
must be to fulfill the reason that God created us: to glorify him. When we are speaking
with respect to God himself, that is a good summary of our purpose. But when we think
of our own interests, we make the happy discovery that we are to enjoy God and take
delight in him and in our relationship to him. Jesus says, “I came that they may have life,
and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). David tells God, a In your presence there i s fulness
of joy, in your right hand are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16:11). He longs to dwell in
the house of the Lord forever, “to behold the beauty of the Lord” (Ps. 27:4), and Asaph
cries out,
Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing upon earth that I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion for ever. (Ps. 73:25-26)
Fullness of joy is found in knowing God and delighting in the excellence of his character.
To be in his presence, to enjoy fellowship with him, is a greater blessing than anything
that can be imagined.
How lovely is your dwelling place,
O Lord of hosts!
My soul longs, yea, faints
for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and flesh sing for joy
to the living God
For a day in your courts is better
than a thousand elsewhere. (Ps. 84:1-2, 10)
Therefore, the normal heart attitude of a Christian is rejoicing in the Lord and in the
lessons of the life he gives us (Rom. 5:2-3; Phil. 4:4; 1 Thess. 5:16-18; James 1:2; 1 Peter
1:6, 8, et al.). 4
As we glorify God and enjoy him, Scripture tells us that he rejoices in us. We read,
“As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you” (Isa. 62:5),
and Zephaniah prophesies that the Lord “will rejoice over you with gladness, he will
^he first question in the Westminster Larger Catechism “Man’s chief and highest end is to glorify God, and fully to enjoy
is “What is the chief and highest end of man?” The answer is, Him forever.”
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
442
renew you in his love; he will exult over you with loud singing as on a day of festival”
(Zeph. 3:17-18).
This understanding of the doctrine of the creation of man has very practical results.
When we realize that God created us to glorify him, and when we start to act in ways that
fulfill that purpose, then we begin to experience an intensity of joy in the Lord that we
have never before known. When we add to that the realization that God himself is rejoic-
ing in our fellowship with him, our joy becomes “inexpressible and filled with heavenly
glory” (1 Peter 1:8, author’s expanded paraphrase). 5
Someone might object that it is wrong for God to seek glory for himself in creating
man. Certainly it is wrong for human beings to seek glory for themselves, as we see in
the dramatic example of the death of Herod Agrippa I. When he proudly accepted the
shout of the crowd, “The voice of a god, and not of man!” (Acts 12:22), “immediately an
angel of the Lord smote him, because he did not give God the glory; and he was eaten by
worms and died” (Acts 12:23). Herod died because he robbed God of glory, glory that
God deserved and he did not.
But when God takes glory to himself, from whom is he robbing glory? Is there any-
one who deserves glory more than he does? Certainly not! He is the Creator, he made
all things, and he deserves all glory. He is worthy of receiving glory. Man may not seek
glory for himself, but in this case what is wrong for man is right for God, because he is
the Creator. It is right , not wrong, that he be glorified — in fact, if he did not receive glory
from all creatures in the universe, that would be horribly wrong! The twenty-four elders
around Gods throne continually sing,
“You are worthy ; our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they existed and were created ”
(Rev. 4:11)
Paul exclaims, “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory
for ever. Amen” (Rom. 11:36). When we begin to appreciate the nature of God as the infi-
nitely perfect Creator who deserves all praise, then our hearts will not rest until we give
him glory with all of our “heart . . . soul . . . mind, and . . . strength” (Mark 12:30).
C. Man in the Image of God
1. The Meaning of “Image of God.” Out of all the creatures God made, only one creature,
man, is said to be made “in the image of God.” 6 What does that mean? We may use the
following definition: The fact that man is in the image of God means that man is like God
and represents God.
When God says, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Gen. 1:26), the
meaning is that God plans to make a creature similar to himself. Both the Hebrew word
5 See W. Grudem, 1 Peter. > p. 66. English phrase “image of God.” I have not used it elsewhere
6 The Latin phrase imago Dei means “image of God” and in this book,
is sometimes used in theological discussions in place of the
CHAPTER 21 • THE CREATION OF MAN
for “image” ( tselem ) and the Hebrew word for “likeness” (demtit) refer to something that
is similar but not identical to the thing it represents or is an “image” of. The word image
can also be used of something that represents something else. 7
Theologians have spent much time attempting to specify one characteristic of man,
or a very few, in which the image of God is primarily seen. 8 Some have thought that the
image of God consists in man’s intellectual ability, others in his power to make moral
decisions and willing choices. Others have thought that the image of God referred to
man’s original moral purity, or his creation as male and female (see Gen. 1:27), or his
dominion over the earth.
In this discussion it would be best to focus attention primarily on the meanings of the
words “image” and “likeness.” As we have seen, these terms had quite clear meanings to
the original readers. When we realize that the Hebrew words for “image” and “likeness”
simply informed the original readers that man was like God, and would in many ways
represent God, much of the controversy over the meaning of “image of God” is seen to
be a search for too narrow and too specific a meaning. When Scripture reports that God
said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Gen. 1:26), it simply would have
meant to the original readers, “Let us make man to be like us and to represent us.”
Because “image” and “likeness” had these meanings, Scripture does not need to say
something like,
The fact that man is in the image of God means that man is like God in the fol-
lowing ways: intellectual ability, moral purity, spiritual nature, dominion over
the earth, creativity, ability to make ethical choices, and immortality [or some
similar statement].
Such an explanation is unnecessary, not only because the terms had clear meanings, but
also because no such list could do justice to the subject: the text only needs to affirm that
man is like God , and the rest of Scripture fills in more details to explain this. In fact, as we
read the rest of Scripture, we realize that a full understanding of man’s likeness to God
7 The word image ( tselem ) means an object similar to some-
thing else and often representative of it. The word is used to
speak of statues or replicas of tumors and of mice (1 Sam. 6:5,
11), of paintings of soldiers on the wall (Ezek. 23:14), and of
pagan idols or statues representing deities (Num. 33:42; 2 Kings
11:18; Ezek. 7:20; 16:17, et al.).
The word likeness ( demut ) also means an object similar
to something else, but it tends to be used more frequently in
contexts where the idea of similarity is emphasized more than
the idea of being a representative or substitute (of a god, for
example). King Ahaz’s model or drawing of the altar he saw
in Damascus is called a “likeness” (2 Kings 16:10), as are the
figures of bulls beneath the bronze altar (2 Chron. 4:3-4),
and the wall paintings of Babylonian chariot officers (Ezek.
23:15). In Ps. 58:4 (Heb. v. 5) the venom of the wicked is a
“likeness” of the venom of a snake: here the idea is that they
are very similar in their characteristics, but there is no thought
of actual representation or substitution.
All of this evidence indicates that the English words image
and likeness are very accurate equivalents for the Hebrew
terms they translate.
8 A brief survey of various views is found in D. J. A. Clines,
“The Image of God in Man,” TB (1968), pp. 54-61. Millard
Erickson, Christian Theology, pp. 498-510, also gives a helpful
summary of three major views of the image of God in man
that have been held throughout the history of the church:
(1) the substantive view, which identifies some particular
quality of man (such as reason or spirituality) as being the
image of God in man (Luther, Calvin, many early church writ-
ers); (2) relational views, which held that the image of God
had to do with our interpersonal relationships (Emil Brun-
ner; also Karl Barth, who saw the image of God specifically in
our being created as male and female); and (3) the functional
view, which holds that the image of God has to do with a func-
tion we carry out, usually our exercise of dominion over the
creation (a Socinian view that is also held by some modern
writers such as Norman Snaith and Leonard Verduin).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
444
would require a full understanding of who God is in his being and in his actions and a
full understanding of who man is and what he does. The more we know about God and
man the more similarities we will recognize, and the more fully we will understand what
Scripture means when it says that man is in the image of God. The expression refers to
every way in which man is like God.
This understanding of what it means that man is created in the image of God is rein-
forced by the similarity between Genesis 1 :26, where God declares his intention to create
man in his image and likeness, and Genesis 5:3: “When Adam had lived a hundred and
thirty years, he became the father of a son in his own likeness [ demut ], after his image
[tselem], and named him Seth.” Seth was not identical to Adam, but he was like him in
many ways, as a son is like his father. The text simply means that Seth was like Adam. It
does not specify any specific number of ways that Seth was like Adam, and it would be
overly restrictive for us to assert that one or another characteristic determined the way in
which Seth was in Adam’s image and likeness. Was it his brown eyes? Or his curly hair?
Perhaps it was his athletic prowess, or his serious disposition or even his quick temper?
Of course, such speculation would be useless. It is evident that every way in which Seth
was like Adam would be a part of his likeness to Adam and thus part of his being “in the
image” of Adam. Similarly, every way in which man is like God is part of his being in the
image and likeness of God.
2. The Fall: God’s Image Is Distorted but Not Lost. We might wonder whether man
could still be thought to be like God after he sinned. This question is answered quite
early in Genesis where God gives Noah the authority to establish the death penalty for
murder among human beings just after the flood: God says “Whoever sheds the blood
of man, by man shall his blood be shed;/or God made man in his own image” (Gen. 9:6).
Even though men are sinful, there is still enough likeness to God remaining in them that
to murder another person (to “shed blood” is an Old Testament expression for taking a
human life) is to attack the part of creation that most resembles God, and it betrays an
attempt or desire (if one were able) to attack God himself. 9 Man is still in God’s image.
The New Testament gives confirmation to this when James 3:9 says that men generally,
not just believers, “are made in the likeness of God.”
However, since man has sinned, he is certainly not as fully like God as he was before.
His moral purity has been lost and his sinful character certainly does not reflect God’s
holiness. His intellect is corrupted by falsehood and misunderstanding; his speech no
longer continually glorifies God; his relationships are often governed by selfishness
rather than love, and so forth. Though man is still in the image of God, in every aspect
of life some parts of that image have been distorted or lost. In short, “God made man
upright, but they have sought out many devices” (Eccl. 7:29). After the fall, then, we are
still in God’s image — we are still like God and we still represent God — but the image
of God in us is distorted; we are less fully like God than we were before the entrance
of sin.
9 For a detailed analysis of this passage, see John Mur-
ray, Principles of Conduct (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1957),
pp. 109-13.
CHAPTER 21 • THE CREATION OF MAN
Therefore it is important that we understand the full meaning of the image of God not
simply from observation of human beings as they currently exist, but from the biblical
indications of the nature of Adam and Eve when God created them and when all that God
had made was “very good” (Gen. 1:31). The true nature of man in the image of God was
also seen in the earthly life of Christ. The full measure of the excellence of our humanity
will not be seen again in life on earth until Christ returns and we have obtained all the
benefits of the salvation he earned for us.
3. Redemption in Christ: a Progressive Recovering of More of God’s Image. Nonethe-
less, it is encouraging to turn to the New Testament and see that our redemption in Christ
means that we can, even in this life, progressively grow into more and more likeness
to God. For example, Paul says that as Christians we have a new nature that is “being
renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator” (Col. 3:10). As we gain in true
understanding of God, his Word, and his world, we begin to think more and more of the
thoughts that God himself thinks. In this way we are “renewed in knowledge” and we
become more like God in our thinking. This is a description of the ordinary course of
the Christian life. So Paul also can say that we “are being changed into his likeness [lit.
“image,” Gk. eikdn] from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor. 3:18). 10 Throughout
this life, as we grow in Christian maturity we grow in greater likeness to God. More par-
ticularly, we grow in likeness to Christ in our lives and in our character. In fact, the goal
for which God has redeemed us is that we might be “conformed to the image of his Son”
(Rom. 8:29) and thus be exactly like Christ in our moral character.
4. At Christ’s Return: Complete Restoration of God’s Image. The amazing promise of
the New Testament is that just as we have been like Adam (subject to death and sin), we
shall also be like Christ (morally pure, never subject to death again): “Just as we have
borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven”
(1 Cor. 15:49). n The full measure of our creation in the image of God is not seen in the
life of Adam who sinned, nor is it seen in our lives now, for we are imperfect. But the
New Testament emphasizes that God’s purpose in creating man in his image was com-
pletely realized in the person of Jesus Christ. He himself “is the image of God” (2 Cor.
4:4 NASB); “He is the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15). In Jesus we see human
likeness to God as it was intended to be, and it should cause us to rejoice that God has
predestined us “to be conformed to the image of his son” (Rom. 8:29; cf. 1 Cor. 15:49):
“When he appears we shall be like him” (1 John 3:2).
i
5. Specific Aspects of Our Likeness to God. Though we have argued above that it would
be difficult to define all the ways in which we are like God, we can nevertheless mention
10 In this verse Paul specifically says that we are being
change^ into the image of Christ, but then four verses later he
says that Christ is the image of God (2 Cor. 4:4; both verses use
eikdn).
n The New Testament Greek word for “image” (eikdn) has a
similar meaning to its Old Testament counterpart (see above) .
It indicates something that is similar to or very much like the
thing it represents. One interesting usage is a reference to the
picture of Caesar on a Roman coin. Jesus asked the Phari-
sees, “Whose likeness [Gk. eikdn , “image”] and inscription is
this?” They replied, “Caesar’s” (Matt. 22:20-21). The image
both resembles Caesar and represents him. (The Greek word
homoioma , “likeness,” is not used in the New Testament to
refer to man in the likeness of God.)
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
446
several aspects of our existence that show us to be more like God than all the rest of
creation. 12
a. Moral Aspects: (1) We are creatures who are morally accountable before God for our
actions. Corresponding to that accountability, we have (2) an inner sense of right and
wrong that sets us apart from animals (who have little if any innate sense of morality
or justice but simply respond from fear of punishment or hope of reward). When we act
according to God’s moral standards, our likeness to God is reflected in (3) behavior that
is holy and righteous before him, but, by contrast, our unlikeness to God is reflected
whenever we sin.
b. Spiritual Aspects: (4) We have not only physical bodies but also immaterial spirits,
and we can therefore act in ways that are significant in the immaterial, spiritual realm of
existence. This means that we have (5) a spiritual life that enables us to relate to God as
persons, to pray and praise him, and to hear him speaking his words to us. 13 No animal
will ever spend an hour in intercessory prayer for the salvation of a relative or a friend!
Connected with this spiritual life is the fact that we have (6) immortality; we will not
cease to exist but will live forever.
c. Mental Aspects: (7) We have an ability to reason and think logically and learn that sets
us apart from the animal world. Animals sometimes exhibit remarkable behavior in solv-
ing mazes or working out problems in the physical world, but they certainly do not engage
in abstract reasoning — there is no such thing as the “history of canine philosophy,” for
example, nor have any animals since creation developed at all in their understanding of
ethical problems or use of philosophical concepts, etc. No group of chimpanzees will
ever sit around the table arguing about the doctrine of the Trinity or the relative merits
of Calvinism or Arminianism! In fact, even in developing physical and technical skills
we are far different from animals: beavers still build the same kind of dams they have
built for a thousand generations, birds still build the same kind of nests, and bees still
build the same kinds of hives. But we continue to develop greater skill and complexity in
technology, in agriculture, in science, and in nearly every field of endeavor.
(8) Our use of complex, abstract language sets us far apart from the animals. I could
tell my son, when he was four years old, to go and get the big, red screwdriver from my
workbench in the basement. Even if he had never seen it before, he could easily perform
the task because he knew meanings of “go,” “get,” “big,” “red,” “screwdriver,” “work-
bench,” and “basement.” He could have done the same for a small, brown hammer or a
black bucket beside the workbench or any of dozens of other items that he perhaps had
never seen before but could visualize when I described them in a few brief words. No
chimpanzee in all history has been able to perform such a task — a task that has not been
learned through repetition with reward, but is simply described in words that refer to an
12 However, angels also share a significant degree of likeness apart in an absolute way from every other creature God has
to God in a number of these aspects. made. This is a consequence of our being in God’s image, and
13 Although it is not a separate aspect of our likeness to of Gods love for us, rather than one part of what it means to
God, the fact that we have been redeemed by Christ sets us be in his image.
CHAPTER 21 • THE CREATION OF MAN
item that the hearer has never seen before. Yet four-year-old human beings can do this
routinely, and we think nothing of it. Most eight-year-olds can write an understandable
letter to their grandparents describing a trip to the zoo, or can move to a foreign country
and learn any other language in the world, and we think it entirely normal. But no animal
will ever write such a letter to its grandparents, or give the past, present, and future of even
one French verb, or read a detective story and understand it, or understand the meaning
of even one verse from the Bible. Human children do all these things quite readily, and
in so doing they show themselves so far superior to the whole animal kingdom that we
wonder why people have sometimes thought that we are merely another kind of animal.
(9) Another mental difference between humans and animals is that we have an aware-
ness of the distant future, even an inward sense that we will live beyond the time of our
physical death, a sense that gives many people a desire to attempt to be right with God
before they die (God “has put eternity into man’s mind,” Eccl. 3:11).
(10) Our likeness to God is also seen in our human creativity in areas such as art,
music, and literature, and in scientific and technological inventiveness. We should not
think of such creativity as restricted to world-famous musicians or artists — it is also
reflected in a delightful way in the play acting or skits put on by children, in the skill
reflected in the cooking of a meal or the decorating of a home or the planting of a garden,
and in the inventiveness shown by every human being who “fixes” something that just
wasn’t working correctly.
The foregoing aspects of likeness to God have been ways in which we differ from
animals absolutely, not merely in degree. But there are other areas where we differ from
animals in significant degree, and these also can show our likeness to God.
(11) In the area of emotions, our likeness to God is seen in a large difference in degree
and complexity of emotions. Of course, animals do show some emotions (anyone who
has owned a dog can remember evident expressions of joy, sadness, fear of punishment
when it has done wrong, anger if another animal invades its “turf,” contentment, and
affection, for example) . But in the complexity of emotions that we experience, once again
we are far different than the rest of creation. After watching my son’s baseball game, I
can simultaneously feel sad that his team lost, happy that he played well, proud that he
was a good sport, thankful to God for giving me a son and giving me the joy of watching
him grow up, joyful because of the song of praise that has been echoing in my mind all
afternoon, and anxious because we are going to be late for dinner! It is very doubtful that
an animal experiences anything approaching this complexity of emotional feeling.
d. Relational Aspects: In addition to our unique ability to relate to God (discussed
above), there are other relational aspects of being in God’s image. (12) Although animals
no doubt have some sense of community with each other, the depth of interpersonal har-
mony experienced in human marriage, in a human family when it functions according
to God’s principles, and in a church when a community of believers is walking in fellow-
ship with the Lord and with each other, is much greater than the interpersonal harmony
experienced by any animals. In our family relationships and in the church, we are also
superior to angels, who do not marry or bear children or live in the company of God’s
redeemed sons and daughters.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
448
(13) In marriage itself we reflect the nature of God in the fact that as men and women
we have equality in importance but difference in roles from the time that God created us
(see discussion in chapter 22).
(14) Man is like God also in his relationship to the rest of creation. Specifically, man
has been given the right to rule over the creation and when Christ returns will even be
given authority to sit in judgment over angels (1 Cor. 6:3; Gen. 1:26, 28; Ps. 8:6-8).
e. Physical Aspects: Is there any sense in which our human bodies are also a part of what
it means to be made in the image of God? Certainly we should not think that our physical
bodies imply that God himself has a body, for “God is spirit” (John 4:24), and it is sin
to think of him or to portray him in any way that would imply that he has a material or
a physical body (see Ex. 20:4; Ps. 115:3-8; Rom. 1:23). 14 But even though our physical
bodies should in no way be taken to imply that God has a physical body, are there still
some ways in which our bodies reflect something of Gods own character and thereby
constitute part of what it means to be created in the image of God? Certainly this is true
in some respects. For example, our physical bodies give us the ability to see with our
eyes. This is a Godlike quality because God himself sees, and sees far more than we will
ever see, although he does not do it with physical eyes like we have. Our ears give us the
ability to hear, and this is a Godlike ability, even though God does not have physical ears.
Our mouths give us the ability to speak, reflecting the fact that God is a God who speaks.
Our senses of taste and touch and smell give us the ability to understand and enjoy God’s
creation, reflecting the fact that God himself understands and enjoys his creation, though
in a far greater sense than we do.
It is important that we recognize that it is man himself who is created in the image of
God, not just his spirit or his mind. Certainly our physical bodies are a very important
part of our existence and, as transformed when Christ returns, they will continue to be
part of our existence for all eternity (see 1 Cor. 15:43-45, 51-55). Our bodies there-
fore have been created by God as suitable instruments to represent in a physical way
our human nature, which has been made to be like God’s own nature. In fact, almost
everything we do is done by means of the use of our physical bodies — our thinking, our
moral judgments, our prayer and praise, our demonstrations of love and concern for
each other — all are done using the physical bodies God has given us. Therefore, if we
are careful to point out that we are not saying that God has a physical body, we may say
that (15) our physical bodies in various ways reflect something of God’s own character as
well. Moreover, much physical movement and demonstration of God-given skill comes
about through the use of our body. And certainly (16) the God-given physical ability to
bear and raise children who are like ourselves (see Gen. 5:3) is a reflection of God’s own
ability to create human beings who are like himself.
Especially in the last several points, these differences between human beings and the
rest of creation are not absolute differences but often differences of very great degree. We
mentioned that there is some kind of emotion experienced by animals. There is some
experience of authority in relationships where animal communities have leaders whose
14 See also the discussion of God’s spirituality in chapter 12,
pp. 186-88.
CHAPTER 21 - THE CREATION OF MAN
authority is accepted by the others in the group. Moreover, there is some similarity even in
those differences we think more absolute: animals are able to reason to some extent and
can communicate with each other in various ways that in some primitive sense can be
called “language.” This should not be surprising: if God made the entire creation so that
it reflects his character in various ways, this is what we would expect. In fact, the more
complex and highly developed animals are more like God than lower forms of animals.
Therefore we should not say that only man reflects any likeness to God at all, for in one
way or another all of creation reflects some likeness to God. 15 But it is still important to
recognize that only man, out of all of creation, is so like God that he can be said to be “in
the image of God.” This scriptural affirmation, together with the scriptural commands
that we are to imitate God in our lives (Eph. 5:1; 1 Peter 1:16), and the observable facts
that we can recognize in looking at ourselves and the rest of creation, all indicate that we
are much more like God than all the rest of creation. In some respects the differences are
absolute, and in other respects they are relative, but they are all significant.
Finally, our appreciation of the ways in which we are like God can be enhanced by the
realization that, unlike the rest of God’s creation, we have an ability to grow to become
more like God throughout our lives. Our moral sense can be more highly developed
through study of Scripture and prayer. Our moral behavior can reflect more and more
the holiness of God (2 Cor. 7:1; 1 Peter 1:16, et al.). Our spiritual life can be enriched
and deepened. Our use of reason and language can become more accurate and truth-
ful and more honoring to God. Our sense of the future can become intensified as we
grow in our hope of living with God forever. Our future existence can be enriched as we
lay up treasures in heaven and seek for increased heavenly reward (see Matt. 6:19-21;
1 Cor. 3:10-15; 2 Cor. 5:10). Our ability to rule over the creation can be extended by
faithful use of the gifts God has given us; our faithfulness to the God-given purposes
for our creation as men and women can be increased as we follow biblical principles in
our families; our creativity can be employed in ways that are more and more pleasing to
God; our emotions can be more and more conformed to the pattern of Scripture so that
we become more like David, a man after God’s own heart (1 Sam. 13:14). Our interper-
sonal harmony in our families and in the church can reflect more and more the unity
that exists among the persons in the Trinity. As we consciously seek to grow into greater
likeness to God in all these areas, we also demonstrate an ability that itself sets us apart
from the rest of creation.
6. Our Great Dignity as Bearers of God’s Image. It would be good for us to reflect on our
likeness to God more often. It will probably amaze us to realize that when the Creator
of the universe wanted to create something “in his image,” something more like himself
than all the rest of creation, he made us. This realization will give us a profound sense of
dignity and significance as we reflect on the excellence of all the rest of God’s creation:
the starry universe, the abundant earth, the world of plants and animals, and the angelic
kingdoms are remarkable, even magnificent. But we are more like our Creator than any
of these things. We are the culmination of God’s infinitely wise and skillful work of
15 See discussion of the names of God and the way Gods
nature is reflected in all of creation in chapter 11, pp. 157-60.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
450
creation. Even though sin has greatly marred that likeness, we nonetheless now reflect
much of it and shall even more as we grow in likeness to Christ.
Yet we must remember that even fallen, sinful man has the status of being in Gods
image (see discussion of Gen. 9:6, above). Every single human being, no matter how
much the image of God is marred by sin, or illness, or weakness, or age, or any other dis-
ability, still has the status of being in Gods image and therefore must be treated with the
dignity and respect that is due to God’s image-bearer. This has profound implications for
our conduct toward others. It means that people of every race deserve equal dignity and
rights. It means that elderly people, those seriously ill, the mentally retarded, and chil-
dren yet unborn, deserve full protection and honor as human beings. If we ever deny our
unique status in creation as God’s only image-bearers, we will soon begin to depreciate
the value of human life, will tend to see humans as merely a higher form of animal, and
will begin to treat others as such. We will also lose much of our sense of meaning in life.
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. According to Scripture, what should be the major purpose of your life? If you con-
sider the major commitments or goals of your life at the present time (with respect
to friendships, marriage, education, job, use of money, church relationships, etc.),
are you acting as though your goal were the one that Scripture specifies? Or do
you have some other goals that you have acted upon (perhaps without consciously
deciding to do so)? As you think about the pattern of most of your days, do you
think that God delights in you and rejoices over you?
2 . How does it make you feel to think that you, as a human being, are more like God than
any other creature in the universe? How does that knowledge make you want to act?
3. Do you think that there are any more intelligent, more Godlike creatures anywhere
else in the universe? What does the fact that Jesus became a man rather than some
other kind of creature say about the importance of human beings in God’s sight?
4. Do you think that God has made us so that we become more happy or less happy
when we grow to become more like him? As you look over the list of ways in which
we can be more like God, can you name one or two areas in which growth in like-
ness to God has given you increasing joy in your life? In which areas would you now
like to make more progress in likeness to God?
5. Is it only Christians or all people who are in the image of God? How does that make
you feel about your relationships to non- Christians?
6. Do you think an understanding of the image of God might change the way you
think and act toward people who are racially different, or elderly, or weak, or un-
attractive to the world?
SPECIAL TERMS
image of God
imago Dei
likeness
CHAPTER 21 • THE CREATION OF MAN
451
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter 1,
pp. 38-39. Complete bibliographical data maybe found on pp. 1224-30.)
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1882-92 Litton, 109-22
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1875-76
Pope, 1:430-36
1892-94
Miley, 1:355 -422, 406-8
1940
Wiley, 2:7-50
1960
Purkiser, 204-22
1983
Carter, 1:195-236
3. Baptist
1767
Gill, 1:440-51
1887
Boyce, 189-94, 213-17
1907
Strong, 465-83, 514-32
1917
Mullins, 255-62
1976-83
Henry, 2:124-42; 4:494-521
1983-85
Erickson, 455-518, 541 -58
1987 -94
Lewis/Demarest, 2:123-82
4. Dispensational
1947
Chafer, 2:125-43, 161-73
1949
Thiessen, 151-57
1986
Ryrie, 189-94
5. Lutheran
1917-24
Pieper, 1:515-27
1934
Mueller, 205-9
6. Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1559
Calvin, 1:183-96 (1.15)
1861
Heppe, 4:197-228, 220-50
1871-73
Hodge, 2:92-116
1878
Dabney, 293-94
1887-1921
Warfield, BTS, 238-61
1889
Shedd, 2a:3 — 115; 3:249-377
1937-66
Murray, CW, 2:14-22, 34-46
1938
Berkhof, 181-90, 202-10
1962
Buswell, 1:231-61
7. Renewal (or charismatic/Pentecostal)
1988-92 Williams, 1:197-220
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
452
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
1. Roman Catholic: Traditional
1955 Ott, 94-96, 101-6
2. Roman Catholic: Post-Vatican II
1980 McBrien, 1:101- 78
Other Works
Barclay, D. R. “Creation” In NDT, pp. 177-79.
Berkouwer, G. C. Man: The Image of God. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1962.
Boston, Thomas. Human Nature in Its Fourfold State . London: Banner of Truth, 1964 (first
published 1720).
Ferguson, S. B. “Image of God.” In NDT, pp. 328-29.
Henry, C. F. H. “Image of God.” In EDT, pp. 545-48.
Hoekema, Anthony A. Created in God's Image. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, and Exeter:
Paternoster, 1986, pp. 1 - 1 1 1.
Hughes, Philip Edgcumbe. The True Image: The Origin and Destiny of Man in Christ. Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, and Leicester: Inter- Varsity Press, 1989, pp. 1-70.
Kline, Meredith G. Images of the Spirit. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980.
Laidlaw, John. The Bible Doctrine of Man. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1905.
Machen, J. Gresham. The Christian View of Man. London: Banner of Truth, 1965 (reprint
of 1937 edition).
McDonald, H. D. “Man, Doctrine of.” In EDT, pp. 676-80.
. The Christian View of Man. Westchester, 111.: Crossway, 1981.
Robinson, H. W. The Christian Doctrine of Man. 3d ed. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1926.
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
Genesis 1:26-27: Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and
let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the
cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” So
God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female
he created them.
HYMNS
“Love Divine, All Love Excelling”
Love divine, all love excelling,
Joy of heav’n, to earth come down!
Fix in us thy humble dwelling;
All thy faithful mercies crown.
Jesus, thou art all compassion,
CHAPTER 21 * THE CREATION OF MAN
453
Pure, unbounded love thou art;
Visit us with thy salvation,
Enter ev’ry trembling heart.
Breathe, O breathe thy loving Spirit
Into ev’ry troubled breast!
Let us all in thee inherit,
Let us find the promised rest.
Take away the love of sinning;
Alpha and Omega be;
End of faith, as its beginning,
Set our hearts at liberty.
Come, Almighty to deliver,
Let us all thy life receive;
Suddenly return, and never,
Never more thy temples leave.
Thee we would be always blessing,
Serve thee as thy hosts above,
Pray, and praise thee, without ceasing,
Glory in thy perfect love.
Finish, then, thy new creation;
Pure and spotless let us be;
Let us see thy great salvation
Perfectly restored in thee:
Changed from glory into glory,
Till in heav’n we take our place,
Till we cast our crowns before thee,
Lost in wonder, love, and praise.
AUTHOR: CHARLES WESLEY, 1747
Alternative hymn:
“Thou Art Worthy”
Thou art worthy, thou art worthy,
thou art worthy, O Lord.
To receive glory, glory and honor,
glory and honor and power.
For thou hast created, hast all things created,
thou hast created all things;
And for thy pleasure, they are created,
thou art worthy, O Lord.
AUTHOR: PAULINE MICHAEL MILLS
COPYRIGHT C. FRED BOCK MUSIC, 1963, 1975.
USED BY PERMISSION.
Chapter
MAN AS MALE AND FEMALE
Why did God create two sexes? Can men and women
be equal and yet have different roles?
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
We noted in the previous chapter that one aspect of man’s creation in the image of
God is his creation as male and female: “So God created man in his own image, in the
image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:27). The same
connection between creation in the image of God and creation as male and female is
made in Genesis 5:1-2, “When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God.
Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they
were created.” 1 Although the creation of man as male and female is not the only way in
which we are in the image of God, it is a significant enough aspect of our creation in
the image of God that Scripture mentions it in the very same verse in which it describes
God’s initial creation of man. We may summarize the ways in which our creation as male
and female represents something of our creation in God’s image as follows:
The creation of man as male and female shows God’s image in (1) harmonious inter-
personal relationships, (2) equality in personhood and importance, and (3) difference
in role and authority. 2
A. Personal Relationships
God did not create human beings to be isolated persons, but, in making us in his
image, he made us in such a way that we can attain interpersonal unity of various sorts
in all forms of human society. Interpersonal unity can be especially deep in the human
the question of whether to use the English word man
to refer to human beings generally (both male and female), see
chapter 21, pp. 439-40.
2 For a more extensive discussion of the theological impli-
cations of male-female differentiation in Genesis 1-3, see
Raymond C. Ortlund, Jr., “Male-Female Equality and Male
Headship: Genesis 1-3,” in Recovering Biblical Manhood
and Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism, ed. by
John Piper and Wayne Grudem, p. 98. I have depended on
Dr. Ortlund’s analysis at several points in this chapter.
454
CHAPTER 22 • MAN AS MALE AND FEMALE
455
family and also in our spiritual family, the church. Between men and women, interper-
sonal unity comes to its fullest expression in this age in marriage, where husband and
wife become, in a sense, two persons in one: “Therefore a man leaves his father and his
mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh” (Gen. 2 :24) . This unity is not
only a physical unity; it is also a spiritual and emotional unity of profound dimensions. A
husband and wife joined together in marriage are people that “God has joined together”
(Matt. 19:6). Sexual union with someone other than one’s own wife or husband is a spe-
cially offensive kind of sin against one’s own body (1 Cor. 6:16, 18-20), and, within mar-
riage, husbands and wives no longer have exclusive rule over their own bodies, but share
them with their spouses (1 Cor. 7:3—5). Husbands “should love their wives as their own
bodies” (Eph. 5:28). The union between husband and wife is not temporary but lifelong
(Mai. 2:14-16; Rom. 7:2), and it is not trivial but is a profound relationship created by
God in order to picture the relationship between Christ and his church (Eph. 5:23-32).
The fact that God created two distinct persons as male and female, rather than just
one man, is part of our being in the image of God because it can be seen to reflect to some
degree the plurality of persons within the Trinity. In the verse prior to the one that tells of
our creation as male and female, we see the first explicit indication of a plurality of persons
within God: “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let
them have dominion’” (Gen. 1:26). There is some similarity here: just as there was fellow-
ship and communication and sharing of glory among the members of the Trinity before
the world was made (see John 17:5, 24, and chapter 14 on the Trinity, above), so God made
Adam and Eve in such a way that they would share love and communication and mutual
giving of honor to one another in their interpersonal relationship. Of course such reflec-
tion of the Trinity would come to expression in various ways within human society, but it
would certainly exist from the beginning in the close interpersonal unity of marriage.
Someone might object that such a representation of the plurality of persons in God is
not really a complete one, for God is three persons in one while God created Adam and
Eve as only two persons in one. If God intended us to reflect the plurality of persons in the
Trinity, why did he not create three persons rather than two who could reflect the inter-
personal unity among the members of the Trinity? First, we must agree that this fact shows
the analogy between marriage and the Trinity to be an inexact one. Second, although we
cannot be certain of the reasons why God did not do something when Scripture does not
explicitly tell us those reasons, we can suggest two possible answers: (1) The fact that God
is three in one while Adam and Eve were only two in one may be a reminder that God’s
own excellence is far greater than ours, that he possesses far greater plurality and far greater
unity than we ourselves, as creatures, can possess. (2) Though the unity is not exactly the
same, the unity in a family among husband, wife, and children, does also reflect to some
degree the interpersonal unity yet diversity of persons among the members of the Trinity.
A second objection might be raised from the fact that Jesus himself was unmarried,
that Paul was unmarried at the time he was an apostle (and perhaps earlier), and that Paul
in 1 Corinthians 7:1, 7-9 seems to say that it is better for Christians not to marry. If mar-
riage is such an important part of our reflection of the image of God, then why were Paul
and Jesus not married, and why did Paul encourage others not to be married?
For Jesus, the situation is unique, for he is both God and man, and sovereign Lord
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
456
over all creation. Rather than being married to any one individual human being, he has
taken the entire church as his bride (see Eph. 5:23-32) and enjoys with each member of
his church a spiritual and emotional unity that will last for eternity.
The situation with Paul and his advice to the Corinthian Christians is somewhat dif-
ferent. There Paul does not say that it is wrong to marry (see 1 Cor. 7:28, 36), but rather
views marriage as something good, a right and a privilege that may be given up for the
sake of the kingdom of God: “I think that in view of the present distress it is well for a
person to remain as he is . . . the appointed time has grown very short For the form
of this world is passing away” (1 Cor. 7:26, 29, 31). In this way Paul gives up one way
in which he might reflect likeness to God (marriage) in order to further other ways in
which he might reflect likeness to God and further Gods purposes in the world (namely,
in his work for the church). For example, his evangelism and discipleship are thought of
as bearing “spiritual children” and nurturing them in the Lord (see 1 Cor. 4:14, where
he calls the Corinthians “my beloved children”; also Gal. 4:19; 1 Tim. 1:2; Titus 1:4).
Moreover, the entire building up of the church was a process of bringing thousands of
people to glorify God as they reflected his character more fully in their lives. In addition,
we must realize that marriage is not the only way in which the unity and diversity in the
Trinity can be reflected in our lives. It is also reflected in the union of believers in the
fellowship of the church — and in genuine church fellowship, single persons (like Paul
and Jesus) as well as those who are married can have interpersonal relationships that
reflect the nature of the Trinity. Therefore, building the church and increasing its unity
and purity also promote the reflection of God’s character in the world.
B. Equality in Personhood and Importance
Just as the members of the Trinity are equal in their importance and in their full exis-
tence as distinct persons (see chapter 14, above), so men and women have been created
by God to be equal in their importance and personhood. When God created man, he cre-
ated both “male and female” in his image (Gen. 1:27; 5:1-2). Men and women are made
equally in God's image , and both men and women reflect God’s character in their lives.
This means that we should see aspects of God’s character reflected in each other’s lives.
If we lived in a society consisting of only Christian men or a society consisting of only
Christian women, we would not gain as full a picture of the character of God as when
we see both godly men and godly women in their complementary differences together
reflecting the beauty of God’s character.
But if we are equally in God’s image, then certainly men and women are equally
important to God and equally valuable to him. We have equal worth before him for all
eternity. The fact that both men and women are said by Scripture to be “in the image
of God” should exclude all feelings of pride or inferiority and any idea that one sex is
“better” or “worse” than the other. In particular, in contrast to many non-Christian
cultures and religions, no one should feel proud or superior because he is a man, and no
one should feel disappointed or inferior because she is a woman. 3 If God thinks us to be
3 In the past decade news agencies have reported a com- will often leave her to die in order that they might try again to
mon practice in China whereby parents of a newborn daughter have a son under Chinas strict “one couple, one child” policy.
CHAPTER 22 * MAN AS MALE AND FEMALE
457
equal in value, then that settles the question, for God’s evaluation is the true standard of
personal value for all eternity.
When in 1 Corinthians 11:7 Paul says, “A man ought not to cover his head, since he
is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man,” he is not denying that
woman was created in the image of God. He is simply saying that there are abiding dif-
ferences between men and women that should be reflected in the way they dress and act
in the assembled congregation. One of those differences is that man in relationship to
woman has a particular role of representing God or showing what he is like, and woman
in that relationship shows the excellence of the man from whom she was created. Yet in
both cases Paul goes on to emphasize their interdependence (see vv. 11 - 12).
Our equality as persons before God, reflecting the equality of persons in the Trinity,
should lead naturally to men and women giving honor to one another. Proverbs 31 is a
beautiful picture of the honor given to a godly woman:
A good wife who can find?
She is far more precious than jewels
Her children rise up and call her blessed;
her husband also, and he praises her:
“Many women have done excellently,
but you surpass them all.”
Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain,
but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
(Prov. 31:10, 28-30)
Similarly, Peter tells husbands that they are to “bestow honor” on their wives (1 Peter
3:7), and Paul emphasizes, “In the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of
woman; for as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman” (1 Cor. 11:11,
12). Both men and women are equally important; both depend upon each other; both
are worthy of honor.
The equality in personhood with which men and women were created is emphasized
in a new way in the new covenant church. At Pentecost we see the fulfillment of Joel’s
prophecy in which God promises:
“I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy
. . . and on my menservants and my maidservants in those days
I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.”
(Acts 2:17-18; quoting Joel 2:28-29)
The Holy Spirit is poured out in new power on the church, and men and women both are
given gifts to minister in remarkable ways. Spiritual gifts are distributed to all men and
women, beginning at Pentecost and continuing throughout the history of the church.
In contrast to the biblical view of equality in importance for (In other societies parents who secretly think that it is better to
men and women, such a tragic practice not only results in much have a baby boy than a baby girl also show that they have not
loss of innocent human life, but also proclaims loudly to every fully understood the biblical teaching on the fact that women
woman in that society that she is less valuable than a man. and men are fully equal in value in God’s sight.)
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
458
Paul regards every Christian as a valuable member of the body of Christ, for “to each is
given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good” (1 Cor. 12:7). After mention-
ing several gifts he says, “All these are inspired by one and the same Spirit, who appor-
tions to each one individually as he wills,” (1 Cor. 12:11). Peter also, in writing to many
churches throughout Asia Minor, says, “As each has received a gift, employ it for one
another, as good stewards of Gods varied grace” (1 Peter 4:10). These texts do not teach
that all believers have the same gifts, but they do mean that both men and women will
have valuable gifts for the ministry of the church, and that we should expect that these
gifts will be widely and freely distributed to both men and women.
It seems, therefore, pointless to ask, “Who can pray more effectively, men or women?”
or, “Who can sing praise to God better, men or women?” or, “Who will have more spiri-
tual sensitivity and depth of relationship with God?” To all of these questions, we simply
cannot give an answer. Men and women are equal in their ability to receive the new
covenant empowerment of the Holy Spirit. There have been both great men and great
women of God throughout the history of the church. Both men and women have been
mighty warriors in prayer, prevailing over earthly powers and kingdoms and spiritual
strongholds in the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ. 4
Equality before God is further emphasized in the new covenant church in the cer-
emony of baptism. At Pentecost, both men and women who believed were baptized:
“those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three
thousand souls” (Acts 2:41). This is significant because in the old covenant, the sign of
membership of God’s people was circumcision, which was given only to men. The new
sign of membership of God’s people, the sign of baptism, given to both men and women,
is further evidence that both should be seen as fully and equally members of the people
of God.
Equality in status among God’s people is also emphasized by Paul in
Galatians: “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There
is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female;
for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:27-28). Paul is here underlining the fact that
no class of people, such as the Jewish people who had come from Abraham by physi-
cal descent, or the freedmen who had greater economic and legal power, could claim
special status or privilege in the church. Slaves should not think themselves inferior to
free men or women, nor should the free think themselves superior to slaves. Jews should
not think themselves superior to Greeks, nor should Greeks think themselves inferior to
Jews. Similarly, Paul wants to ensure that men will not adopt some of the attitudes of the
surrounding culture, or even some of the attitudes of first- century Judaism, and think
that they have greater importance than women or are of superior value before God. Nor
should women think themselves inferior or less important in the church. Both men and
4 Perhaps the answer to the questions, “Who can pray bet-
ter?” and “Who can praise God better?” should be “both
together.” Although there is much value in a men’s prayer meet-
ing or in a gathering of women for prayer, there is nothing richer
and more complete than the whole fellowship of God’s people,
both men and women, and even their children who are old
enough to understand and participate, gathered together before
God’s throne in prayer: “When the day of Pentecost had come,
they were all together in one place” (Acts 2:1). “And when they
heard it, they lifted their voices together to God” (Acts 4:24).
Peter “went to the house of Mary, the mother of John whose
other name was Mark, where many were gathered together and
were praying” (Acts 12:12).
CHAPTER 22 • MAN AS MALE AND FEMALE
women, Jews and Greeks, slaves and free, are equal in importance and value to God and
equal in membership in Christ’s body, the church, for all eternity.
In practical terms, we must never think that there are any second-class citizens in the
church. Whether someone is a man or woman, employer or employee, Jew or Gentile,
black or white, rich or poor, healthy or ill, strong or weak, attractive or unattractive,
extremely intelligent or slow to learn, all are equally valuable to God and should be
equally valuable to one another as well. This equality is an amazing and wonderful ele-
ment of the Christian faith and sets Christianity apart from almost all religions and
societies and cultures. The true dignity of godly manhood and womanhood can be fully
realized only in obedience to God’s redeeming wisdom as found in Scripture.
C. Differences in Roles
1. The Relationship Between the Trinity and Male Headship in Marriage. Between the
members of the Trinity there has been equality in importance, personhood, and deity
throughout all eternity. But there have also been differences in roles between the mem-
bers of the Trinity. 5 God the Father has always been the Father and has always related to
the Son as a Father relates to his Son. Though all three members of the Trinity are equal
in power and in all other attributes, the Father has a greater authority. He has a leadership
role among all the members of the Trinity that the Son and Holy Spirit do not have. In
creation, the Father speaks and initiates, but the work of creation is carried out through
the Son and sustained by the continuing presence of the Holy Spirit (Gen. 1:1-2; John
1:1 -3; 1 Cor. 8:6; Heb. 1:2). In redemption, the Father sends the Son into the world, and
the Son comes and is obedient to the Father and dies to pay for our sins (Luke 22:42;
Phil. 2:6-8). After the Son has ascended into heaven, the Holy Spirit comes to equip and
empower the church (John 16:7; Acts 1:8; 2:1-36). The Father did not come to die for our
sins, nor did the Holy Spirit. The Father was not poured out on the church at Pentecost
in new covenant power, nor was the Son. Each member of the Trinity has distinct roles
or functions. Differences in roles and authority between the members of the Trinity are
thus completely consistent with equal importance, personhood, and deity.
If human beings are to reflect the character of God, then we would expect some simi-
lar differences in roles among human beings, even with respect to the most basic of all
differences among human beings, the difference between male and female. And this is
certainly what we find in the biblical text.
Paul makes this parallel explicit when he says, “I want you to understand that the head
of every man is Christ, the head of a woman is her husband, and the head of Christ is God ”
(1 Cor. 11:3). Here is a distinction in authority that may be represented as in figure 22.1.
Just as God the Father has authority over the Son, though the two are equal in deity,
so in a marriage, the husband has authority over the wife, though they are equal in
personhood. 6 In this case, the man’s role is like that of God the Father, and the woman’s
5 See chapter 14, pp. 248-52, on role differences among the in marriage. For example, when referring to Paul’s use of the
members of the Trinity. word “head” to say that “the head of every man is Christ, the
Some have suggested that the word head” in 1 Cor. head of woman is her husband, and the head of Christ is God”
11:3 means “source” and has nothing to do with authority (1 Cor. 11:3), Gordon Fee says that “Paul’s understanding of
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
460
role is parallel to that of God the Son. They are equal in importance, but they have differ-
ent roles. In the context of 1 Corinthians 11:2- 16, Paul sees this as a basis for telling the
Corinthians to wear the different kinds of clothing appropriate for the men and women
of that day, so that the distinctions between men and women might be outwardly evident
in the Christian assembly. 7
EQUALITY AND DIFFERENCES IN THE TRINITY ARE REFLECTED
IN EQUALITY AND DIFFERENCES IN MARRIAGE
Figure 22. 1
2. Indications of Distinct Roles Before the Fall. But were these distinctions between
male and female roles part of God’s original creation, or were they introduced as part
of the punishment of the fall? When God told Eve, “Yet your desire shall be for your
husband, and he shall rule over you” (Gen. 3:16), was that the time when Eve began to be
subject to Adam’s authority?
The idea that differences in authority were introduced only after there was sin in
the world has been advocated by several writers such as Aida B. Spencer 8 and Gilbert
the metaphor, therefore, and almost certainly the only one the
Corinthians would have grasped, is ‘head’ as ‘source,’ especially
‘source of life’-” (The First Epistle to the Corinthians y NIC [Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987], p. 503).
Similarly, the statement, “Men, Women and Biblical
Equality,” published as an advertisement in CT, April 9, 1990,
pp. 36-37, says, “The husband’s function as ‘head’ is to be
understood as self-giving love and service within this relation-
ship of mutual submission (Eph. 5:21-33; Col. 3:19; 1 Pet.
3:7)” (p. 1, para. 11). Thus they understand “head” to mean
“source” (of love and service), not “authority over.”
For a response to this interpretation and a discussion of
reasons why the word “head” here must mean “authority over”
not “source,” see W. Grudem, “Does Kephale (‘Head’) Mean
‘Source’ or ‘Authority Over’ in Greek Literature? A Survey of
2,336 Examples,” TrinJ 6, n.s. (Spring 1985), pp. 38-59, and
W. Grudem, “The Meaning of Kephale (‘Head’): A Response
to Recent Studies,” TrinJ 11, n.s. (Spring 1990), pp. 3-72
(reprinted in Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood:
A Response to Evangelical Feminism , pp. 425-68). See also
Joseph Fitzmyer, “Another Look at Kephale in 1 Cor. 11:3,”
NTS 35 (1989), pp. 503-11. Even in the few examples where
people have claimed that “head” could mean “source” when
applied to a person, the person is always one in authority. No
counter-examples to this have ever been found in ancient
Greek literature.
7 The fact that head coverings were the kind of clothing
that distinguished women from men in first-century Corinth
meant that Paul directed the women to wear head coverings
in church. But this does not mean that women should wear
head coverings in societies where that is not a distinctive sign
of being a woman. The contemporary application would be
that women should dress to look like women and men should
dress to look like men, in whatever form those clothing pat-
terns are expressed in each society: Paul is not in favor of uni-
sex clothing! For further discussion, see Thomas R. Schreiner,
“Head Coverings, Prophecies and the Trinity: 1 Corinthians
11:2-16,” in Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood ,
pp. 124-39.
8 Beyond the Curse , 2d ed. (Nashville: Thomas Nelson,
1985), pp. 20-42.
CHAPTER 22 • MAN AS MALE AND FEMALE
Bilezikian. 9 Bilezikian says, “Because it resulted from the Fall, the rule of Adam over Eve
is viewed as satanic in origin, no less than is death itself.” 10
However, if we examine the text of the creation narrative in Genesis, we see several
indications of differences in role between Adam and Eve even before there was sin in
the world.
a. Adam Was Created First, Then Eve: The fact that God first created Adam, then
after a period of time created Eve (Gen. 2:7, 18—23), suggests that God saw Adam as
having a leadership role in his family. No such two -stage procedure is mentioned for
any of the animals God made, but here it seems to have a special purpose. The cre-
ation of Adam first is consistent with the Old Testament pattern of “primogeni-
ture, the idea that the firstborn in any generation in a human family has leadership
in the family for that generation. The right of primogeniture is assumed through-
out the Old Testament text, even when at times because of God’s special purposes
the birthright is sold or otherwise transferred to a younger person (Gen. 25:27-34;
35:23; 38:27—30; 49:3—4; Deut. 21:15—17; 1 Chron. 5:1—2). The “birthright” belongs
to the firstborn son and is his unless special circumstances intervene to change that
fact. 11 The fact that we are correct in seeing a purpose of God in creating Adam first, and
that this purpose reflects an abiding distinction in the roles God has given to men and
women, is supported by 1 Timothy 2:13, where Paul uses the fact that “Adam was formed
first, then Eve” as a reason for restricting some distinct governing and teaching roles in
the church to men.
b. Eve Was Created as a Helper for Adam: Scripture specifies that God made Eve for Adam,
not Adam for Eve. God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a
helper fit for him (Gen. 2 : 18) . Paul sees this as significant enough to base a requirement for
differences between men and women in worship on it. He says, “Neither was man created
for woman, but woman for man )y (1 Cor. 11:9). This should not be taken to imply lesser
importance, but it does indicate that there was a difference in roles from the beginning.
Recently some writers have denied that the creation of Eve as a helper fit for Adam
signals any difference in role or authority, because the word helper (Heb., ezer) is often
used in the Old Testament of someone who is greater or more powerful than the one who
is being helped. 12 In fact, the word helper is used in the Old Testament of God himself who
helps his people. But the point is that whenever someone “helps” someone else, whether
in the Hebrew Old Testament or in our modern-day use of the word help , in the specific
task in view the person who is helping is occupying a subordinate or inferior position
with regard to the person being helped. That is true even when I “help” a young boy in my
neighborhood to fix his bicycle — it is his responsibility, and his task, and I am only giving
9 Beyond Sex Roles (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1985),
pp. 21-58.
10 Ibid., p. 58.
n Some object that this would not be appropriate in the
Genesis narrative, for animals were created before Adam, and
this would give animals the authority to rule over humans
(so Bilezikian, Beyond Sex Roles , p. 257, n. 13). But this objec-
tion fails to understand that the principle of primogeniture
only occurs among human beings and is, in fact, limited to
those in the same family. (Bilezikian raises other objections
[pp. 255-57] but fails to deal with the New Testament endorse-
ment of this understanding of Gen. 2 in 1 Tim. 2:13.)
12 See Aida B. Spencer, Beyond the Curse , pp. 23-29.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
462
some assistance as needed; it is not my responsibility. David Clines concludes that this is
the case throughout the Hebrew Old Testament:
What I conclude, from viewing all of the occurrences in the Hebrew Bible, is
that though superiors may help inferiors, strong may help weak, gods many
help humans, in the act of helping they are being “inferior That is to say, they
are subjecting themselves to a secondary, subordinate position. Their help may
be necessary or crucial, but they are assisting some task that is someone else’s
responsibility. They are not actually doing the task themselves, or even in coop-
eration, for there is different language for that. Being a helper is not a Hebrew
way of being an equal. 13
Another objection is that the Hebrew term translated “fit for” in Genesis 2:18 implies
that Eve was actually superior to Adam, because the term really means “in front of.” 14 But
Raymond C. Ortlund correctly points out that the Hebrew term cannot mean “superior
to” or Psalm 119:168 would have the psalmist saying to God, “All my ways are superior to
you”! It simply means “corresponding to.” 15
c. Adam Named Eve: The fact that Adam gave names to all the animals (Gen. 2:19-20)
indicated Adam’s authority over the animal kingdom, because in Old Testament thought
the right to name someone implied authority over that person (this is seen both when God
gives names to people such as Abraham and Sarah, and when parents give names to their
children). Since a Hebrew name designated the character or function of someone, Adam
was specifying the characteristics or functions of the animals he named. Therefore when
Adam named Eve by saying, “She shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of
Man” (Gen. 2:23), it indicated a leadership role on his part as well. 16 This is true before the
fall, where Adam names his wife “Woman,” and it is true after the fall as well, when “the
man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living” (Gen. 3:20). 17
Some have objected that Adam doesn’t really name Eve before the fall. 18 But certainly call-
ing his wife “Woman” (Gen. 2:23), just as he called all the living creatures by their names
(Gen. 2: 19-20), is giving her a name. The fact that mothers sometimes give their children
names in the Old Testament does not contradict the idea of name-giving as representing
authority, since both mothers and fathers have parental authority over their children.
d. God Named the Human Race “Man ” Not “Woman”: The fact that God named the
human race “man,” rather than “woman” or some gender-neutral term was explained
in chapter 21. 19 Genesis 5:2 specifies that “in the day when they were created” (NASB)
13 David J. A. Clines, “What Does Eve Do to Help? and Other
Irredeemably Androcentric Orientations in Genesis 1 - 3,” paper
read at Society of Biblical Literature annual meeting Dec. 7,
1987, in Boston, Massachusetts.
14 So Aida Spencer, Beyond the Curse , pp. 23-26. She says,
“The Hebrew text even signifies that the woman is ‘in front of
the man or ‘over’ him!” (p. 26).
15 Ortlund, “Male-Female Equality,” pp. 103-4; cf. BDB,
p. 617, 2a.
16 See the discussion in Ortlund, “Male-Female Equality,”
pp. 102-3.
17 Gerhard von Rad says, “Let us remind ourselves once
more that name-giving in the ancient Orient was primarily
an exercise of sovereignty, of command” ( Genesis : A Commen-
tary ; rev. ed. [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1972], p. 83).
18 See Bilezikian, Beyond Sex Roles , pp. 260-61.
19 See pp. 439-40.
CHAPTER 22 • MAN AS MALE AND FEMALE
God named them Man” The naming of the human race with a term that also referred
to Adam in particular, or man in distinction from woman, suggests a leadership role
belonging to the man. This is similar to the custom of a woman taking the last name of
the man when she marries: it signifies his headship in the family.
e. The Serpent Came to Eve First: Satan, after he had sinned, was attempting to distort
and undermine everything that God had planned and created as good. It is likely that
Satan (in the form of a serpent), in approaching Eve first, was attempting to institute a role
reversal by tempting Eve to take the leadership in disobeying God (Gen. 3:1). This stands
in contrast to the way God approached them, for when God spoke to them, he spoke to
Adam first (Gen. 2:15—17; 3:9). Paul seems to have this role reversal in mind when he
says, Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor” (1
Tim. 2:14). This at least suggests that Satan was trying to undermine the pattern of male
leadership that God had established in the marriage by going first to the woman.
f. God Spoke to Adam First After the Fall: Just as God spoke to Adam on his own even
before Eve was created (Gen. 2:15 — 17), so, after the fall, even though Eve had sinned first,
God came first to Adam and called him to account for his actions: “But the Lord God
called to the man, and said to him, ‘Where are you?’” (Gen. 3:9). God thought of Adam
as the leader of his family, the one to be called to account first for what had happened in
the family. It is significant that though this is after sin has occurred, it is before the state-
ment to Eve, “He shall rule over you” in Genesis 3:16, where some writers today claim
male headship in the family began.
g. Adam, Not Eve, Represented the Human Race: Even though Eve sinned first (Gen.
3:6), we are counted sinful because of Adam’s sin, not because of Eve’s sin. The New
Testament tells us, In Adam all die (1 Cor 15:22; cf. v. 49), and, “Many died through
one man s trespass (Rom. 5:15; cf. vv. 12—21). This indicates that God had given Adam
headship or leadership with respect to the human race, a role that was not given to Eve.
h. The Curse Brought a Distortion of Previous Roles, Not the Introduction of New
Roles: In the punishments God gave to Adam and Eve, he did not introduce new roles or
functions, but simply introduced pain and distortion into the functions they previously
had. Thus, Adam would still have primary responsibility for tilling the ground and rais-
ing crops, but the ground would bring forth “thorns and thistles” and in the sweat of his
face he would eat bread (Gen. 3:18, 19). Similarly, Eve would still have the responsibility
of bearing children, but to do so would become painful: “In pain you shall bring forth
children (Gen. 3:16). Then God also introduced conflict and pain into the previously
harmonious relationship between Adam and Eve. God said to Eve, “Your desire shall
be for your husband, and he shall rule over you” (Gen. 3:16). Susan Foh has effectively
argued that the word translated desire (Heb. teshuqdh) means “desire to conquer,” and
that it indicates Eve would have a wrongful desire to usurp authority over her husband. 20
See Susan. T. Foh, What is the Woman’s Desire?” in WTJ, word occurs in a closely parallel statement just a few verses
vol. 37 (1975), pp. 376 - 83. Foh notes that this same Hebrew later, when God says to Cain, “Sin is crouching at the door, and
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
464
If this understanding of the word “desire” is correct, as it seems to be, then it would
indicate that God is introducing a conflict into the relationship between Adam and Eve
and a desire on Eve’s part to rebel against Adam’s authority.
Concerning Adam, God told Eve, “He shall rule over you” (Gen. 3:16). Here the word
“rule” (Heb. mdshal) is a strong term usually used of monarchical governments, not
generally of authority within a family. 21 The word certainly does not imply any “par-
ticipatory” government by those who are ruled, but rather has nuances of dictatorial or
absolute, uncaring use of authority, rather than considerate, thoughtful rule. It suggests
harshness rather than kindness. The sense here is that Adam will misuse his authority
by ruling harshly over his wife, again introducing pain and conflict into a relationship
that was previously harmonious. It is not that Adam had no authority before the fall; it
is simply that he will misuse it after the fall.
So in both cases, the curse brought a distortion of Adam’s humble, considerate leadership
and Eve’s intelligent, willing submission to that leadership which existed before the fall.
i. Redemption in Christ Reaffirms the Creation Order: If the previous argument about
the distortion of roles introduced at the fall is correct, then what we would expect to
find in the New Testament is an undoing of the painful aspects of the relationship that
resulted from sin and the curse. We would expect that in Christ, redemption would
encourage wives not to rebel against their husbands’ authority and would encourage hus-
bands not to use their authority harshly. In fact, that is indeed what we do find: “Wives,
be subject to your husbands , as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and do not
be harsh with them” (Col. 3:18-19; cf. Eph. 5:22-33; Titus 2:5; 1 Peter 3:1 -7). If it were
a sinful pattern for wives to be subject to their husbands’ authority, Peter and Paul would
not have commanded it to be maintained in Christian marriages! They do not say, for
example, “Encourage thorns to grow in your garden,” or “Make childbirth as painful as
possible,” or “Stay alienated from God, cut off from fellowship with him!” The redemp-
tion of Christ is aimed at removing the results of sin and of the fall in every way: “The
reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8). New
Testament commands concerning marriage do not perpetuate any elements of the curse or
any sinful behavior patterns; they rather reaffirm the order and distinction of roles that
were there from the beginning of God’s good creation.
In terms of practical application, as we grow in maturity in Christ, we will grow to
delight in and rejoice in the God-ordained and wisely created differences in roles within
its desire is for you, but you must master it” (Gen. 4:7 NASB). but where the sense “desire to have mastery over” is possible
The parallelism in the Hebrew text between the verses is quite (note the progression in Song of Sol. 2:16; 6:3; 7:10). I have been
remarkable: six words (counting conjunctions and preposi- unable to find any other occurrences of this word in ancient
tions) are exactly the same, and in the same order. Another four Hebrew literature, though Foh does point to some parallels
nouns and pronouns are in the same position and have the same in related Semitic languages to support her argument. (It is
function in the sentence, but they differ only because the par- unlikely that the word means “sexual desire,” for that did not
ties involved are different. But in that sentence the “desire” that begin with the fall, nor would it be part of God's curse.)
sin has for Cain is surely a desire to overcome or conquer him , 21 See Deut. 15:6, “You shall rule over many nations, but
as is evident from the image of an animal “crouching” at the they shall not rule over you”; Prov. 22:7, “The rich rules over
door waiting for him. The only other example of this Hebrew the poor”; Jdg. 14:4; 15:11 (of the Philistines ruling over
word is found in Song of Sol. 7: 10, where its meaning is unclear Israel); also Gen. 37: 8; Prov. 12 :24, et al.
CHAPTER 22 ■ MAN AS MALE AND FEMALE
the human family. When we understand this biblical teaching, both men and women
should be able to say in their hearts, This is what God has planned, and it is beautiful
and right, and I rejoice in the way he has made me and the distinct role he has given me.”
There is eternal beauty and dignity and rightness in this differentiation in roles both
within the Trinity and within the human family. With no sense of “better” or “worse,”
and with no sense of more important or “less important,” both men and women should
be able to rejoice fully in the way they have been made by God.
3. Ephesians 5:21-33 and the Question of Mutual Submission. In Ephesians 5
we read:
Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head
of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.
As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to
their husbands. (Eph. 5:22-24)
While on the surface this would seem to confirm what we have argued above about
the creation order for marriage, in recent years there has been some debate over the
meaning of the verb be subject to (Gk. hypotassd ) in this passage. Some people have
understood it to mean “be thoughtful and considerate; act in love [toward one another] .”
If it is understood in this sense, then the text does not teach that a wife has any unique
responsibility to submit to her husband’s authority, because both husband and wife need
to be considerate and loving toward one another, and because according to this view
submission to an authority is not seen in this passage. 22
However, this is not a legitimate meaning for the term hypotassd, which always
implies a relationship of submission to an authority. It is used elsewhere in the New
Testament of the submission of Jesus to the authority of his parents (Luke 2:51); of
demons being subject to the disciples (Luke 10:17— clearly the meaning “act in love, be
considerate cannot fit here); of citizens being subject to government authorities (Rom.
13:1, 5; Titus 3:1; 1 Peter 2:13); ofthe universe being subject to Christ (1 Cor. 15:27; Eph.
1:22); of unseen spiritual powers being subject to Christ (1 Peter 3:22); of Christ being
subject to God the Father (1 Cor. 15:28); of church members being subject to church
leaders (1 Cor. 16:15-16 [see 1 Clem. 42:4]; 1 Peter 5:5); of wives being subject to their
husbands (Col. 3:18; Titus 2:5; 1 Peter 3:5; cf. Eph. 5:22, 24); ofthe church being subject
to Christ (Eph. 5:24); of servants being subject to their masters (Titus 2:9; 1 Peter 2:18);
and of Christians being subject to God (Heb. 12:9; James 4:7). None of these relation-
ships is ever reversed ; that is, husbands are never told to be subject ( hypotassd ) to wives,
nor the government to citizens, nor masters to servants, nor the disciples to demons,
etc. In fact, the term is used outside the New Testament to describe the submission and
obedience of soldiers in an army to those of superior rank. 23
The primary argument that has been used in favor of taking “be subject to” in the
sense “be considerate of” is the use of hypotassd in Ephesians 5:21. There Paul tells
22 See, for example, Bilezikian, Beyond Sex Roles, p. 154.
23 See Josephus, War 2.566, 578; 5.309; cf. the adverb in 1
Clem. 37:2; also LSJ, p. 1897, which defines hypotassd (passive)
to mean “be obedient ”
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
466
Christians, “Be subject to one another .” Several writers have argued that this means that
every Christian should be subject to every other Christian, and wives and husbands
especially should be “subject to one another.” The phrase “mutual submission” has often
been used to describe this kind of relationship, and it has been understood to imply that
there is no unique kind of submission that a wife owes to her husband.
However, the following context defines what Paul means by “be subject to one
another” in Ephesians 5:21: he means “Be subject to others in the church who are in posi-
tions of authority over you” This is explained by what follows: wives are to be subject to
husbands (Eph. 5:22-24), but husbands are never told to be subject to wives. In fact,
Paul tells wives to be subject “to your own husbands” (Eph. 5:22), 24 not to everyone in
the church or to all husbands! Children are to be subject to their parents (to “obey” them,
Eph. 6:1-3), but parents are never told to be subject to or to obey their children. Servants
are to be subject to (“obey”) their masters, but not masters to servants. 25 Therefore, the
idea of mutual submission (in the sense, “everyone should be subject to everyone”) is
not affirmed in Ephesians 5:21. 26 Similarly, in Colossians 3:18-19 Paul says, “Wives, be
subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and do not
be harsh with them” (see also Titus 2:4-5; 1 Peter 3:1-7).
D. Note on Application to Marriage
If our analysis is correct, then there are some practical applications, particularly within
marriage, and also with regard to relationships between men and women generally.
When husbands begin to act in selfish, harsh, domineering, or even abusive and cruel
ways, they should realize that this is a result of sin, a result of the fall, and is destructive
and contrary to Gods purposes for them. To act this way will bring great destructive-
ness in their lives, especially in their marriages. Husbands must rather fulfill the New
Testament commands to love their wives, honor them, be considerate of them, and put
them first in their interests.
Similarly, when wives feel rebellious, resentful of their husband’s leadership in the
family, or when they compete with their husbands for leadership in the family, they
should realize that this is a result of sin, a result of the fall. They should not act that
way, because to do so will bring destructive consequences to their marriages as well. A
24 Author’s literal translation of Greek idios, “one’s own.”
25 The misunderstanding of this verse has come about
through an assumption that the term “one another” ( allelous )
must be completely reciprocal (that it must mean “everyone
to everyone”). Yet there are many cases where it does not take
that sense, but rather means “some to others”: for example,
in Rev. 6:4, “so that men should slay one another ” means “so
that some would kill others”; in Gal. 6:2, “Bear one another's
burdens” means not “Everyone should exchange burdens with
everyone else,” but “Some who are more able should help bear
the burdens of others who are less able”; 1 Cor. 11:33, “When
you come together to eat, wait for one another ” means “those
who are ready early should wait for others who are late”; etc.
(cf. Luke 2:15; 21:1; 24:32). Similarly, both the following con-
text and the meaning of hypotasso require that in Eph. 5:21 it
means, “Those who are under authority should be subject to
others among you who have authority over them.” (Regarding
the objection that submission in marriage is like submission
in slavery, and both are wrong, see chapter 47, p. 943.)
26 Certainly, all Christians are to love one another and to be
considerate of one another. If that is what is meant by “mutual
submission,” then there should be no objection to it — even
though that idea is not taught in Eph. 5:21, but elsewhere in
the Bible, using words other than hypotasso. But usually the
phrase “mutual submission” is used in a different sense than
this, a sense that obliterates any unique authority for the hus-
band in a marriage.
CHAPTER 22 • MAN AS MALE AND FEMALE
wife desiring to act in accordance with God’s pattern should rather be submissive to her
husband and agree that he is the leader in their home and rejoice in that. 27
Once we have said this, we must realize that there are two other, nearly opposite, dis-
tortions of the biblical pattern that can occur. If tyranny by the husband and usurpation
of authority by the wife are errors of aggressiveness, there are two other errors, errors of
passivity or laziness. For a husband, the other extreme from being a domineering “tyrant”
is to be entirely passive and to fail to take initiative in the family — in colloquial terms,
to be a “wimp.” In this distortion of the biblical pattern, a husband becomes so “consid-
erate of his wife that he allows her to make all the decisions and even agrees when she
urges him to do wrong (note this behavior in Adam, Ahab, and Solomon, among others).
Often such a husband is increasingly absent (either physically or emotionally) from the
home and occupies his time almost exclusively with other concerns.
The corresponding error on the part of the wife, opposite of attempting to domineer
or usurp authority over her husband, is becoming entirely passive, contributing noth-
ing to the decision-making process of the family, and being unwilling to speak words
of correction to her husband, even though he is doing wrong. Submission to authority
does not mean being entirely passive and agreeing with everything that the person in
authority says or suggests — it is certainly not that way when we are submissive to the
authority of an employer or of government officials (we can certainly differ with our
government and still be subject to it), or even of the authority of the officers in a church
(we can be subject to them even though we may disagree with some of their decisions).
A wife can certainly be subject to the authority of her husband and still participate fully
in the decision-making process of the family.
Husbands, therefore, should aim for loving, considerate, thoughtful leadership in their
families. Wives should aim for active, intelligent, joyful submission to their husbands’
authority. In avoiding both kinds of mistakes and following a biblical pattern, husbands
and wives will discover true biblical manhood and womanhood in all of their noble dig-
nity and joyful complementarity, as God created them to be, and will thus reflect more
fully the image of God in their lives.
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. If you are being honest about your feelings, do you think it is better to be a man or
a woman? Are you happy with the gender God gave you or would you rather be a
member of the opposite sex? How do you think God wants you to feel about that
question?
2. Can you honestly say that you think members of the opposite sex are equally
valuable in God’s sight?
See the discussion of what submission means and what it Manhood and Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism,
does not mean in W. Grudem, “Wives Like Sarah, and the Hus- pp. 194-205.
bands Who Honor Them: 1 Peter 3:1-7,” in Recovering Biblical
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
468
3. Before reading this chapter, have you thought of relationships in the family as
reflecting something of the relationships between members of the Trinity? Do you
think that is a helpful way of looking at the family? How does that make you feel
about your own family relationships? Are there ways in which you might reflect
God’s character more fully in your own family?
4. How does the teaching of this chapter on differences in roles between men and
women compare with some of the attitudes expressed in society today? If there are
differences between what much of society is teaching and what Scripture teaches,
do you think there will be times when it will be difficult to follow Scripture? What
could your church do to help you in those situations?
5. Even apart from the questions of marriage or romantic involvement, do you think
God intends us to enjoy times of fellowship with mixed groups of other Christian
men and women? Why do you think God puts in our heart the desire to enjoy such
fellowship? Does it also reflect something of the plurality of persons in the Trinity,
together with the unity of God? Does this help you understand how it is important
that unmarried people be included fully in the activities of the church? Do you
think that in the past some religious groups have tended to neglect the importance
of this or even wrongly to forbid such mixed fellowship among Christians? What
are the dangers that should be guarded against in those situations, however?
6. If you are a husband, are you content with the role God has given you in your mar-
riage? If you are a wife, are you content with the role God has given you in your
marriage?
SPECIAL TERMS
difference in role mutual submission
equality in personhood primogeniture
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter 1,
pp. 38-39. Complete bibliographical data maybe found on pp. 1224-30.)
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
The topic of this chapter has not commonly been treated as a distinct unit within
systematic theologies. Therefore our usual arrangement of listings is abbreviated for this
chapter.
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1983 Carter, 1:214-20
3. Baptist
1983-85 Erickson, 545-49
CHAPTER 22 • MAN AS MALE AND FEMALE
469
4. Dispensational
1947 Chafer, 7:233-34, 310-11
5. Lutheran
1917-24 Pieper, 1:523-27
1934 Mueller, 209
7. Renewal (or charismatic/Pentecostal)
1988 Williams, 1:203-6
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
1. Roman Catholic: Traditional
1955 Ott, 460-73 (on matrimony)
2. Roman Catholic: Post-Vatican II
1980 McBrien, 2:848-54
Other Works
[Works marked * agree in general with the viewpoint presented in this chapter, while
those marked ** disagree.]
Bacchiocchi, Samuele. Women in the Church . Berrien Springs, Mich.: Biblical Perspectives,
1987. *
Bilezikian, Gilbert. Beyond Sex Roles: What the Bible Says About a Woman's Place in Church
and Family : 2d ed. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1985.**
Clark, Stephen B. Man and Woman in Christ: An Examination of the Roles of Men and
Women in Light of Scripture and the Social Sciences . Ann Arbor: Servant, 1980.*
Clouse, Bonnidell, and Robert G. Clouse, eds. Women in Ministry: Four Views . Downers
Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press, 1989.
Colwell, J. E. “Anthropology.” In NDT, pp. 28-30.
Conn, H. M. “Feminist Theology” In NDT, pp. 255-58.
Cottrell, Jack. Feminism and the Bible; An Introduction to Feminism for Christians. Joplin,
Mo.: College Press, 1992.*
Evans, Mary J. Women in the Bible: An Overview of All the Crucial Passages on Women's
Roles. Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press, 1983.**
Foh, Susan. Women and the Word of God: A Response to Biblical Feminism. Phillipsburg,
N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1980.*
Gundry, Patricia. Heirs Together. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1980.**
• Woman Be Free! The Clear Message of Scripture. Grand Rapids: Zondervan,
1988. **
House, H. Wayne. The Role of Women in Ministry Today. Nashville: Thomas Nelson,
1990.*
Hurley, James. Man and Women in Biblical Perspective. Leicester: Inter- Varsity Press, and
Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1981.*
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
470
Jepsen, Dee. Women: Beyond Equal Rights . Waco, Tex.: Word, 1984.*
Jewett, Paul K. Man as Male and Female . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975.**
Kassian, Mary A. Women , Creation and the Fall Westchester, 111.: Crossway, 1990.**
. The Feminist Gospel: The Movement to Unite Feminism With the Church. Wheaton,
111.: Crossway, 1992.*
Knight, George W., III. The Role Relationship of Man and Women: New Testament Teaching.
Chicago: Moody, 1985.*
Mickelsen, Alvera, ed. Women , Authority ; and the Bible. Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity
Press, 1986.**
Neuer, Werner. Man and Woman in Christian Perspective. Trans, by Gordon Wenham.
Westchester, 111.: Crossway, 1991.*
Piper, John. Whafs the Difference ? Manhood and Womanhood Defined According to the
Bible. Westchester, 111.: Crossway, 1990.*
, and Wayne Grudem, eds. Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response
to Evangelical Feminism. Westchester, 111.: Crossway, 1991.*
Spencer, Aida Besancon. Beyond the Curse: Women Called to Ministry. Peabody, Mass.:
Hendrickson, 1985.**
Tucker, Ruth A., and Walter Liefeld. Daughters of the Church: Women in Ministry from New
Testament Times to the Present. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1987.**
Van Leeuwen, Mary Stewart. Gender and Grace: Love , Work and Parenting in a Changing
World. Leicester and Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press, 1990.**
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
Colossians3:18-19: Wives, be subject to your husbands, asisfittingin theLord. Husbands,
love your wives, and do not be harsh with them.
HYMN
“Blest the Man that Fears Jehovah”
This hymn is an older paraphrase of Psalm 128 set to music. It speaks about the bless-
ings of a family that walks in God’s ways. (Use the tune of “Jesus Calls Us.”)
Blest the man that fears Jehovah,
walking ever in his ways;
By thy toil thou shalt be prospered
and be happy all thy days.
In thy wife thou shalt have gladness,
She shall fill thy home with good,
Happy in her loving service
and the joys of motherhood.
CHAPTER 22 • MAN AS MALE AND FEMALE
471
Joyful children, sons and daughters,
shall about thy table meet,
Olive plants, in strength and beauty,
full of hope and promise sweet.
Lo, on him that fears Jehovah
shall this blessedness attend,
For Jehovah out of Zion
shall to thee his blessing send.
Thou shalt see God’s kingdom prosper
all thy days, till life shall cease,
Thou shalt see thy children’s children;
on thy people. Lord, be peace.
FROM THE PSALTER, 1912, FROM PSALM 128
Chapter
THE ESSENTIAL NATURE
OF MAN
What does Scripture mean by “ soul ” and “spirit”?
Are they the same thing?
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
A. Introduction: Trichotomy, Dichotomy, and Monism
How many parts are there to man? Everyone agrees that we have physical bodies. Most
people (both Christians and non- Christians) sense that they also have an immaterial
part — a “soul” that will live on after their bodies die.
But here the agreement ends. Some people believe that in addition to “body” and
“soul” we have a third part, a “spirit” that most directly relates to God. The view that man
is made of three parts (body, soul, and spirit) is called trichotomy} Though this has been
a common view in popular evangelical Bible teaching, there are few scholarly defenses of
it today. According to many trichotomists, man’s soul includes his intellect, his emotions,
and his will. They maintain that all people have such a soul, and that the different ele-
ments of the soul can either serve God or be yielded to sin. They argue that man’s spirit
is a higher faculty in man that comes alive when a person becomes a Christian (see Rom.
8:10: “If Christ is in you, although your bodies are dead because of sin, your spirits are
alive because of righteousness”). The spirit of a person then would be that part of him or
her that most directly worships and prays to God (see John 4:24; Phil. 3:3).
Others have said that “spirit” is not a separate part of man, but simply another term
for “soul,” and that both terms are used interchangeably in Scripture to talk about the
immaterial part of man, the part that lives on after our bodies die. The view that man
is made up of two parts (body and soul/spirit) is called dichotomy . Those who hold this
Tor a defense of trichotomy, see Franz Delitzsch, A System
of Biblical Psychology t trans. R. E. Wallis, 2d ed. (Grand Rapids:
Baker, 1966).
472
CHAPTER 23 • THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF MAN
view often agree that Scripture uses the word spirit (Heb. ruach , and Gk. pneuma) more
frequently when referring to our relationship to God, but such usage (they say) is not
uniform, and the word soul is also used in all the ways that spirit can be used.
Outside the realm of evangelical thought we find yet another view, the idea that
man cannot exist at all apart from a physical body, and therefore there can be no sepa-
rate existence for any “soul” after the body dies (although this view can allow for the
resurrection of the whole person at some future time). The view that man is only one
element, and that his body is the person, is called monism ? According to monism, the
scriptural terms soul and spirit are just other expressions for the “person” himself, or
for the person’s “life.” This view has not generally been adopted by evangelical theolo-
gians because so many scriptural texts seem clearly to affirm that our souls or spirits
live on after our bodies die (see Gen. 35:18; Ps. 31:5; Luke 23:43, 46; Acts 7:59; Phil.
1:23-24; 2 Cor. 5:8; Heb. 12:23; Rev. 6:9; 20:4; and chapter 42, on the intermediate
state, below).
But the other two views continue to be held in the Christian world today. Although
dichotomy has been held more commonly through the history of the church and is
far more common among evangelical scholars today, trichotomy has also had many
supporters. 2 3
This chapter will support the dichotomist view that man is two parts, body and soul
(or spirit), but we shall also examine the arguments for trichotomy.
B. Biblical Data
Before asking whether Scripture views “soul” and “spirit” as distinct parts of man, we
must at the outset make it clear that the emphasis of Scripture is on the overall unity of
man as created by God. When God made man he “breathed into his nostrils the breath
of life; and man became a living being” (Gen. 2:7). Here Adam is a unified person with
body and soul living and acting together. This original harmonious and unified state of
man will occur again when Christ returns and we are fully redeemed in our bodies as
well as our souls to live with him forever (see 1 Cor. 15:51—54). Moreover, we are to grow
in holiness and love for God in every aspect of our lives, in our bodies as well as in our
spirits or souls (cf. 1 Cor. 7:34). We are to “cleanse ourselves from every defilement of
body and spirit , and make holiness perfect in the fear of God” (2 Cor. 7:1).
But once we have emphasized the fact that God created us to have a unity between
body and soul, and that every action we take in this life is an act of our whole person,
involving to some extent both body and soul, then we can go on to point out that Scrip-
ture quite clearly teaches that there is an immaterial part of mans nature. And we can
investigate what that part is like.
I. Scripture Uses “Soul” and “Spirit” Interchangeably. When we look at the usage of the
biblical words translated “soul” (Heb. nephesh and Gk. psyche) and “spirit” (Heb. ruach
2 For further information, see Millard Erickson, Christian 3 See Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology, pp. 191 -92, for a
Theology, pp. 524-27, and his notes regarding the view of survey of views held in the history of the church.
J. A. T. Robinson.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
474
and Gk. pneuma ), 4 it appears that they are sometimes used interchangeably. For example,
in John 12:27, Jesus says, “Now is my soul troubled,” whereas in a very similar context in
the next chapter John says that Jesus was “troubled in spirit” (John 13:21). Similarly, we
read Mary’s words in Luke 1:46-47: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices
in God my Savior.” This seems to be quite an evident example of Hebrew parallelism, the
poetic device in which the same idea is repeated using different but synonymous words.
This interchangeability of terms also explains why people who have died and gone to
heaven or hell can be called either “spirits” (Heb. 12:23, “the spirits of just men made
perfect”; also 1 Peter 3:19, “ spirits in prison”) or “souls” (Rev. 6:9, “the souls of those who
had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne”; 20:4, “the souls
of those who had been beheaded for their testimony to Jesus”).
2. At Death, Scripture Says Either That the “Soul” Departs or the “Spirit” Departs.
When Rachel died, Scripture says, “Her soul was departing (for she died)” (Gen. 35:18).
Elijah prays that the dead child’s “soul” would come into him again (1 Kings 17:21), and
Isaiah predicts that the Servant of the Lord would “pour out his soul [Heb. nephesh] to
death” (Isa. 53:12). In the New Testament God tells the rich fool, “This night your soul
[Gk. psyche] is required of you” (Luke 12:20). On the other hand, sometimes death is
viewed as the returning of the spirit to God. So David can pray, in words later quoted
by Jesus on the cross, “Into your hand I commit my spirit ” (Ps. 31:5; cf. Luke 23:46). At
death, “the spirit returns to God who gave it” (Eccl. 12:7). 5 In the New Testament, when
Jesus was dying, “he bowed his head and gave up his spirit” (John 19:30), and likewise
Stephen before dying prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit” (Acts 7:59).
In response to these passages, a trichotomist might argue that they are talking about
different things, for when a person dies both his soul and his spirit do in fact go to
heaven. But it should be noted that Scripture nowhere says that a person’s “soul and
spirit” departed or went to heaven or were yielded up to God. If soul and spirit were
separate and distinct things, we would expect that such language would be affirmed
somewhere, if only to assure the reader that no essential part of the person is left
behind. Yet we find no such language: the biblical authors do not seem to care whether
they say that the soul departs or the spirit departs at death, for both seem to mean the
same thing.
throughout this chapter it is important to keep in mind
that several recent Bible translations (especially the NI V) do not
consistently translate the Hebrew and Greek terms noted above
as “soul” and “spirit,” but sometimes substitute other terms
such as “life,” “mind,” “heart,” or “person.” The RSV, which I
quote unless another version is specified, tends to be more lit-
eral in translating these words in most cases.
In certain contexts these terms can of course be used to
refer to the persons life or to the whole person, but they are
also used many times to refer to a distinct part of a person’s
nature (see BDB, pp. 659-61, 924-25; and BAGD, pp. 674-75,
893-94, for many examples).
5 George Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974), says that in the Old Testament nei-
ther soul nor spirit “is conceived of as a part of man capable
of surviving the death of basar [flesh]” (p. 459). This state-
ment is not accurate in the light of the Old Testament verses
just cited in this paragraph. Ladd’s analysis in this section
is heavily dependent on the work of W. D. Stacey, The Pau-
line View of Man (London: Macmillan, 1956), whom Ladd
cites fourteen times on pp. 458-59. Yet Stacey himself thinks
that death means extinction for human beings (Ladd, p. 463).
Ladd also notes that Rudolf Bultmann vigorously denied that
man has an invisible soul or spirit, but Ladd himself rejects
Bultmann’s view when dealing with the New Testament data
(see p. 460, n. 17, and p. 464).
CHAPTER 23 • THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF MAN
475
We should also note that these Old Testament verses quoted above indicate that it
is not correct, as some have claimed, to say that the Old Testament so emphasizes the
unity of man that it has no conception of the existence of the soul apart from the body.
Certainly several of these Old Testament passages imply that the authors recognize that
a person continues to exist after his or her body dies.
3. Man Is Said to Be Either “Body and Soul” or “Body and Spirit.” Jesus tells us not to
fear those who “kill the body but cannot kill the soul,” but that we should rather “fear
him who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matt. 10:28). Here the word “soul”
clearly must refer to the part of a person that exists after death. It cannot mean “person”
or “life,” for it would not make sense to speak of those who “kill the body but cannot kill
the person,” or who “kill the body but cannot kill the life,” unless there is some aspect of
the person that lives on after the body is dead. Moreover, when Jesus talks about “soul and
body” he seems quite clearly to be talking about the entire person even though he does not
mention “spirit” as a separate component. The word “soul” seems to stand for the entire
nonphysical part of man.
On the other hand, man is sometimes said to be “body and spirit.” Paul wants the Corin-
thian church to deliver an erring brother to Satan “for the destruction of the flesh, that his
spirit maybe saved in the dayofthe Lord Jesus” (1 Cor. 5:5). It is not that Paul has forgotten
the salvation of the man’s soul as well; he simply uses the word “spirit” to refer to the whole
of the person’s immaterial existence. Similarly, James says that “the body apart from the
spirit is dead” (James 2:26), but mentions nothing about a separate soul. Moreover, when
Paul speaks of growth in personal holiness, he approves the woman who is concerned with
“how to be holy in body and spirit” (1 Cor. 7:34), and he suggests that this covers the whole
of the person’s life. Even more explicit is 2 Corinthians 7:1, where he says, “let us cleanse
ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, and make holiness perfect in the fear of
God.” 6 Cleansing ourselves from defilement of the “soul” or of the “spirit” covers the whole
immaterial side of our existence (see also Rom. 8:10; 1 Cor. 5:3; Col. 2:5).
4. The “Soul” Can Sin or the “Spirit” Can Sin. Those who hold to trichotomy will usu-
ally agree that the “soul” can sin since they think that the soul includes the intellect, the
emotions, and the will. (We see the fact that our souls can sin implied in verses such as 1
Peter 1:22; Rev. 18:14.)
The trichotomist, however, generally thinks of the “spirit” as purer than the soul, and,
when renewed, as free from sin and responsive to the prompting of the Holy Spirit. This
understanding (which sometimes finds its way into popular Christian preaching and
writing) is not really supported by the biblical text. When Paul encourages the Corin-
thians to cleanse themselves “from every defilement of body and spirit ” (2 Cor. 7:1), he
clearly implies that there can be defilement (or sin) in our spirits. Similarly, he speaks of
6 The verse is perhaps better translated, “making holiness we make holiness perfect is by cleansing ourselves from every
perfect in the view of God,” since the present participle epi- defilement of body and spirit (grammatically this would then
telountes suggests actions simultaneous with the main verb be a modal participle).
“cleanse,” and the verse thus gives the idea that the way in which
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
476
the unmarried woman who is concerned with how to be holy “in body and spirit ” (1 Cor.
7:34). Other verses speak in similar ways. For example, the Lord hardened the “spirit” of
Sihon the king of Heshbon (Deut. 2:30). Psalm 78 speaks of the rebellious people of Israel
“whose spirit was not faithful to God” (Ps. 78:8). A “haughty spirit” goes before a fall
(Prov. 16:18), and it is possible for sinful people to be “proud in spirit” (Eccl. 7:8). Isaiah
speaks of those “who err in spirit” (Isa. 29:24). Nebuchadnezzar’s “spirit was hardened so
that he dealt proudly” (Dan. 5:20). The fact that “All the ways of a man are pure in his own
eyes, but the Lord weighs the spirit” (Prov. 16:2) implies that it is possible for our spirits to
be wrong in God’s sight. Other verses imply a possibility of sin in our spirits (see Ps. 32:2;
51:10). Finally, the fact that Scripture approves of one “who rules his spirit ” (Prov. 16:32)
implies that our spirits are not simply the spiritually pure parts of our lives that are to be
followed in all cases, but that they can have sinful desires or directions as well.
5. Everything That the Soul Is Said to Do, the Spirit Is Also Said to Do, and Everything
That the Spirit Is Said to Do the Soul Is Also Said to Do. Those who advocate trichotomy
face a difficult problem defining clearly just what the difference is between the soul and
the spirit (from their perspective). If Scripture gave clear support to the idea that our
spirit is the part of us that directly relates to God in worship and prayer, while our soul
includes our intellect (thinking), our emotions (feeling), and our will (deciding), then
trichotomists would have a strong case. However, Scripture appears not to allow such a
distinction to be made.
On the one hand, the activities of thinking, feeling, and deciding things are not said
to be done by our souls only. Our spirits can also experience emotions, for example, as
when Paul’s “spirit was provoked within him” (Acts 17:16), or when Jesus was “troubled
in spirit” (John 13:21). It is also possible to have a “downcast spirit,” which is the opposite
of a “cheerful heart” (Prov. 17:22).
Moreover, the functions of knowing, perceiving, and thinking are also said to be done
by our spirits. For instance, Mark speaks of Jesus “perceiving [Gk. epiginosko , ‘know-
ing’] in his spirit” (Mark 2:8). When the Holy Spirit “bears witness with our spirit that
we are children of God” (Rom. 8:16), our spirits receive and understand that witness,
which is certainly a function of knowing something. In fact, our spirits seem to know our
thoughts quite deeply, for Paul asks, “What person knows a man’s thoughts except the
spirit of the man which is in him?” (1 Cor. 2:11). (Cf. Isa. 29:24, speaking of those who
now “err in spirit” but “will come to understanding.”)
The point of these verses is not to say that it is the spirit rather than the soul that feels
and thinks things, but rather that “soul” and “spirit” are both terms used of the immate-
rial side of people generally, and it is difficult to see any real distinction between the use
of the terms.
In fact, we should not slip into the mistake of thinking that certain activities (such
as thinking, feeling, or deciding things) are done by only one part of us. Rather, these
activities are done by the whole person. When we think or feel things, certainly our
physical bodies are involved at every point as well. Whenever we think we use the
physical brain God has given us. Similarly, our brain and our entire nervous system are
involved when we feel emotion, and sometimes those emotions are involved in physical
CHAPTER 23 ■ THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF MAN
sensations in other parts of our bodies. This is just to reemphasize what was said at the
beginning of our discussion, that the overall focus of Scripture is primarily on man as
a unity, with our physical bodies and the nonphysical part of our persons functioning
together as a unity.
On the other hand, the trichotomist claim that our spirit is that element of us that
relates most directly to God in worship and in prayer does not seem to be borne out by
Scripture. We often read about our soul worshiping God and relating to him in other
kinds of spiritual activity. “To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul ” (Ps. 25:1). “For God alone
my soul waits in silence” (Ps. 62:1). “Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me,
bless his holy name!” (Ps. 103:1). “Praise the Lord, O my soul!” (Ps. 146:1). “My soul
magnifies the Lord” (Luke 1:46).
These passages indicate that our souls can worship God, praise him, and give thanks
to him. Our souls can pray to God, as Hannah implies when she says, “I have been pour-
ing out my soul before the Lord” (1 Sam. 1:15). In fact, the great commandment is to
“love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your
might” (Deut. 6:5; cf. Mark 12:30). Our souls can long for God and thirst for him (Ps.
42:1, 2), and can “hope in God” (Ps. 42:5). Our souls can rejoice and delight in God, for
David says, “My soul shall rejoice in the Lord, exulting in his deliverance” (Ps. 35:9; cf.
Isa. 61:10). The psalmist says, “My soul is consumed with longing for your ordinances at
all times” (Ps. 119:20), and, “My soul keeps your testimonies; I love them exceedingly”
(Ps. 119:167). There seems to be no area of life or relationship to God in which Scripture
says our spirits are active rather than our souls. Both terms are used to speak of all of the
aspects of our relationship to God.
However, it would be wrong, in the light of these passages, to suggest that only our
souls (or spirits) worship God, for our bodies are involved in worship as well. We are a
unity of body and soul/spirit. Our physical brains think about God when we worship and
when we love him with all of our “minds” (Mark 12:30). David, longing to be in God’s
presence, can say, “My flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where no water is”
(Ps. 63:1). Again, we read, “My heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God” (Ps. 84:2).
It is obvious that when we pray aloud or sing praise to God, our lips and our vocal cords
are involved, and sometimes worship and prayer in Scripture involves clapping of hands
(Ps. 47:1) or lifting of hands to God (Pss. 28:2; 63:4; 134:2; 143:6; 1 Tim. 2:8). Moreover,
the playing of musical instruments in praise to God is an act that involves our physical
bodies as well as the physical materials of which the musical instruments are made (see
Ps. 150:3-5). We worship him as whole persons.
In conclusion, Scripture does not seem to support any distinction between soul and
spirit. There does not seem to be a satisfactory answer to the questions that we may
address to a trichotomist, “What can the spirit do that the soul cannot do? What can the
soul do that the spirit cannot do?”
C. Arguments for Trichotomy
Those who adopt the trichotomist position have appealed to a number of Scripture
passages in support of it. We list here the ones that are most commonly used.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
478
1. 1 Thessalonians 5:23. “May the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly; and may
your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ” (1 Thess. 5:23). Does not this verse clearly speak of three parts to man?
2. Hebrews 4:12. “The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged
sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the
thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb. 4:12). If the sword of Scripture divides soul
and spirit, then are these not two separate parts of man?
3. 1 Corinthians 2:14-3:4. This passage speaks of different kinds of people, those who
are “ofthe flesh” (Gk. sarkinos, 1 Cor. 3:1); those who are “unspiritual” (Gk. psychikos, lit.
“soul-ish,” 1 Cor. 2:14); and those who are “spiritual” (Gk. pneumatikos, 1 Cor. 2:15). Do
not these categories suggest that there are different sorts of people, the non- Christians
who are “ofthe flesh,” “unspiritual” Christians who follow the desires of their souls, and
more mature Christians who follow the desires of their spirits? Would this not suggest
that soul and spirit are different elements of our nature?
4. 1 Corinthians 14:14. When Paul says, “If I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my
mind is unfruitful” (1 Cor. 14:14), is he not implying that his mind does something dif-
ferent from his spirit, and would not this support the trichotomists argument that our
mind and our thinking are to be assigned to our souls, not to our spirit?
5. The Argument From Personal Experience. Many trichotomists say that they have
a spiritual perception, a spiritual awareness of Gods presence which affects them in a
way that they know to be different from their ordinary thinking processes and differ-
ent from their emotional experiences. They ask, “If I do not have a spirit that is distinct
from my thoughts and my emotions, then what exactly is it that I feel that is different
from my thoughts and my emotions, something that I can only describe as worship-
ing God in my spirit and sensing his presence in my spirit? Isn’t there something in me
that is more than just my intellect and my emotions and my will, and shouldn’t this be
called my spirit?”
6. Our Spirit Is What Makes Us Different From Animals. Some trichotomists argue that
both humans and animals have souls, but maintain that it is the presence of a spirit that
makes us different from animals.
7. Our Spirit Is What Comes Alive at Regeneration. Trichotomists also argue that when
we become Christians our spirits come alive: “But if Christ is in you, although your bod-
ies are dead because of sin, your spirits are alive because of righteousness” (Rom. 8:10).
Now we can consider the seven points given above:
D. Responses to Arguments for Trichotomy
1. 1 Thessalonians 5:23. The phrase “your spirit and soul and body” is by itself incon-
clusive. Paul could be simply piling up synonyms for emphasis, as is sometimes done
CHAPTER 23 ■ THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF MAN
479
elsewhere in Scripture. For example, Jesus says, “You shall love the Lord your God with
all your heart, and with all your soul , and with all your mind ” (Matt. 22:37). Does this
mean that the soul is different from the mind or from the heart? 7 The problem is even
greater in Mark 12:30: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with
all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength .” If we go on the prin-
ciple that such lists of terms tell us about more parts to man, then if we also add spirit
to this list (and perhaps body as well), we would have five or six parts to man! But that
is certainly a false conclusion. It is far better to understand Jesus as simply piling up
roughly synonymous terms for emphasis to demonstrate that we must love God with all
of our being.
Likewise, in 1 Thessalonians 5:23 Paul is not saying that soul and spirit are dis-
tinct entities, but simply that, whatever our immaterial part is called, he wants God to
continue to sanctify us wholly to the day of Christ.
2. Hebrews 4:12. This verse, which talks about the Word of God “piercing to the divi-
sion of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow,” is best understood in a way similar to
1 Thessalonians 5:23. The author is not saying that the Word of God can divide “soul
from spirit,” but he is using a number of terms (soul, spirit, joints, marrow, thoughts
and intentions of the heart) that speak of the deep inward parts of our being that are
not hidden from the penetrating power of the Word of God. If we wish to call these our
“soul,” then Scripture pierces into the midst of it and divides it and discovers its inmost
intentions. If we wish to call this inmost nonphysical side of our being our “spirit,” then
Scripture penetrates into the midst of it and divides it and knows its deepest intentions
and thoughts. Or if we wish to think metaphorically of our inmost being as hidden in
our joints and in the marrow, then we can think of Scripture being like a sword that
divides our joints or that pierces deeply into our bones and even divides the marrow in
the midst of the bones. 8 In all of these cases the Word of God is so powerful that it will
search out and expose all disobedience and lack of submission to God. In any case, soul
and spirit are not thought of as separate parts; they are simply additional terms for our
inmost being.
3. 1 Corinthians 2:14-3:4. Paul certainly distinguishes a person who is “natural” ( psy -
chikos, “soul-ish”) from one that is “spiritual” ( pneumatikos , “spiritual”) in 1 Corinthi-
ans 2:14-3:4. But in this context “spiritual” seems to mean “influenced by the Holy
Spirit,” since the entire passage is talking about the work of the Holy Spirit in revealing
truth to believers. In this context, “spiritual” might almost be translated “Spiritual.” But
the passage does not imply that Christians have a spirit whereas non- Christians do not,
or that the spirit of a Christian is alive while the spirit of a non- Christian is not. Paul is
not talking about different parts of man at all, but about coming under the influence of
the Holy Spirit.
7 The “heart” in Scripture is an expression for the deepest, 8 Note that we do not divide joints from marrow, for joints
inmost thoughts and feelings of a person (see Gen. 6:5, 6; Lev. are the places where bones meet, not the places where joints
19:17; Pss. 14:1; 15:2; 37:4; 119:10; Prov. 3:5; Acts 2:37; Rom. 2:5; meet marrow.
10:9; 1 Cor. 4:5; 14:25; Heb. 4:12; 1 Peter 3:4; Rev. 2:23, et al.).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
480
4. 1 Corinthians 14:14. When Paul says, “My spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful,” he
means he does not understand the content of what he is praying. He does imply that there
is a nonphysical component to his being, a “spirit” within him that can pray to God. But
nothing in this verse suggests that he regards his spirit as different from his soul. Such
a misunderstanding results only if it is assumed that “mind” is part of the soul — a tri-
chotomist claim that, as we noted above, is very difficult to substantiate from Scripture.
Paul probably could equally have said, “My soul prays but my mind is unfruitful.” 9 The
point is simply that there is a nonphysical element to our existence that can at times
function apart from our conscious awareness of how it is functioning.
5. The Argument From Personal Experience. Christians have a “spiritual perception,”
an inner awareness of the presence of God experienced in worship and in prayer. At this
deep inward level we can also at times feel spiritually troubled, or depressed, or perhaps
have a sense of the presence of hostile demonic forces. Often this perception is distinct
from our conscious, rational thought processes. Paul realizes that at times his spirit prays
but his mind does not understand (1 Cor. 14:14). But does inward spiritual perception
occur in something other than what the Bible calls our “soul”? If we were using the
vocabulary of Mary, we would be happy to say, “My soul magnifies the Lord” (Luke
1:46). David would say, “Bless the Lord, O my soul” (Ps. 103:1). Jesus would tell us to
love God with all our soul (Mark 12:30). The apostle Paul uses the word spirit , but it is
simply a difference in terminology and does not point to a different part of man. There
is a “spirit” within us that can perceive things in the spiritual realm (note Rom. 8:16; also
Acts 17:16), but we could just as well speak of it as our “soul” and mean the same thing,
for Scripture uses both terms.
6. What Makes Us Different From Animals? It is true that we have spiritual abilities that
make us different from animals: 10 we are able to relate to God in worship and prayer, and
we enjoy spiritual life in fellowship with God who is spirit. But we should not assume that
we have a distinct element called “spirit” that allows us to do this, for with our minds
we can love God, read and understand his words, and believe his Word to be true. Our
souls can worship God and rejoice in him (see above). Our bodies will also be resurrected
and live with God forever. Therefore we do not have to say that we have a part distinct
from our souls and bodies that makes us different from animals, for our souls and bod-
ies (including our minds) relate to God in ways animals never can. Rather, what makes
us different from animals is the spiritual abilities that God has given to both our bodies
and souls (or spirits).
The question of whether an animal has a “soul” simply depends on how we define
soul. If we define “soul” to mean “the intellect, emotions, and will,” then we will have
9 However, it is much more characteristic of Pauls termi- a synonym for a person himself, as in Rom. 9:3; 13:1; 16:4; Phil,
nology to use the word “spirit” to talk about our relationship 2:30. Use of the word “soul” to refer to the non-physical side of
to God in worship and in prayer. Paul does not use the word man is more characteristic of the gospels, and of many passages
“soul” (Gk. psyche) very frequently (14 times, compared with in the Old Testament.
101 occurrences in the New Testament as a whole), and when 10 See chapter 21, pp. 445-49, on the numerous differences
he does, he often uses it simply to refer to a person’s “life,” or as between human beings and animals.
CHAPTER23 • THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF MAN
to conclude that at least the higher animals have a soul. But if we define our “soul” as
we have in this chapter, to mean the immaterial element of our nature that relates to
God (Ps. 103:1; Luke 1:46, et al.) and lives forever (Rev. 6:9), then animals do not have a
soul. The fact that the Hebrew word nephesh , “soul,” is sometimes used of animals (Gen.
1:21; 9:4) shows that the word can sometimes simply mean “life”; it does not mean that
animals have the same kind of soul as man. 11
7. Does Our Spirit Come Alive at Regeneration? The human spirit is not something
that is dead in an unbeliever but comes to life when someone trusts in Christ, because
the Bible talks about unbelievers having a spirit that is obviously alive but is in rebel-
lion against God — whether Sihon, King of Heshbon (Deut. 2:30: the Lord “hardened
his spirit”), or Nebuchadnezzar (Dan. 5:20: “his spirit was hardened so that he dealt
proudly”), or the unfaithful people of Israel (Ps. 78:8: their “spirit was not faithful to
God”). When Paul says, “Your spirits are alive because of righteousness” (Rom. 8:10), he
apparently means “alive to God,” but he does not imply that our spirits were completely
“dead” before, only that they were living out of fellowship with God and were dead in
that sense. 12 In the same way, we as whole persons were “dead” in “trespasses and sins”
(Eph. 2:1), but we were made alive to God, and we now must consider ourselves “dead to
sin and alive to God” (Rom. 6:11). It is not just that one part of us (called the spirit) has
been made alive; we as whole persons are a “new creation” in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17).
8. Conclusion. Although the arguments for trichotomy do have some force, none of
them provides conclusive evidence that would overcome the wide testimony of Scripture
showing that the terms soul and spirit are frequently interchangeable and are in many
cases synonymous.
We might also note the observation of Louis Berkhof on the origin of trichotomy:
The tripartite conception of man originated in Greek philosophy, which con-
ceived of the relation of the body and the spirit of man to each other after the
analogy of the mutual relation between the material universe and God. It was
thought that, just as the latter could enter into communion with each other only
by means of a third substance or an intermediate being, so the former could
enter into mutual vital relationships only by means of a third or intermediate
element, namely, the soul. 13
Some trichotomists today have a tendency to adopt a related error that also was
found in Greek philosophy — the idea that the material world, including our bodies, is
n In fact, one passage even speculates about “the spirit of
the beast” in contrast with “the spirit of man,” (Eccl. 3:21), but
the context (w. 18-22) is one expressing a worldly, cynical per-
spective that shows the vanity of life and argues that man is but
a beast (v. 18): in the overall context of the book it is not clear
that this is something the author is encouraging his readers to
believe.
12 Another common view of Rom. 8:10 is that Paul is not
referring to our human spirits at all but that pneuma here
means the Holy Spirit, as in vv. 9 and 11, so that the phrase
means, “The Spirit is life [for you] because of righteousness”:
see Douglas Moo, Romans 1-8, Wydiffe Exegetical Commen-
tary (Chicago: Moody, 1991), p. 525; John Murray, The Epistle
to the Romans, NIC, 2 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959,
1965), 1:289-91.
13 Berkhof, Systematic Theology, p. 191.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
482
essentially evil and something to be escaped from. The danger is to say that the realm of
the “spirit” is the only thing that is really important, with a resultant depreciation of the
value of our physical bodies as created by God and “very good” (Gen. 1:31), and therefore
as something to be presented to God in service for him (Rom. 12:1).
Trichotomy can also have an anti-intellectual tendency. If we think of the spirit as
that element of us that relates most directly to God, and if we think that the spirit is
something distinct from our intellect, emotions, and will, we can easily fall into an
anti-intellectual kind of Christianity that thinks that vigorous academic work is some-
how “unspiritual” — a view that contradicts Jesus’ command to love God with all our
“mind” (Mark 12:30) and Pauls desire to “take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2
Cor. 10:5). Such a separation of the realm of the “spirit” from the realm of the intellect
can too easily lead to a neglect of sound doctrine or of the need for extensive teaching
and knowledge of the Word of God — in contradiction to Paul’s goal that he would
work among God’s people to further both their “faith” and their “knowledge of the
truth which accords with godliness” (Titus 1:1; cf. v. 9). Similarly, if we think of our
spirits as a distinct part of us that relates most directly to God, we can easily begin to
neglect the role of Bible study and mature wisdom in making decisions, and place too
much reliance on “spiritual” discernment in the realm of guidance, an emphasis that
has, through the history of the church, led many zealous Christians astray into false
teaching and unwise practices. Finally, trichotomy can subtlely influence us to think
that our emotions are not important or not really spiritual, since they are thought to be
part of our soul, not part of our spirit.
By contrast, if we hold to a view of dichotomy that upholds the overall unity of man, it
will be much easier to avoid the error of depreciating the value of our intellects, emotions,
or physical bodies. We will not think of our bodies as inherently evil or unimportant.
Such a view of dichotomy within unity will also help us to remember that, in this life,
there is a continual interaction between our body and our spirit, and that they affect
each other: “A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a downcast spirit dries up the bones”
(Prov. 17:22). 14
Moreover, a healthy emphasis on dichotomy within an overall unity reminds us that
Christian growth must include all aspects of our lives. We are continually to “cleanse
ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, and make holiness perfect in the fear
of God” (2 Cor. 7:1). We are to be “increasing in the knowledge of God” (Col. 1:10), and
our emotions and desires are to conform increasingly to the “desires of the Spirit” (Gal.
5:17), including an increase in godly emotions such as peace, joy, love, 15 and so forth
(Gal. 5:22).
14 Although many passages of Scripture remind us that our
bodies and our spirits do interact with each other and affect
one another. Scripture does not tell us very much about how
they interact. Berkhof wisely says, “Body and soul are distinct
substances, which do interact, though their mode of interaction
escapes human scrutiny and remains a mystery for us” ( System-
atic Theology, p. 195).
15 Some people will object that love is not merely an emo-
tion, because it shows itself in actions and often we can will
to perform loving actions toward others even when we do not
feel love toward them. I agree with this, but there certainly
is an emotional component to love — we can feel love toward
others — and we would lose much of the richness of our rela-
tionship to God and others if we tried to deny this.
CHAPTER 23 * THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF MAN
E. Scripture Does Speak of an Immaterial Part of Man
That Can Exist Without His Body
A number of non- Christian philosophers have vigorously challenged the idea that
man has any immaterial part at all such as a soul or spirit. 16 Perhaps partially in response
to such criticism, some evangelical theologians have seemed hesitant to affirm dichot-
omy in human existence. 17 They have instead affirmed repeatedly that the Bible views
man as a unity — a fact which is true but should not be used to deny that Scripture also
views man's unified nature as made up of two distinct elements. Of course, philosophers
who assume that there is no spiritual realm beyond the reach of our sense perception,
and who then go from that assumption to argue on the basis of our sense perception that
there is no God, or heaven, or angels, or demons, will use similar arguments to deny the
existence of a distinct soul within human beings. The perception that we have a spirit or
soul belongs to the invisible, spiritual realm, and is, even in Christians, generally only a
faint, subjective perception. Therefore, our knowledge of the existence of the human soul
must be primarily based on Scripture, in which God dearly testifies to the existence of
this immaterial aspect of our beings. The fact that this truth about our existence cannot
be clearly known apart from the testimony of Scripture should not cause us to shrink
from affirming it.
Scripture is very clear that we do have a soul that is distinct from our physical bodies,
which not only can function somewhat independently of our ordinary thought processes
(1 Cor. 14:14; Rom. 8:16), but also, when we die, is able to go on consciously acting and
relating to God apart from our physical bodies. Jesus told the dying thief, “Today you
will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43), even though, for both of them, their physi-
cal bodies were soon to die. When Stephen was dying, he knew he would immediately
pass into the presence of the Lord, for he prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit ” (Acts
7:59). Paul does not fear death, for he says, “My desire is to depart and be with Christ,
for that is far better” (Phil. 1:23). He contrasts that with remaining in this life, which
he calls “to remain in the flesh” (Phil. 1:24). In fact, he says, “We would rather be away
from the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8), indicating a confidence that if
he were to die physically his spirit would go into the Lord s presence and there enjoy
fellowship with the Lord at once. The book of Revelation reminds us that “the souls of
those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne” (Rev.
6:9) are in heaven and are able to cry out to God to bring justice on the earth (Rev. 6:10;
cf. also 20:4).
Therefore, although we must agree that, in this life, Scripture views us as a unity
in which body and spirit act together as one person, nonetheless, there will be a time
between our death and the day Christ returns when our spirits will temporarily exist
apart from our physical bodies. 18
16 See the discussion in Millard Erickson, Christian Theology y 18 See further discussion of “the intermediate state”
pp. 530-36, with notes to some literature. between death and Christ’s return in chapter 41, pp. 816-24.
17 See, for example, G. C. Berkouwer, Man , the Image of
God , pp. 194-233.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
F. Where Do Our Souls Come From?
What is the origin of our individual souls? Two views have been common in the his-
tory of the church.
Creationism is the view that God creates a new soul for each person and sends it to that
person’s body sometime between conception and birth. Traducianism, on the other hand,
holds that the soul as well as the body of a child are inherited from the baby’s mother and
father at the time of conception. Both views have had numerous defenders in the history
of the church, with creationism eventually becoming the prevailing view in the Roman
Catholic Church. Luther was in favor of traducianism, while Calvin favored creationism.
On the other hand, there are some later Calvinist theologians such as A. H. Strong who
favored traducianism (as do most Lutherans today). Creationism has had many modern
evangelical advocates as well. 19
There is one other popular view called pre-existentianism, namely, that the souls of
people exist in heaven long before their bodies are conceived in the wombs of their moth-
ers, and that God then brings the soul to earth to be joined with the baby’s body as he or
she grows in the womb. But this view is not held by either Roman Catholic or Protestant
theologians and is dangerously akin to ideas of reincarnation found in Eastern religions.
Moreover, there is no support for this view in Scripture. Before we were conceived in the
wombs of our mothers, we simply did not exist. We were not. Of course, God looked for-
ward into the future and knew that we would exist, but that is far removed from saying
that we actually did exist at some previous time. Such an idea would tend to make us view
this present life as transitional or unimportant and make us think of life in the body as
less desirable and the bearing and raising of children as less important.
In favor of traducianism it may be argued that God created man in his own image
(Gen. 1:27), and this includes a likeness to God in the amazing ability to “create” other
human beings like ourselves. Therefore, just as the rest of the animal and plant world
bears descendants “according to their kinds” (Gen. 1:24), so Adam and Eve also were able
to bear children who were like themselves, with a spiritual nature as well as a physical
body. This would imply that the spirits or souls of Adam and Eve’s children were derived
from Adam and Eve themselves. Moreover, Scripture sometimes can speak of descen-
dants being somehow present in the body of someone in the previous generation, as when
the author of Hebrews says that when Melchizedek met Abraham, “Levi . . . was still in
the loins of his ancestor” (Heb. 7:10). Finally, traducianism could explain how the sins of
the parents can be passed on to the children without making God directly responsible for
the creation of a soul that is sinful or has a disposition that would tend toward sin.
However, the biblical arguments in favor of creationism seem to speak more directly
to the issue and give quite strong support for this view. First, Psalm 127 says that “sons
are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward” (Ps. 127:3). This indicates
that not only the soul, but also the entire person of the child, including his or her body,
is a gift from God. From this standpoint, it seems strange to think of the mother and
father as being responsible by themselves for any aspect of the child’s existence. Was it not
19 See, for example, Berkhof, Systematic Theology ,
pp. 196-201.
CHAPTER 23 • THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF MAN
the Lord who, David says, “knit me together in my mother’s womb” (Ps. 139:13)? Isaiah
says that God gives breath to the people on the earth and “spirit to those who walk in
it” (Isa. 42:5). 20 Zechariah talks of God as the one “who forms the spirit of man within
him” (Zech. 12:1 NIV). The author of Hebrews speaks of God as “the Father of spirits”
(Heb. 12:9). It is hard to escape the conclusion from these passages that God is the one
who creates our spirits or souls.
Yet we must be cautious in drawing conclusions from this data. Our discussion of the
doctrine of God’s providence in chapter 16 demonstrated that God usually acts through
secondary causes. God often brings about the results he seeks through the actions of
human beings. Certainly this is so in the conception and bearing of children. Even if we
say that God does create individual souls for human beings before they are born, and
that he is the one who allows children to be conceived and born, we must also recognize
that apart from the physical union of man and woman in the conception of a child, no
children are born! So we must not make the mistake of saying that the father and mother
have no role in the creation of the child. Even if we say that God is the “Father of spirits”
and the Creator of every human soul, just as he is the Maker and Creator of each of us,
we must still also affirm that God carries out this creative activity through the amazing
process of human procreation. Whether God involves the human mother and father to
some degree in the process of the creation of a soul as well as of a physical body, is impos-
sible for us to say. It is something that occurs in the invisible realm of the spirit, which we
do not have information about except from Scripture. And on this point Scripture simply
does not give us enough information to decide.
However, the arguments listed above in favor of traducianism must be said not to be
very compelling ones. The fact that Adam and Eve bear children in their own image (see
Gen. 5:3) could suggest that children somehow inherit a soul from their parents, but
it might also indicate that God gives an individually created soul to the child and that
that soul is consistent with the hereditary traits and personality characteristics that God
allowed the child to have through its descent from its parents. The idea that Levi was still
in the body of Abraham (Heb. 7:10) is best understood in a representative, or figurative,
sense, not in a literal sense. Moreover, it is not simply Levi’s soul that is talked about in
any case, but Levi himself, as a whole person, including body and soul — yet Levi’s body
was certainly not physically present in any meaningful sense in Abraham’s body, for there
was no distinct combination of genes at that time that could be said to be Levi and no one
else. Finally, since God brings about events in the physical world that are consistent with
the voluntary activities of human beings, there does not seem to be any real theological
difficulty in saying that God gives each child a human soul that has tendencies to sin
that are similar to the tendencies found in the parents. In fact, we read in the Ten Com-
mandments of God “visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third
and the fourth generation of those who hate [him] ” (Ex. 20:5), and, quite apart from the
question of the human soul, we know from human experience that children do in fact
tend to imitate both the good and bad traits in their parents’ lives, not only as a result of
imitation but also because of hereditary disposition. For God to give each child a human
20 Instead of “spirit” the NIV translates “life,” but the word
is ruachy the common Hebrew word for “spirit.”
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
486
soul that accords with the imitation of parents that we see in the lives of children would
simply be an indication that God, in creating a human soul, acts consistently with the
way he acts in relation to the human race in other matters as well.
In conclusion, it seems hard to avoid the testimony of Scripture to the effect that
God actively creates each human soul, just as he is active in all the events of his creation.
But the degree to which he allows the use of intermediate or secondary causes (that is,
inheritance from parents) is simply not explained for us in Scripture. Therefore, it does
not seem profitable for us to spend any more time speculating on this question.
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. In your own Christian experience, are you aware that you are more than just a phys-
ical body, that you have a nonphysical part that might be called a soul or spirit? At
what times do you especially become aware of the existence of your spirit? Can you
describe what it is like to know the witness of the Holy Spirit with your spirit that
you are God’s child (Rom. 8:16), or to have in your spirit a consciousness of God’s
presence (lohn 4:23; Phil. 3:3), or to be troubled in your spirit (John 12:27; 13:21;
Acts 17:16; 2 Cor. 2:13), or to have your spirit worship God (Luke 1:47; Ps. 103:1),
or to love God with all your soul (Mark 12:30)? By contrast, are there times when
you feel spiritually dull or insensitive? Do you think that one aspect of Christian
growth might include an increasing sensitivity to the state of your soul or spirit?
2. Before reading this chapter, did you hold to dichotomy or trichotomy? Now what
is your view? If you have changed to an acceptance of dichotomy after reading
this chapter, do you think you will have a higher appreciation for the activities of
your body, your mind, and your emotions? If you hold to trichotomy, how can you
guard against some of the dangers mentioned in this chapter?
3. When you are praying or singing praise to God, is it enough simply to sing or speak
words, without being aware of what you are saying? Is it enough to be aware of what
you are saying without really meaning it? If you really mean the words with your
whole being, then what aspects of your person would be involved in genuine prayer
and worship? Do you think you tend to neglect one or another aspect at times?
4. Since Scripture encourages us to grow in holiness in our bodies as well as our spir-
its (2 Cor. 7:1), what specifically would it meanforyou to be more obedient to that
command?
SPECIAL TERMS
creationism spirit
dichotomy traducianism
monism trichotomy
soul
BIBLIOGRAPHY
CHAPTER 23 • THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF MAN
487
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter 1,
pp. 38-39. Complete bibliographical data maybe found on pp. 1224-30.)
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1882-92 Litton, 113-16, 122-25
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1875- 76
Pope, 1:435-36
1892 -94
Miley, 1:397 -403
1940
Wiley, 2:15-19
1960
Purkiser, 215-20
3. Baptist
1887
Boyce, 194-212
1907
Strong, 483 -513
1917
Mullins, 256- 57, 262- 64
1983-85
Erickson, 519—40
4. Dispensational
1947
Chafer, 2:144-99
1949
Thiessen, 158-67
1986
Ryrie, 193-200
5. Lutheran
1917-24
Pieper, 1:94, 476-77
1934
Mueller, 58, 184
6. Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1871-73
Hodge, 2:42-77, 78-91
1878
Dabney, 317-21
1937-66
Murray, CW, 2:23-33
1938
Berkhof, 191-201
1962
Buswell, 1:237-52
7. Renewal (or charismatic/Pentecostal)
1988-92 Williams, 1:208-14
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
1. Roman Catholic: Traditional
1955 Ott, 96- 101
2. Roman Catholic: Post-Vatican II
1980 McBrien (no explicit treatment)
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
Other Works
Note: Several of the books listed in the bibliography for chapter 21, on the creation
of man in the image of God, also have sections on the essential nature of man and the
origin of the soul.
Colwell, J. E. “Anthropology” In NDT, pp. 28-30.
Cooper, John W. Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting: Biblical Anthropology and the Monism-
Dualism Debate. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989.
Delitzsch, F. A System of Biblical Psychology. Trans, by R. E. Wallis. 2d ed. Grand Rapids:
Baker, 1966.
Gundry, Robert H. Soma in Biblical Theology With Emphasis on Pauline Anthropology.
Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1987.
Heard, J. B. The Tripartite Nature of Man. 5th ed. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1882.
Hoekema, Anthony A. “The Whole Person.” In Created in God's Image. Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, and Exeter: Paternoster, 1986, pp. 203-26.
Ladd, George Eldon. “The Pauline Psychology.” In A Theology of the New Testament. Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974, pp. 457-78.
Laidlaw, John. The Bible Doctrine of Man. 2d ed. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1905.
McDonald, H. D. “Man, Doctrine of.” In EDT, pp. 676-80.
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
2 Corinthians 7:1: Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every
defilement of body and spirit, and make holiness perfect in the fear of God.
HYMN
“Be Still, My Soul”
Be still, my soul: the Lord is on thy side;
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain;
Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In ev’ry change he faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul: thy best, thy heav’nly friend
Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.
Be still, my soul: thy God doth undertake
To guide the future as he has the past.
Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake;
All now mysterious shall be bright at last.
Be still, my soul: the waves and winds still know
His voice who ruled them while he dwelt below.
CHAPTER 23 • THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF MAN
489
Be still, my soul: when dearest friends depart,
And all is darkened in the vale of tears,
Then shalt thou better know his love, his heart,
Who comes to soothe thy sorrow and thy fears.
Be still, my soul: thy Jesus can repay
From his own fullness all he takes away.
Be still, my soul: the hour is hast’ning on
When we shall be forever with the Lord,
When disappointment, grief, and fear are gone,
Sorrow forgot, love’s purest joys restored.
Be still, my soul: when change and tears are past.
All safe and blessed we shall meet at last.
AUTHOR: KATHARINA VON SCHLEGEL, BORN 1697
Chapter
SIN
What is sin ? Where did it come from?
Do we inherit a sinful nature from Adam?
Do we inherit guilt from Adam?
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
A. The Definition of Sin
The history of the human race as presented in Scripture is primarily a history of man
in a state of sin and rebellion against God and of God’s plan of redemption to bring man
back to himself. Therefore, it is appropriate now to consider the nature of the sin that
separates man from God.
We may define sin as follows: Sin is any failure to conform to the moral law of God
in act, attitude, or nature. Sin is here defined in relation to God and his moral law. Sin
includes not only individual acts such as stealing or lying or committing murder, but also
attitudes that are contrary to the attitudes God requires of us. We see this already in the
Ten Commandments, which not only prohibit sinful actions but also wrong attitudes:
“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife,
or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your
neighbor” (Ex. 20:17 NIV). Here God specifies that a desire to steal or to commit adultery
is also sin in his sight. The Sermon on the Mount also prohibits sinful attitudes such as
anger (Matt. 5:22) or lust (Matt. 5:28). Paul lists attitudes such as jealousy, anger, and
selfishness (Gal. 5:20) as things that are works of the flesh opposed to the desires of the
Spirit (Gal. 5:20). Therefore a life that is pleasing to God is one that has moral purity not
only in its actions, but also in its desires of heart. In fact, the greatest commandment of
all requires that our heart be filled with an attitude of love for God: “You shall love the
Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and
with all your strength” (Mark 12:30).
The definition of sin given above specifies that sin is a failure to conform to God’s
moral law not only in action and in attitude, but also in our moral nature. Our very
490
CHAPTER 24 ■ SIN
nature, the internal character that is the essence of who we are as persons, can also be
sinful. Before we were redeemed by Christ, not only did we do sinful acts and have sinful
attitudes, we were also sinners by nature. So Paul can say that “while we were yet sinners
Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8), or that previously “we were by nature children of wrath,
like the rest of mankind” (Eph. 2:3). Even while asleep, an unbeliever, though not com-
mitting sinful actions or actively nurturing sinful attitudes, is still a “sinner” in God’s
sight; he or she still has a sinful nature that does not conform to God’s moral law.
Other definitions of the essential character of sin have been suggested. Probably the
most common definition is to say that the essence of sin is selfishness. 1 However, such
a definition is unsatisfactory because (1) Scripture itself does not define sin this way.
(2) Much self-interest is good and approved by Scripture, as when Jesus commands us
to “lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven” (Matt. 6:20), or when we seek to grow
in sanctification and Christian maturity (1 Thess. 4:3), or even when we come to God
through Christ for salvation. God certainly appeals to the self-interest of sinful people
when he says, “Turn back, turn back from your evil ways; for why will you die, O house
of Israel? (Ezek. 33:11). To define the essential character of sin as selfishness will lead
many people to think that they should abandon all desire for their own personal benefit,
which is certainly contrary to Scripture. 2 (3) Much sin is not selfishness in the ordinary
sense of the term— people can show selfless devotion to a false religion or to secular
and humanistic educational or political goals that are contrary to Scripture, yet these
would not be due to “selfishness” in any ordinary sense of the word. Moreover, hatred of
God, idolatry, and unbelief are not generally due to selfishness, but they are very serious
sins. (4) Such a definition could suggest that there was wrongdoing or sinfulness even
on God’s part, since God’s highest goal is to seek his own glory (Isa. 42:8; 43:7, 21; Eph.
1:12). 3 But such a conclusion is clearly wrong.
It is far better to define sin in the way Scripture does, in relationship to God’s law and
his moral character. John tells us that “sin is lawlessness” (1 John 3:4). When Paul seeks to
demonstrate the universal sinfulness of mankind, he appeals to the law of God, whether
'See, for example, A. H. Strong, Systematic Theology ,
pp. 567-73. However, Strong defines selfishness in a very spe-
cific way that is different from the ordinary sense of the term
when used to mean simply self-interest or self-interest at the
expense of other persons. Strong regards selfishness as “that
choice of self as the supreme end which constitutes the antith-
esis of supreme love to God” (p. 567) and as “a fundamental
and positive choice of preference of self instead of God, as the
object of affection and the supreme end of being” (p. 572). By
thus defining selfishness in relationship to God, and specifi-
cally as the opposite of love for God, and as the opposite of “love
for that which is most characteristic and fundamental in God,
namely, his holiness” (p. 567), Strong has actually made “self-
ishness” approximately equivalent to our definition (lack of
conformity to the moral law of God), especially in the area of
attitude (which, he explains, results in actions). When Strong
defines “selfishness” in this unusual way, his definition is not
really inconsistent with Scripture, for he is just saying that sin
is the opposite of the great commandment to love God with all
our heart. The problem with this definition, however, is that he
uses the word selfishness in a way in which it is not commonly
understood in English, and therefore his definition of sin is
frequently open to misunderstanding. Our discussion in this
section is not objecting to sin as selfishness in the unusual sense
given by Strong, but rather in the way in which the term selfish-
ness is ordinarily understood.
2 Of course, selfishness that seeks our own good at the
expense of others is wrong, and that is what is meant when
Scripture tells us to “do nothing from selfishness or empty
conceit, but with humility of mind let each of you regard one
another as more important than himself” (Phil. 2:3 NASB).
Yet the distinction between selfishness in the wrong sense and
scripturally enlightened self-interest is unclear in the minds
of many people.
3 See discussion of Gods jealousy, pp. 205-6.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
492
the written law given to the Jew (Rom. 2:17-29) or the unwritten law that operates in
the consciences of Gentiles who, by their behavior, “show that what the law requires is
written on their hearts” (Rom. 2:15). In each case their sinfulness is demonstrated by
their lack of conformity to the moral law of God.
Finally, we should note that this definition emphasizes the seriousness of sin. We real-
ize from experience that sin is harmful to our lives, that it brings pain and destructive
consequences to us and to others affected by it. But to define sin as failure to conform to
the moral law of God, is to say that sin is more than simply painful and destructive — it
is also wrong in the deepest sense of the word. In a universe created by God, sin ought
not to be approved. Sin is directly opposite to all that is good in the character of God,
and just as God necessarily and eternally delights in himself and in all that he is, so God
necessarily and eternally hates sin. It is, in essence, the contradiction of the excellence
of his moral character. It contradicts his holiness, and he must hate it.
B. The Origin of Sin
Where did sin come from? How did it come into the universe? First, we must clearly
affirm that God himself did not sin, and God is not to be blamed for sin. It was man
who sinned, and it was angels who sinned, and in both cases they did so by will-
ful, voluntary choice. To blame God for sin would be blasphemy against the char-
acter of God. “His work is perfect; for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness
and without iniquity, just and right is he” (Deut. 32:4). Abraham asks with truth and
force in his words, “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (Gen. 18:25). And
Elihu rightly says, “Far be it from God that he should do wickedness, and from the
Almighty that he should do wrong” (Job 34:10). In fact, it is impossible for God even to
desire to do wrong: “God cannot be tempted with evil and he himself tempts no one”
(James 1:13).
Yet, on the other hand, we must guard against an opposite error: it would be wrong
for us to say there is an eternally existing evil power in the universe similar to or equal
to God himself in power. To say this would be to affirm what is called an ultimate “dual-
ism” in the universe, the existence of two equally ultimate powers, one good and the
other evil. 4 Also, we must never think that sin surprised God or challenged or overcame
his omnipotence or his providential control over the universe. Therefore, even though
we must never say that God himself sinned or he is to be blamed for sin, yet we must also
affirm that the God who “accomplishes all things according to the counsel of his will”
(Eph. 1:11), the God who “does according to his will in the host of heaven and among
the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, ‘What are you
doing?’ ” (Dan. 4:35) did ordain that sin would come into the world, even though he
does not delight in it and even though he ordained that it would come about through
the voluntary choices of moral creatures. 5
4 See discussion of dualism in chapter 15, pp. 269-70. hates him that loves violence” (Ps. 1 1:5), so that God certainly
5 See chapter 16, pp. 322-30, for further discussion of does not take pleasure in sin; nonetheless, for his own pur-
God’s providence in relationship to evil. God is “not a God poses, and in a way that still remains largely a mystery to us,
who delights in wickedness” (Ps. 5:4) but one whose “soul God ordained that sin would come into the world.
CHAPTER 24 • SIN
Even before the disobedience of Adam and Eve, sin was present in the angelic world
with the fall of Satan and demons. 6 But with respect to the human race, the first sin was
that of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (Gen. 3:1-19). Their eating of the fruit of
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is in many ways typical of sin generally. First,
their sin struck at the basis for knowledge, for it gave a different answer to the question,
What is true? Whereas God had said that Adam and Eve would die if they ate from the
tree (Gen. 2:17), the serpent said, “You will not die” (Gen. 3:4). Eve decided to doubt the
veracity of God’s word and conduct an experiment to see whether God spoke truthfully.
Second, their sin struck at the basis for moral standards, for it gave a different answer to
the question “What is right?” God had said that it was morally right for Adam and Eve not
to eat from the fruit of that one tree (Gen. 2:17). But the serpent suggested that it would
be right to eat of the fruit, and that in eating it Adam and Eve would become “like God”
(Gen. 3:5). Eve trusted her own evaluation of what was right and what would be good for
her, rather than allowing God’s words to define right and wrong. She “saw that the tree
was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired
to make one wise,” and therefore she “took of its fruit and ate” (Gen. 3:6).
Third, their sin gave a different answer to the question, “Who am I?” The correct answer
was that Adam and Eve were creatures of God, dependent on him and always to be subordi-
nate to him as their Creator and Lord. But Eve, and then Adam, succumbed to the tempta-
tion to “be like God” (Gen. 3:5), thus attempting to put themselves in the place of God.
It is important to insist on the historical truthfulness of the narrative of the fall of Adam
and Eve. Just as the account of the creation of Adam and Eve is tied in with the rest of the
historical narrative in the book of Genesis, 7 so also this account of the fall of man, which
follows the history of man’s creation, is presented by the author as straightforward, narra-
tive history. Moreover, the New Testament authors look back on this account and affirm
that sin came into the world through one man” (Rom. 5:12) and insist that “the judgment
following one trespass brought condemnation” (Rom. 5:16) and that “the serpent deceived
Eve by his cunning” (2 Cor. 11:3; cf. 1 Tim. 2:14). The serpent was no doubt, a real, physical
serpent, but one that was talking because of the empowerment of Satan speaking through
it (cf. Gen. 3:15 with Rom. 16:20; also Num. 22:28-30; Rev. 12:9; 20:2).
Finally, we should note that all sin is ultimately irrational. It really did not make sense
for Satan to rebel against God in the expectation of being able to exalt himself above God.
Nor did it make sense for Adam and Eve to think that there could be any gain in disobey-
ing the words of their Creator. These were foolish choices. The persistence of Satan in
rebelling against God even today is still a foolish choice, as is the decision on the part of
any human being to continue in a state of rebellion against God. It is not the wise man
but “the fool” who “says in his heart, ‘There is no God’ ” (Ps. 14:1). It is the “fool” in the
book of Proverbs who recklessly indulges in all kinds of sins (see Prov. 10:23; 12:15; 14:7,
16; 15:5; 18:2, et al.). Though people sometimes persuade themselves that they have good
reasons for sinning, when examined in the cold light of truth on the last day, it will be
seen in every case that sin ultimately just does not make sense.
6 See discussion of the sin of angels in chapter 20, esp. 7 See also chapter 15, p. 278, on the need to insist on the
pp. 412-14. historicity of Adam and Eve as specific persons.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
C. The Doctrine of Inherited Sin 8
How does the sin of Adam affect us? Scripture teaches that we inherit sin from Adam
in two ways.
1. Inherited Guilt: We Are Counted Guilty Because of Adam’s Sin. Paul explains the
effects of Adam’s sin in the following way: “Therefore ... sin came into the world through
one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned”
(Rom. 5:12). The context shows that Paul is not talking about actual sins that people
commit every day of their lives, for the entire paragraph (Rom. 5:12-21) is taken up
with the comparison between Adam and Christ. And when Paul says, “so [Gk. houtos,
“thus, in this way”; that is, through Adam’s sin] death spread to all men because all men
sinned,” he is saying that through the sin of Adam “all men sinned.” 9
This idea, that “all men sinned” means that God thought of us all as having sinned
when Adam disobeyed, is further indicated by the next two verses, where Paul says:
Sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted
where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those
whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one
who was to come. (Rom. 5:13-14)
Here Paul points out that from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, people did not
have God’s written laws. Though their sins were “not counted” (as infractions of the law),
they still died. The fact that they died is very good proof that God counted people guilty
on the basis of Adam’s sin.
The idea that God counted us guilty because of Adam’s sin is further affirmed in
Romans 5:18-19:
Then as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man’s act of
righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men. For as by one man's disobe-
dience many were made sinners, so by one man’s obedience many will be made
righteous.
Here Paul says explicitly that through the trespass of one man “many were made [Gk.
katestathesan, also an aorist indicative indicating completed past action] sinners.” When
Adam sinned, God thought of all who would descend from Adam as sinners. Though we
8 I have used the phrase “inherited sin” rather than the more
common designation “original sin” because the phrase “original
sin” seems so easily to be misunderstood to refer to Adam’s first
sin, rather than to the sin that is ours as a result of Adam’s fall
(traditionally the technical meaning). The phrase “inherited
sin” is much more immediately understandable and less subject
to misunderstanding. Some may object that, technically speak-
ing, we do not “inherit” guilt because it is directly imputed to us
by God and does not come to us through inheritance from our
parents as does the tendency toward sinful actions (traditionally
called “original pollution,” and here termed “inherited corrup-
tion”). But the fact that our legal guilt is inherited directly from
Adam and not through a line of ancestors does not make it any
less inherited: the guilt is ours because it belonged to our first
father, Adam, and we inherit it from him.
9 The aorist indicative verb hemarton in the historical nar-
rative indicates a completed past action. Here Paul is saying
that something happened and was completed in the past,
namely, that “all men sinned.” But it was not true that all men
had actually committed sinful actions at the time that Paul
was writing, because some had not even been born yet, and
many others had died in infancy before committing any con-
scious acts of sin. So Paul must be meaning that when Adam
sinned, God considered it true that all men sinned in Adam.
CHAPTER24 • SIN
did not yet exist, God, looking into the future and knowing that we would exist, began
thinking of us as those who were guilty like Adam. This is also consistent with Paul’s
statement that “while we were yet sinners Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). Of course, some
of us did not even exist when Christ died. But God nevertheless regarded us as sinners
in need of salvation.
The conclusion to be drawn from these verses is that all members of the human race
were represented by Adam in the time of testing in the Garden of Eden. As our repre-
sentative, Adam sinned, and God counted us guilty as well as Adam. (A technical term
that is sometimes used in this connection is impute, meaning “to think of as belonging
to someone, and therefore to cause it to belong to that person.”) God counted Adam’s
guilt as belonging to us, and since God is the ultimate judge of all things in the universe,
and since his thoughts are always true, Adam’s guilt does in fact belong to us. God rightly
imputed Adam’s guilt to us.
Sometimes the doctrine of inherited sin from Adam is termed the doctrine of “original
sin.” As explained above, 10 1 have not used this expression. If this term is used, it should
be remembered that the sin spoken of does not refer to Adam’s first sin, but to the guilt
and tendency to sin with which we are born. It is “original” in that it comes from Adam,
and it is also original in that we have it from the beginning of our existence as persons,
but it is still our sin, not Adam’s sin, that is meant. Parallel to the phrase “original sin” is
the phrase original guilt. This is that aspect of inherited sin from Adam that we have
been discussing above, namely, the idea that we inherit the guilt from Adam.
When we first confront the idea that we have been counted guilty because of Adam’s
sin, our tendency is to protest because it seems unfair. We did not actually decide to sin,
did we? Then how can we be counted guilty? Is it just for God to act this way?
In response, three things may be said: (1) Everyone who protests that this is unfair has
also voluntarily committed many actual sins for which God also holds us guilty. These
will constitute the primary basis of our judgment on the last day, for God “will render
to every man according to his works” (Rom. 2:6), and “the wrongdoer will be paid back
for the wrong he has done (Col. 3:25). (2) Moreover, some have argued, “If any one of us
were in Adam’s place, we also would have sinned as he did, and our subsequent rebellion
against God demonstrates that. I think this is probably true, but it does not seem to be
a conclusive argument, for it assumes too much about what would or would not happen.
Such uncertainty may not help very much to lessen someone’s sense of unfairness.
(3) The most persuasive answer to the objection is to point out that if we think it is
unfair for us to be represented by Adam, then we should also think it is unfair for us to be
represented by Christ and to have his righteousness imputed to us by God. For the proce-
dure that God used was just the same, and that is exactly Paul’s point in Romans 5:12-21:
“As by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man’s obedience
many will be made righteous (Rom. 5:19). Adam, our first representative sinned — and
God counted us guilty. But Christ, the representative of all who believe in him, obeyed
God perfectly— and God counted us righteous. That is simply the way in which God set
up the human race to work. God regards the human race as an organic whole, a unity,
10 See note 8, above.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
496
represented by Adam as its head. And God also thinks of the new race of Christians,
those who are redeemed by Christ, as an organic whole, a unity represented by Christ as
head of his people.
Not all evangelical theologians, however, agree that we are counted guilty because of
Adam’s sin. Some, especially Arminian theologians, think this to be unfair of God and
do not believe that it is taught in Romans 5. 11 However, evangelicals of all persuasions
do agree that we receive a sinful disposition or a tendency to sin as an inheritance from
Adam, a subject we shall now consider.
2. Inherited Corruption: We Have a Sinful Nature Because of Adam’s Sin. In addi-
tion to the legal guilt that God imputes to us because of Adam’s sin, we also inherit a
sinful nature because of Adam’s sin. This inherited sinful nature is sometimes simply
called “original sin” and sometimes more precisely called “original pollution.” I have
used instead the term “inherited corruption” because it seems to express more clearly
the specific idea in view.
David says, “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother con-
ceive me” (Ps. 51:5). Some have mistakenly thought that the sin of David’s mother is
in view here, but this is incorrect, for the entire context has nothing to do with David’s
mother. David is confessing his own personal sin throughout this section. He says:
Have mercy on me, O God
. . . blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity
... I know my transgressions.
. . . Against you . . . have I sinned. (Ps. 51:1-4)
David is so overwhelmed with the consciousness of his own sin that as he looks back on
his life he realizes that he was sinful from the beginning. As far back as he can think of
himself, he realizes that he has had a sinful nature. In fact, when he was born or “brought
forth” from his mother’s womb, he was “brought forth in iniquity” (Ps. 51:5). Moreover,
even before he was born, he had a sinful disposition: he affirms that at the moment of
conception he had a sinful nature, for “in sin did my mother conceive me” (Ps. 51:5). Here
is a strong statement of the inherent tendency to sin that attaches to our lives from the
very beginning. A similar idea is affirmed in Psalm 58:3, “The wicked go astray from the
womb, they err from their birth, speaking lies.”
Therefore, our nature includes a disposition to sin so that Paul can affirm that before
we were Christians “we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” (Eph.
2:3). Anyone who has raised children can give experiential testimony to the fact that we
are all born with a tendency to sin. Children do not have to be taught how to do wrong;
they discover that by themselves. What we have to do as parents is to teach them how to
do right, to “bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4).
n See, for example, the thorough discussion in H. Orton
Wiley, Christian Theology , 3 vols. (Kansas City, Mo.: Beacon
Hill Press, 1941-49), 3:109-40.
CHAPTER 24 • SIN
This inherited tendency to sin does not mean that human beings are all as bad as they
could be. The constraints of civil law, the expectations of family and society, and the
conviction of human conscience (Rom. 2:14-15) all provide restraining influences on
the sinful tendencies in our hearts. Therefore, by God’s “common grace” (that is, by his
undeserved favor that is given to all human beings), people have been able to do much
good in the areas of education, the development of civilization, scientific and techno-
logical progress, the development of beauty and skill in the arts, the development of just
laws, and general acts of human benevolence and kindness to others. 12 In fact, the more
Christian influence there is in a society in general, the more clearly the influence of
“common grace” will be seen in the lives of unbelievers as well. But in spite of the ability
to do good in many senses of that word, our inherited corruption, our tendency to sin,
which we received from Adam, means that as far as God is concerned we are not able to
do anything that pleases him. This maybe seen in two ways:
a. In Our Natures We Totally Lack Spiritual Good Before God: It is not just that some
parts of us are sinful and others are pure. Rather, every part of our being is affected by
sin our intellects, our emotions and desires, our hearts (the center of our desires and
decision-making processes), our goals and motives, and even our physical bodies. Paul
says, “I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh” (Rom. 7:18), and,
“to the corrupt and unbelieving nothing is pure; their very minds and consciences are
corrupted” (Titus 1:15). Moreover, Jeremiah tells us that “the heart is deceitful above all
things, and desperately corrupt; who can understand it?” (Jer. 17:9). In these passages
Scripture is not denying that unbelievers can do good in human society in some senses.
But it is denying that they can do any spiritual good or be good in terms of a relationship
with God. Apart from the work of Christ in our lives, we are like all other unbelievers
who are “darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the
ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart” (Eph. 4:18). 13
b. In Our Actions We Are Totally Unable to Do Spiritual Good Before God: This idea is
related to the previous one. Not only do we as sinners lack any spiritual good in ourselves,
but we also lack the ability to do anything that will in itself please God and the ability
to come to God in our own strength. Paul says that “those who are in the flesh cannot
please God” (Rom. 8:8). Moreover, in terms of bearing fruit for God’s kingdom and doing
what pleases him, Jesus says, “Apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). In fact,
unbelievers are not pleasing to God, if for no other reason, simply because their actions
do not proceed from faith in God or from love to him, and “without faith it is impossible
to please him” (Heb. 11:6). When Paul’s readers were unbelievers, he tells them, “You
were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once walked” (Eph. 2:1-2).
Unbelievers are in a state of bondage or enslavement to sin, because “every one who com-
mits sin is a slave to sin” (John 8:34). Though from a human standpoint people might
12 See chapter 31, pp. 657—58, on common grace. misunderstanding. It can give the impression that no good in
13 This total lack of spiritual good and inability to do good any sense can be done by unbelievers, a meaning that is cer-
before God has traditionally been called total depravity,” but tainly not intended by that term or by this doctrine.
I will not use the phrase here because it is easily subject to
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
498
be able to do much good, Isaiah affirms that “all our righteous deeds are like a polluted
garment” (Isa. 64:6; cf. Rom. 3:9-20). Unbelievers are not even able to understand the
things of God correctly, for the “natural man does not receive the gifts [lit. ‘things’] of
the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because
they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14 RSV mg.). Nor can we come to God in our
own power, for Jesus says, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws
him” (John 6:44).
But if we have a total inability to do any spiritual good in God’s sight, then do we still
have any freedom of choice? Certainly, those who are outside of Christ do still make vol-
untary choices — that is, they decide what they want to do, then they do it. In this sense
there is still a kind of “freedom” in the choices that people make. 14 Yet because of their
inability to do good and to escape from their fundamental rebellion against God and their
fundamental preference for sin, unbelievers do not have freedom in the most important
sense of freedom — that is, the freedom to do right, and to do what is pleasing to God.
The application to our lives is quite evident: if God gives anyone a desire to repent and
trust in Christ, he or she should not delay and should not harden his or her heart (cf. Heb.
3:7-8; 12:17). This ability to repent and desire to trust in God is not naturally ours but is
given by the prompting of the Holy Spirit, and it will not last forever. “Today, when you
hear his voice, do not harden your hearts” (Heb. 3:15).
D. Actual Sins in Our Lives
1. All People Are Sinful Before God. Scripture in many places testifies to the universal
sinfulness of mankind. “They have all gone astray, they are all alike corrupt; there is none
that does good, no, not one” (Ps. 14:3). David says, “No man living is righteous before
you” (Ps. 143:2). And Solomon says, “There is no man who does not sin” (1 Kings 8:46;
cf. Prov. 20:9).
In the New Testament, Paul has an extensive argument in Romans 1:18-3:20 show-
ing that all people, both Jews and Greeks, stand guilty before God. He says, “All men,
both Jews and Greeks, are under the power of sin, as it is written: ‘None is righteous, no,
not one’ ” (Rom. 3:9-10). He is certain that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory
of God” (Rom. 3:23). James, the Lord’s brother, admits, “We all make many mistakes”
(James 3:2), and if he, as a leader and an apostle 15 in the early church, could admit that
he made many mistakes, then we also should be willing to admit that of ourselves. John,
the beloved disciple, who was especially close to Jesus, said:
If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we
confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us
from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and
his word is not in us. (1 John 1:8- 10) 16
14 See discussion of the question of free will in chapter 16, 16 Some popular explanations of this passage deny that v.
pp. 330-31. 8 applies to all Christians. This position is taken in order to
15 See the note in chapter 3, p. 62, on whether James the say that some Christians can be perfectly free from sin in this
Lord’s brother was an apostle. life, if they reach the state of perfect sanctification. According
CHAPTER24 • SIN
2. Does Our Ability Limit Our Responsibility? Pelagius, a popular Christian teacher
active in Rome about A.D. 383-410 and then later (until A.D. 424) in Palestine, taught
that God holds man responsible only for those things that man is able to do. Since God
warns us to do good, therefore, we must have the ability to do the good that God com-
mands. The Pelagian position rejects the doctrine of “inherited sin” (or “original sin”)
and maintains that sin consists only in separate sinful acts. 17
However, the idea that we are responsible before God only for what we are able to do
is contrary to the testimony of Scripture, which affirms both that we “were dead through
the trespasses and sins” in which we once walked (Eph. 2:1), and thus unable to do any
spiritual good, and also that we are all guilty before God. Moreover, if our responsibility
before God were limited by our ability, then extremely hardened sinners, who are in great
bondage to sin, could be less guilty before God than mature Christians who were striving
daily to obey him. And Satan himself, who is eternally able to do only evil, would have
no guilt at all — surely an incorrect conclusion.
The true measure of our responsibility and guilt is not our own ability to obey God,
but rather the absolute perfection of God’s moral law and his own holiness (which is
reflected in that law) . “You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect”
(Matt. 5:48).
3. Are Infants Guilty Before They Commit Actual Sins? Some maintain that Scripture
teaches an age of accountability” before which young children are not held responsible
for sin and are not counted guilty before God. 18 However, the passages noted above in
Section C about inherited sin” indicate that even before birth children have a guilty
standing before God and a sinful nature that not only gives them a tendency to sin but
also causes God to view them as “sinners.” “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and
in sin did my mother conceive me” (Ps. 51:5). The passages that speak of final judg-
ment in terms of actual sinful deeds that have been done (e.g., Rom. 2:6-11) do not
say anything about the basis of judgment when there have been no individual actions
of right or wrong, as with children dying in early infancy. In such cases we must accept
to this view, v. 8 (“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves,
and the truth is not in us”) applies to Christians before they
reach the stage of sinless perfection. The next sentence, talking
about our confession and God’s cleansing us from “all unrigh-
teousness,” includes the process of dealing with that past sin and
having it forgiven. Then the last sentence (v. 10) does include
those who have obtained the state of sinless perfection — they
do not any longer need to say that they have sin in the present in
their lives, but simply have to admit that they had sinned in the
past. For them it is true, “If we say we have not sinned, we make
him a liar” (1 John 1:10).
But this explanation is not persuasive, because John writes
the first sentence (v. 8) in the present tense, and it is something
that is true of all Christians at all times. John does not write,
“If we say while we are still immature Christians that we have
no sin, we deceive ourselves.” Nor does he say (as this view
would hold), “If we say, before we have reached the state of
sinless perfection, that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves.”
Rather, near the end of his life, writing a general letter to all
Christians, including those who have grown in maturity in
Christ for decades, John says in no uncertain terms something
that he expects to be true of all Christians to whom he writes:
“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth
is not in us.” This is a clear statement that applies to all Chris-
tians as long as they are in this life. If we say that it does not
apply, “we deceive ourselves.”
17 Pelagianism was more fundamentally concerned with the
question of salvation, holding that man can take the first and
the most important steps toward salvation on his own, apart
from God’s intervening grace. Pelagianism was condemned as
a heresy at the Council of Carthage on May 1, A.D. 418.
18 This is the position of Millard Erickson, for example, in
Christian Theology, p. 639. He uses the term “age of responsi-
bility” rather than “age of accountability.”
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
500
the Scriptures that talk about ourselves as having a sinful nature from before the time of
birth. Furthermore, we must realize that a child’s sinful nature manifests itself very early,
certainly within the first two years of a child’s life, as anyone who has raised children
can affirm. (David says, in another place, “The wicked go astray from the womb , they err
from their birth Ps. 58:3.)
But then what do we say about infants who die before they are old enough to
understand and believe the gospel? Can they be saved?
Here we must say that if such infants are saved, it cannot be on their own merits,
or on the basis of their own righteousness or innocence, but it must be entirely on the
basis of Christ’s redemptive work and regeneration by the work of the Holy Spirit within
them. “There is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man
Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5). “Unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God”
(John 3:3).
Yet it certainly is possible for God to bring regeneration (that is, new spiritual life) to
an infant even before he or she is born. This was true of John the Baptist, for the angel
Gabriel, before John was born, said, “He will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his
mothers womb ” (Luke 1:15). We might say that John the Baptist was “born again” before
he was born! There is a similar example in Psalm 22:10: David says, “Since my mother
bore me you have been my God.” It is clear, therefore, that God is able to save infants
in an unusual way, apart from their hearing and understanding the gospel, by bringing
regeneration to them very early, sometimes even before birth. This regeneration is prob-
ably also followed at once by a nascent, intuitive awareness of God and trust in him at an
extremely early age, but this is something we simply cannot understand. 19
We must, however, affirm very clearly that this is not the usual way for God to save
people. Salvation usually occurs when someone hears and understands the gospel and
then places trust in Christ. But in unusual cases like John the Baptist, God brought
salvation before this understanding. And this leads us to conclude that it certainly is
possible that God would also do this where he knows the infant will die before hearing
the gospel.
How many infants does God save in this way? Scripture does not tell us, so we simply
cannot know. Where Scripture is silent, it is unwise for us to make definitive pronounce-
ments. However, we should recognize that it is God’s frequent pattern throughout Scrip-
ture to save the children of those who believe in him (see Gen. 7:1; cf. Heb. 11:7; Josh.
2:18; Ps. 103:17; John 4:53; Acts 2:39; 11:14(?); 16:31; 18:8; 1 Cor. 1:16; 7:14; Titus 1:6; cf.
Matt. 18:10, 14). These passages do not show that God automatically saves the children
of all believers (for we all know of children of godly parents who have grown up and
rejected the Lord, and Scripture also gives such examples as Esau and Absalom), but they
do indicate that God’s ordinary pattern, the “normal” or expected way in which he acts,
is to bring the children of believers to himself. With regard to believers’ children who die
very young, we have no reason to think that it would be otherwise.
19 However, we all know that infants almost from the Thus we should not insist that it is impossible that they would
moment of birth show an instinctive trust in their mothers and also have an intuitive awareness of God, and if God gives it, an
awareness of themselves as persons distinct from their mothers. intuitive ability to trust in God as well.
CHAPTER 24 ■ SIN
Particularly relevant here is the case of the first child Bathsheba bore to King David.
When the infant child had died, David said, “7 shall go to him , but he will not return to
me” (2 Sam. 12:23). David, who through his life had such great confidence that he would
live forever in the Lord’s presence (see Ps. 23:6, and many of David’s psalms), also had
confidence that he would see his infant son again when he died. This can only imply that
he would be with his son in the presence of the Lord forever. 20 This passage, together
with the others mentioned above, should be of similar assurance to all believers who
have lost children in their infancy, that they will one day see them again in the glory of
the heavenly kingdom.
Regarding the children of unbelievers who die at a very early age Scripture is silent.
We simply must leave that matter in the hands of God and trust him to be both just and
merciful. If they are saved, it will not be on the basis of any merit of their own or any
innocence that we might presume that they have. If they are saved, it will be on the basis
of Christ’s redeeming work; and their regeneration, like that of John the Baptist before
he was born, will be by God’s mercy and grace. Salvation is always because of his mercy,
not because of our merits (see Rom. 9:14-18). Scripture does not allow us to say more
than that.
4. Are There Degrees of Sin? Are some sins worse than others? The question may be
answered either yes or no, depending on the sense in which it is intended.
a. Legal Guilt: In terms of our legal standing before God, any one sin, even what may
seem to be a very small one, makes us legally guilty before God and therefore worthy of
eternal punishment. Adam and Eve learned this in the Garden of Eden, where God told
them that one act of disobedience would result in the penalty of death (Gen. 2:17). And
Paul affirms that “the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation” (Rom.
5:16). This one sin made Adam and Eve sinners before God, no longer able to stand in
his holy presence.
This truth remains valid through the history of the human race. Paul (quoting Deut.
27:26) affirms it: “Cursed be every one who does not abide by all things written in the
book of the law, and do them” (Gal. 3:10). And James declares:
Whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of
it. For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” said also, “Do not kill.” If you
do not commit adultery but do kill, you have become a transgressor of the law.
(James 2:10— ll) 21
20 Someone might object that David is only saying that he
would go to the state of death just as his son had. But this inter-
pretation does not fit the language of the verse: David does not
say, “I shall go where he is” but rather, “I shall go to him” This
is the language of personal reunion, and it indicates David’s
expectation that he would one day see and be with his son.
21 We may understand this principle more clearly when we
realize that the various moral laws of God are simply different
aspects of his perfect moral character, to which he expects us
to conform. To violate any one part of it is to become unlike
him. For example, if I were to steal, I would not only break
the commandment against stealing (Commandment 8), but
I would also dishonor God’s name (Commandment 3; see
Prov. 30:9), dishonor my parents and their good name (Com-
mandment 5), covet something that does not belong to me
(Commandment 10), put some material possession ahead of
God himself (Commandment 1; see Eph. 5:5), and carry out
an action that harms another human being and damages his
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
502
Therefore, in terms of legal guilt, all sins are equally bad because they make us legally
guilty before God and constitute us as sinners.
b. Results in Life and in Relationship With God: On the other hand, some sins are worse
than others in that they have more harmful consequences in our lives and in the lives
of others, and, in terms of our personal relationship to God as Father, they arouse his
displeasure more and bring more serious disruption to our fellowship with him.
Scripture sometimes speaks of degrees of seriousness of sin. When Jesus stood before
Pontius Pilate, he said, “he who delivered me to you has the greater sin” (John 19:11).
The reference is apparently to Judas, who had known Jesus intimately for three years and
yet willfully betrayed him to death. Though Pilate had authority over Jesus by virtue of
his governmental office and was wrong to allow an innocent man to be condemned to
death, the sin of Judas was far “greater,” probably because of the far greater knowledge
and malice connected with it.
When God showed Ezekiel visions of sins in the temple of Jerusalem, he first showed
Ezekiel certain things, then said, “But you will see still greater abominations” (Ezek. 8:6).
Next he showed Ezekiel the secret sins of some of the elders of Israel and said, “You will see
still greater abominations which they commit” (Ezek. 8:13). Then the Lord showed Ezekiel
a picture of women weeping for a Babylonian deity and said, “Have you seen this, O son of
man? You will see still greater abominations than these” (Ezek. 8:15). Finally, he showed
Ezekiel twenty-five men in the temple, with their backs to the Lord and worshiping the
sun instead. Here clearly we have degrees of increasing sin and hatefulness before God.
In the Sermon of the Mount, when Jesus says, “Whoever then relaxes one of the least of
these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven”
(Matt. 5:19), he implies that there are lesser and greater commandments. Similarly,
though he agrees that it is appropriate to give a tithe even on the household spices that
people use, he pronounces woes on the Pharisees for neglecting “ the weightier matters
of the law, justice and mercy and faith” (Matt. 23:23). In both cases Jesus distinguishes
between lesser and greater commandments, thus implying that some sins are worse than
other sins in terms of God’s own evaluation of their importance.
In general, we may say that some sins have more harmful consequences than others if
they bring more dishonor to God or if they cause more harm to ourselves, to others, or
to the church. Moreover, those sins that are done willfully, repeatedly, and knowingly,
with a calloused heart, are more displeasing to God than those that are done out of
ignorance and are not repeated, or are done with a mixture of good and impure motives
and are followed by remorse and repentance. Thus the laws that God gave to Moses in
Leviticus make provisions for cases where people sin “unwittingly” (Lev. 4:2, 13, 22).
Unintentional sin is still sin: “If any one sins, doing any of the things which the Lord has
commanded not to be done, though he does not know it, yet he is guilty and shall bear
his iniquity” (Lev. 5:17). Nonetheless, the penalties required and the degree of God’s
displeasure that results from the sin are less than in the case of intentional sin.
or her life (Commandment 6; cf. Matt. 5:22). With a little simply a reflection ofthe fact that God's laws are a unified whole
reflection, we can see how almost any sin violates some of the and reflect the moral purity and perfection of God himself in
principles embodied in each of the Ten Commandments. This is the integrated oneness of his person.
CHAPTER 24 • SIN
On the other hand, sins committed with “a high hand,” that is, with arrogance and
disdain for God’s commandments, were viewed very seriously: “But the person who does
anything with a high hand, whether he is native or a sojourner, reviles the Lord, and that
person shall be cut off from among his people” (Num. 15:30; cf. w. 27-29).
We can readily see how some sins have much more harmful consequences for our-
selves and others and for our relationship with God. If I were to covet my neighbor’s car,
that would be sin before God. But if my coveting led me to actually steal the car, that
would be more serious sin. If in the course of stealing the car I also fought with my neigh-
bor and injured him or recklessly injured someone else as I drove the car, that would be
even more serious sin.
Similarly, if a new Christian, who previously had a tendency to lose his temper and
get into fights, begins witnessing to his unbelieving friends and, one day, is so provoked
he loses his temper and actually strikes someone, that is certainly sin in God’s sight. But
if a mature pastor or other prominent Christian leader were to lose his temper publicly
and strike someone, that would be even more serious in God’s sight, both because of the
harm that would come to the reputation of the gospel and because those in leadership
positions are held to a higher standard of accountability by God: “We who teach shall be
judged with greater strictness” (James 3:1; cf. Luke 12:48). Our conclusion, then, is that
in terms of results and in terms of the degree of God’s displeasure, some sins are certainly
worse than others.
However, the distinction between degrees of seriousness of sin does not imply an
endorsement of the Roman Catholic teaching that sins can be put into the two categories
of “venial” and “mortal.” 22 In Roman Catholic teaching, a venial sin can be forgiven,
but often after punishments in this life or in Purgatory (after death, but before entrance
into heaven). A mortal sin is a sin that causes spiritual death and cannot be forgiven; it
excludes people from the kingdom of God.
According to Scripture, however, all sins are “mortal” in that even the smallest sin
makes us legally guilty before God and worthy of eternal punishment. Yet even the most
serious of sins are forgiven when one comes to Christ for salvation (note the combination
of a list of sins that exclude from the kingdom of God and the affirmation that the Cor-
inthians who had committed them have been saved by Christ in 1 Cor. 6:9-11). Thus,
in that sense, all sins are “venial.” 23 The Roman Catholic separation of sins into the cat-
egory of “mortal” and “venial,” calling some sins (such as suicide) “mortal,” while calling
others (such as dishonesty, anger, or lust) “venial” sins can very easily lead either to
carelessness with respect to some sins that greatly hinder sanctification and effectiveness
22 The distinction between mortal and venial sins may seem
to be supported by 1 John 5:16- 17: “If any one sees his brother
committing what is not a mortal sin , he will ask, and God will
give him life for those whose sin is not mortal. There is sin
which is mortal; I do not say that one is to pray for that. All
wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin which is not mortal.” The
Greek phrase here translated “mortal” is more literally “toward
death” or “unto death” (Gk. pros thanaton). In the light of John’s
concern in this epistle to combat a heresy that did not confess
Jesus as God who came in the flesh (see 1 John 4:2-3), it is likely
that this sin “unto death” is the serious heresy of denying Christ
and subsequently failing to obtain salvation through Christ. In
this case, John would simply be saying that we should not pray
that God would forgive the sin of rejecting Christ and teaching
seriously heretical doctrine about him. But the fact that John
says there is one sin that is “unto death” (rejecting Christ), does
not justify establishing a whole category of sins that cannot be
forgiven.
23 0n “the unpardonable sin,” which is the one exception
to this statement, see pp. 506-9, below.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
504
in the Lord’s work, or, with respect to other sins, to excessive fear, despair, and inability
ever to have assurance of forgiveness. And we should realize that the same exact action
(such as losing one’s temper and striking someone in the example above) can be more
or less serious, depending on the person and circumstances involved. It is much better
simply to recognize that sins can vary in terms of their results and in terms of the degree
to which they disrupt our relationship with God and incur his displeasure, and leave it at
that. Then we do not go beyond the general teaching of Scripture on this subject.
The distinction that Scripture makes in degrees of sin does have positive value. First,
it helps us to know where we should put more effort in our own attempts to grow in
personal holiness. Second, it helps us to decide when we should simply overlook a minor
fault in a friend or family member and when it would be appropriate to talk with an
individual about some evident sin (see James 5:19-20). Third, it may help us decide
when church discipline is appropriate, and it provides an answer to the objection that is
sometimes raised against exercising church discipline, in which it is said that “we are all
guilty of sin, so we have no business meddling in anyone else’s life.” Though we are all
indeed guilty of sin, nonetheless, there are some sins that so evidently harm the church
and relationships within the church that they must be dealt with directly. Fourth, this
distinction may also help us realize that there is some basis for civil governments to have
laws and penalties prohibiting certain kinds of wrongdoing (such as murder or stealing),
but not other kinds of wrongdoing (such as anger, jealousy, greed, or selfish use of one’s
possessions). It is not inconsistent to say that some kinds of wrongdoing require civil
punishment but not all kinds of wrongdoing require it.
5. What Happens When a Christian Sins?
a. Our Legal Standing Before God Is Unchanged: Though this subject could be
treated later in relation to adoption or sanctification within the Christian life, it is
quite appropriate to treat it at this point.
When a Christian sins, his or her legal standing before God is unchanged. He or she
is still forgiven, for “there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ
Jesus” (Rom. 8:1). Salvation is not based on our merits but is a free gift of God (Rom. 6:23),
and Christ’s death certainly paid for all our sins — past, present, and future — Christ died
“for our sins” (1 Cor. 15:3), without distinction. In theological terms, we still keep our
“justification.” 24
Moreover, we are still children of God and we still retain our membership in God’s fam-
ily. In the same epistle in which John says, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves,
and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8), he also reminds his readers, “Beloved, we are God’s
children now” (1 John 3:2). The fact that we have sin remaining in our lives does not mean
that we lose our status as God’s children. In theological terms, we keep our “adoption.” 25
b. Our Fellowship With God Is Disrupted and Our Christian Life Is Damaged: When
we sin, even though God does not cease to love us, he is displeased with us. (Even among
human beings, it is possible to love someone and be displeased with that person at the
24 See chapter 36, pp. 722-35, on justification.
25 See chapter 37, pp. 736-45, on adoption.
CHAPTER 24 • SIN
505
same time, as any parent will attest, or any wife, or any husband.) Paul tells us that it is
possible for Christians to “grieve the Holy Spirit of God” (Eph. 4:30); when we sin, we
cause him sorrow and he is displeased with us. The author of Hebrews reminds us that
“the Lord disciplines him whom he loves” (Heb. 12:6, quoting Prov. 3:11-12), and that
“the Father of spirits . . . disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness”
(Heb. 12:9-10). When we disobey, God the Father is grieved, much as an earthly father is
grieved with his children’s disobedience, and he disciplines us. A similar theme is found
in Revelation 3, where the risen Christ speaks from heaven to the church of Laodicea,
saying, “Those whom I love , I reprove and chasten; so be zealous and repent” (Rev. 3:19).
Here again love and reproof of sin are connected in the same statement. Thus, the New
Testament attests to the displeasure of all three members of the Trinity when Christians
sin. (See also Isa. 59:1-2; 1 John 3:21.)
The Westminster Confession of Faith wisely says, concerning Christians,
Although they never can fall from the state of justification, yet they may, by
their sins, fall under God’s fatherly displeasure , and not have the light of His
countenance restored unto them, until they humble themselves, confess their
sins, beg pardon, and renew their faith and repentance, (chap. 11, sec. 5)
Hebrews 12, together with many historical examples in Scripture, shows that God’s
fatherly displeasure often leads to discipline in our Christian lives: “He disciplines us
for our good, that we may share his holiness” (Heb. 12:10). Regarding the need for
regular confession and repentance of sin, Jesus reminds us that we are to pray each day,
“Forgive us our sins, as we also have forgiven those who sin against us” (Matt. 6:12,
author’s translation; cf. 1 John 1:9).
When we sin as Christians, it is not only our personal relationship with God that is
disrupted. Our Christian life and fruitfulness in ministry are also damaged. Jesus warns
us, “As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you,
unless you abide in me” (John 15:4). When we stray from fellowship with Christ because
of sin in our lives, we diminish the degree to which we are abiding in Christ.
The New Testament writers frequently speak of the destructive consequences of sin in
the lives of believers. In fact, many sections of the epistles are taken up with rebuking and
discouraging Christians from sin that they are committing. Paul says that if Christians
yield themselves to sin, they increasingly become “slaves” of sin (Rom. 6:16), whereas
God wants Christians to progress upward on a path of ever-increasing righteousness in
life. If our goal is to grow in increasing fullness of life until the day we die and pass into
the presence of God in heaven, to sin is to do an about-face and begin to walk downhill
away from the goal of likeness to God; it is to go in a direction that “leads to death” (Rom.
6:16) and eternal separation from God, the direction from which we were rescued when
we became Christians. 26
Peter says that sinful desires that remain in our hearts “ wage war against your soul”
(1 Peter 2:11) — the military language correctly translates Peter’s expression and conveys
26 Paul is not saying in Romans 6:16 that true Christians will yield to sin we are (in a spiritual/moral sense) traveling in that
ever actually regress to a point at which they fall under eter- direction,
nal condemnation, but he does seem to be saying that when we
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
506
the imagery that sinful desires within us are like soldiers in a battle and their target is
our spiritual well-being. To give in to such sinful desires, to nurture and cherish them in
our hearts, is to give food, shelter, and welcome to the enemy’s troops. If we yield to the
desires that “wage war” against our souls, we will inevitably feel some loss of spiritual
strength, some diminution of spiritual power, some loss of effectiveness in the work of
God’s kingdom.
Moreover, when we sin as Christians we suffer a loss of heavenly reward. A person who
has built on the work of the church not with gold, silver, and precious stones, but with
“wood, hay, stubble” (1 Cor. 3:12) will have his work “burned up” on the day of judgment
and “he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire” (1 Cor.
3:15). Paul realizes that “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that
each one may receive good or evil, according to what he has done in the body” (2 Cor.
5:10). Paul implies that there are degrees of reward in heaven, 27 and that sin has negative
consequences in terms of loss of heavenly reward.
c. The Danger of “Unconverted Evangelicals”: While a genuine Christian who sins does
not lose his or her justification or adoption before God (see above), there needs to be a
clear warning that mere association with an evangelical church and outward conformity
to accepted “Christian” patterns of behavior does not guarantee salvation. Particularly
in societies and cultures where it is easy (or even expected) for people to profess to be
Christians, there is a real possibility that some will associate with the church who are not
genuinely born again. If such people then become more and more disobedient to Christ
in their pattern of life, they should not be lulled into complacency by assurances that they
still have justification or adoption in God’s family. A consistent pattern of disobedience
to Christ coupled with a lack of the elements of the fruit of the Holy Spirit such as love,
joy, peace, and so forth (see Gal. 5:22-23) is a warning signal that the person is probably
not a true Christian inwardly, that there probably has been no genuine heart-faith from
the beginning and no regenerating work of the Holy Spirit. Jesus warns that he will say to
some who have prophesied, cast out demons, and done many mighty works in his name,
“I never knew you; depart from me, you evildoers” (Matt. 7:23). And John tells us that
“he who says T know him’ but disobeys his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not
in him” (1 John 2:4; here John speaks of a persistent pattern of life). A long-term pattern
of increasing disobedience to Christ should be taken as evidence to doubt that the person
in question is really a Christian at all.
6. What Is the Unpardonable Sin? Several passages of Scripture speak about a sin that
will not be forgiven. Jesus says:
Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blas-
phemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. And whoever says a word against
the Son of man will be forgiven; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will
not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come. (Matt. 12:31-32)
27 See chapter 56, pp. 1144-45, on degrees of reward in
heaven.
CHAPTER 24 ■ SIN
507
A similar statement occurs in Mark 3:29-30, where Jesus says that “whoever blas-
phemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness” (Mark 3:29; cf. Luke 12:10).
Similarly, Hebrews 6 says:
For it is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been
enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of
the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the pow-
ers of the age to come, if they then commit apostasy, since they crucify the son
of God on their own account and hold him up to contempt. (Heb. 6:4-6; cf.
10:26-27; also the discussion of the sin “that leads to death” [NIV] in 1 John
5:16-17)
These passages could be talking about the same or different sins; a decision about this
will have to be made from an examination of the passages in context.
Several different views of this sin have been taken. 28
1. Some have thought that it was a sin that could only be committed while Christ
was on earth. But Jesus’ statement that “every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men”
(Matt. 12:31) is so general that it seems unwarranted to say it is only referring to some-
thing that could only happen during his lifetime — the texts in question do not specify
such a restriction. Moreover, Hebrews 6:4-6 is speaking of apostasy that has occurred a
number of years after Jesus returned to heaven.
2. Some have held that the sin is unbelief that continues until the time of death; there-
fore, everyone who dies in unbelief (or at least everyone who has heard of Christ and then
dies in unbelief) has committed this sin. It is true, of course, that those who persist in
unbelief until death will not be forgiven, but the question is whether that fact is what is
being discussed in these verses. On close reading of the verses, that explanation does not
seem to fit the language of the texts cited, for they do not talk of unbelief in general but
specifically of someone who “speaks against the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 12:32), “blasphemes
against the Holy Spirit” (Mark 3:29) or commits “apostasy” (Heb. 6:6). They have in view
a specific sin — willful rejection of the work of the Holy Spirit and speaking evil about
it, or willful rejection of the truth of Christ and holding Christ up to “contempt” (Heb.
6:6). Moreover, the idea that this sin is unbelief that persists until death does not fit well
with the context of a rebuke to the Pharisees for what they were saying in both Matthew
and Mark (see discussion of context below).
3. Some hold that this sin is serious apostasy by genuine believers, and that only those
who are truly born again could commit this sin. They base their view on their under-
standing of the nature of the “apostasy” that is mentioned in Hebrews 6:4-6 (that it is
a rejection of Christ and loss of salvation by a true Christian). But that does not seem to
be the best understanding of Hebrews 4-6. 29 Moreover, though this view could perhaps
be sustained with respect to Hebrews 6, it does not explain blasphemy against the Holy
Spirit in the gospel passages, in which Jesus is responding to the Pharisees’ hard-hearted
denial of the work of the Holy Spirit through him.
28 See Berkhof, Systematic Theology, pp. 252-53, for repre- 29 See the extended discussion of Hebrews 6:4-6 in chapter
sentatives of each position. 40, pp. 796 - 801 .
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
508
4. A fourth possibility is that this sin consists of unusually malicious, willful rejec-
tion and slander against the Holy Spirit’s work attesting to Christ, and attributing that
work to Satan. A closer look at the context of Jesus’ statement in Matthew and Mark
shows that Jesus was speaking in response to the accusation of the Pharisees that “it
is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this man casts out demons” (Matt.
12:24). The Pharisees had seen Jesus’ works repeatedly. He had just healed a blind and
dumb demoniac so that he could see and speak (Matt. 12:22). The people were amazed
and were following Jesus in large numbers, and the Pharisees themselves had repeatedly
seen clear demonstrations of the amazing power of the Holy Spirit working through
Jesus to bring life and health to many people. But the Pharisees, in spite of clear dem-
onstrations of the work of the Holy Spirit in front of their eyes, willfully rejected Jesus’
authority and his teaching and attributed it to the devil. Jesus then told them clearly
that “no city or house divided against itself will stand; and if Satan casts out Satan, he
is divided against himself; how then will his kingdom stand?” (Matt. 12:25-26). So it
was irrational and foolish for the Pharisees to attribute Jesus’ exorcisms to the power
of Satan — it was a classic, willful, malicious lie.
After explaining, “If it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the king-
dom of God has come upon you” (Matt. 12:28), Jesus declares this warning: “He who
is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters” (Matt.
12:30). He warns that there is no neutrality, and certainly those who, like the Phari-
sees, oppose his message are against him. Then he immediately adds, “Therefore I
tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the
Spirit will not be forgiven” (Matt. 12:31). The willful, malicious slander of the work
of the Holy Spirit through Jesus, in which the Pharisees attributed it to Satan, would
not be forgiven.
The context indicates that Jesus is speaking about a sin that is not simply unbelief
or rejection of Christ, but one that includes (1) a clear knowledge of who Christ is and
of the power of the Holy Spirit working through him, (2) a willful rejection of the facts
about Christ that his opponents knew to be true, and (3) slanderously attributing the
work of the Holy Spirit in Christ to the power of Satan. In such a case the hardness
of heart would be so great that any ordinary means of bringing a sinner to repen-
tance would already have been rejected. Persuasion of the truth will not work, for these
people have already known the truth and have willfully rejected it. Demonstration of
the power of the Holy Spirit to heal and bring life will not work, for they have seen it
and rejected it. In this case it is not that the sin itself is so horrible that it could not be
covered by Christ’s redemptive work, but rather that the sinner’s hardened heart puts
him or her beyond the reach of God’s ordinary means of bringing forgiveness through
repentance and trusting Christ for salvation. The sin is unpardonable because it cuts
off the sinner from repentance and saving faith through belief in the truth.
Berkhof wisely defines this sin in the following way:
This sin consists in the conscious, malicious, and wilful rejection and slander,
against evidence and conviction, of the testimony of the Holy Spirit respecting
the grace of God in Christ, attributing it out of hatred and enmity to the Prince
of Darkness. ... in committing that sin man wilfully, maliciously, and inten-
CHAPTER24 • SIN
tionally attributes what is clearly recognized as the work of God to the influence
and operation of Satan. 30
Berkhof explains that the sin itself consists “not in doubting the truth, nor in a sinful
denial of it but in a contradiction of it that goes contrary to the conviction of the mind,
to the illumination of the conscience, and even to the verdict of the heart” 31
The fact that the unpardonable sin involves such extreme hardness of heart and lack
of repentance indicates that those who fear they have committed it, yet still have sorrow
for sin in their heart and desire to seek after God, certainly do not fall in the category of
those who are guilty of it. Berkhof says that “we may be reasonably sure that those who
fear that they have committed it and worry about this, and desire the prayers of others
for them, have not committed it.” 32
This understanding of the unpardonable sin also fits well with Hebrews 6:4-6. There
the persons who “commit apostasy” have had all sorts of knowledge and conviction of
the truth: they have “been enlightened” and have “tasted the heavenly gift”; they have
participated in some ways in the work of the Holy Spirit and “have tasted the goodness
of the word of God and the powers of the age to come,” yet they then willfully turn away
from Christ and “hold him up to contempt” (Heb. 6:6). They too have put themselves
beyond the reach of God’s ordinary means of bringing people to repentance and faith.
Knowing and being convinced of the truth, they willfully reject it.
First John 5:16-17, however, seems to fall in another category. That passage does not
speak of a sin that can never be forgiven, but rather about a sin that, if persisted in, will
lead to death. This sin seems to involve the teaching of serious doctrinal error about
Christ. In the context of asking in faith according to God’s will (1 John 5:14- 15) John
simply tells us that he does not say that we can pray in faith for God simply to forgive
that sin unless the person repents — but he certainly does not prohibit praying that the
heretical teachers would turn from their heresy and repent and thereby find forgiveness.
Many people who teach serious doctrinal error have still not gone so far as to commit
the unpardonable sin and bring on themselves the impossibility of repentance and faith
by their own hardness of heart.
E. The Punishment of Sin
Although God’s punishment of sin does serve as a deterrent against further sinning and
as a warning to those who observe it, this is not the primary reason why God punishes sin.
The primary reason is that God's righteousness demands it, so that he might be glorified in
the universe that he has created. He is the Lord who practices “steadfast love, justice, and
righteousness in the earth; for in these things I delight, says the Lord” (Jer. 9:24).
Paul speaks of Christ Jesus “whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood,
through faith” (Rom. 3:25, author’s translation). Paul then explains why God put
forward Jesus as a “propitiation” (that is, a sacrifice that bears the wrath of God against
sin and thereby turns God’s wrath into favor): “This was to show God's righteousness,
30 Berkhof, Systematic Theology ; p. 253.
31 Ibid.
32 Ibid., p. 254.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
510
because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins” (Rom. 3:25). Paul
realizes that if Christ had not come to pay the penalty for sins, God could not be shown
to be righteous. Because he had passed over sins and not punished them in the past,
people could rightly accuse God of unrighteousness, the assumption being that a God
who does not punish sins is not a righteous God. Therefore, when God sent Christ to
die and pay the penalty for our sins, he showed how he could still be righteous — he had
stored up the punishment due to previous sins (those of Old Testament saints) and then,
in perfect righteousness, he gave that penalty to Jesus on the cross. The propitiation of
Calvary thereby clearly demonstrated that God is perfectly righteous: “it was to prove
at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies him who has faith in
Jesus” (Rom. 3:26).
Therefore in the cross we have a clear demonstration of the reason God punishes
sin: if he did not punish sin he would not be a righteous God, and there would be no
ultimate justice in the universe. But when sin is punished, God is showing himself to be
a righteous judge over all, and justice is being done in his universe.
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. Has reading this chapter increased your awareness of the sin remaining in your
own life? Are you able to mention any specific ways in which this was true? Did
the chapter increase in you any sense of the hatefulness of sin? Why do you not feel
more often a deeper sense of the hatefulness of sin? What do you think the overall
effect of this chapter will be on your personal relationship with God?
2. Would it ultimately be more comforting to you to think that sin came into the
world because God ordained that it would come through secondary agents, or
because he could not prevent it, even though it was against his will? How would
you feel about the universe and your place in it if you thought that evil had always
existed and there was an ultimate “dualism” in the universe?
3. Can you name some parallels between the temptation faced by Eve and temptations
that you face even now in your Christian life?
4. Do you feel a sense of unfairness that you are counted guilty because of Adams
sin (if you agree that Rom. 5:12-21 teaches this)? How can you deal with this
sense of unfairness to keep it from becoming a hindrance in your relationship
with God? At a level of deep conviction, do you really think that, before being
a Christian, you were totally unable to do any spiritual good before God? Simi-
larly, are you deeply convinced that this is true of all unbelievers, or do you think
that this is just a doctrine that may or may not be true, or at least one that you
do not find deeply convincing as you look at the lives of the unbelievers whom
you know?
CHAPTER 24 * SIN
511
5. What kind of freedom of choice do the unbelievers whom you know actually have?
Apart from the work of the Holy Spirit, are you convinced that they will not change
their fundamental rebellion against God?
6. How can the biblical teaching of degrees of seriousness of sin help your Christian
life at this point? Have you known a sense of God’s “fatherly displeasure” when you
have sinned? What is your response to that sense?
7. Do you think that Christians today have lost sight of the hatefulness of sin to a large
extent? Have unbelievers also lost sight of this? Do you think that we as Christians
have lost sight of the thoroughgoing pervasiveness of sin in unbelievers, of the truth
that the greatest problem of the human race, and of all societies and civilizations,
is not lack of education or lack of communication or lack of material well-being,
but sin against God?
SPECIAL TERMS
age of accountability
dualism
impute
inherited corruption
inherited guilt
inherited sin
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter 1,
pp. 38-39. Complete bibliographical data may be found on pp. 1224-30.)
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1882-92 Litton, 136-77
1930 Thomas, 155-75, 210-14, 234-35, 501-6
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1847 Finney, 180-214, 228-58
1875-76 Pope, 2:1-86
1892-94 Miley, 1:423-533; 2:505-24
1940 Wiley, 2:51-140
1960 Purkiser, 223-42
1983 Carter, 1:27-86
3. Baptist
1767 Gill, 1:451-90
1887 Boyce, 230-47
mortal sin
original guilt
original pollution
original sin
Pelagius
propitiation
sin
total depravity
total inability
unpardonable sin
venial sin
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
512
1907
Strong, 533-664
1917
Mullins, 281-302
1976-83
Henry, 6:229-50, 269-304
1983-85
Erickson, 561-658
1987-94
Lewis/Demarest, 2:183-245
Dispensational
1947
Chafer, 2:200-373
1949
Thiessen, 188-98
1986
Ryrie, 201-34
Lutheran
1917-24
Pieper, 1:527-77
1934
Mueller, 210-41
Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1559
Calvin, 1:239-309 (2.1-3)
1724- 58
Edwards, 1:143-233
1861
Heppe, 301-70
1871-73
Hodge, 2:122-279
1878
Dabney, 36-51
1887-1921
Warfield, BTS, 262 -69
1889
Shedd, 2a:115-257
1937- 66
Murray, CW, 2:67-89; IAS, 5-95
1938
Berkhof, 219-61
1962
Buswell, 1:255—307
Renewal (or charismatic/Pentecostal)
1988-92
Williams, 1:221-74
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
1. Roman Catholic: Traditional
1955 Ott, 106-14
2. Roman Catholic: Post-Vatican II
1980 McBrien, 1:123, 162 -68; 2:953-60
Other Works
Berkouwer, G. C. Sin. Trans, by Philip C. Holtrop. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971.
Bloesch, D. G. “Sin.” In EDT, pp. 1012-16.
Carson, D. A. How Long, O Lord? Reflections on Suffering and Evil. Grand Rapids:
Baker, 1990.
Colwell, J. E. “Anthropology.” In NDT, pp. 28-30.
. “Fall.” In NDT, pp. 249-51.
. “Sin.” In NDT, pp. 641 -43.
Demarest, B. A. “Fall of Man.” In EDT, pp. 403 - 5.
CHAPTER 24 • SIN
513
Feinberg, J. S. The Many Faces of Evil: Theological Systems and the Problem of Evil. Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 1994.
• Theologies and Evil. Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1979.
Geisler, Norman. The Roots of Evil. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1978.
Hoekema, Anthony A. Created in God’s Image. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, and Exeter:
Paternoster, 1986, pp. 112-86.
Hughes, Philip Edgcumbe. The True Image: The Origin and Destiny of Man in Christ. Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, and Leicester: Inter- Varsity Press, 1989, pp. 71 -210.
Johnson, R. K. “Imputation.” In EDT, pp. 554-55.
Lewis, C. S. The Problem of Pain. New York: Ma cmillan , 1962.
Murray, John. The Imputation of Adam’s Sin. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959.
Peterson, Michael L. Evil and the Christian God. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1982.
Pink, Arthur Walkington. Gleanings From the Scriptures: Man’s Total Depravity. Chicago:
Moody, 1970.
Plantinga, Alvin. God, Freedom and Evil. New York: Harper and Row, 1974.
Ramm, Bernard. Offense to Reason: The Theology of Sin. San Francisco: Harper and
Row, 1985.
Ryrie, C. C. “Depravity, Total.” In EDT, pp. 3 12 - 13.
Thomas, R. L. “Sin, Conviction of.” In EDT, p. 1016.
Wenham, J. W. The Enigma of Evil. Formerly published as The Goodness of God. Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 1985.
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
Psalm 51:1-4:
Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions .
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin!
For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me.
Against you, you only, have I sinned,
and done that which is evil in your sight,
so that you are justified in your sentence
and blameless in your judgment.
HYMN
“God, Be Merciful to Me”
This is an excellent example of the words of a psalm set to music. The psalm was
originally King David’s heartfelt confession of great sin before God, but even today it is
an excellent pattern of confession that we ourselves might speak to God.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
God, be merciful to me;
on thy grace I rest my plea;
Plenteous in compassion thou,
blot out my transgressions now;
Wash me, make me pure within,
cleanse, O cleanse me from my sin.
My transgressions I confess,
grief and guilt my soul oppress;
I have sinned against thy grace
and provoked thee to thy face;
I confess thy judgment just,
speechless, I thy mercy trust.
I am evil, born in sin;
thou desirest truth within.
Thou alone my Savior art,
teach thy wisdom to my heart;
Make me pure, thy grace bestow,
wash me whiter than the snow.
Broken, humbled to the dust
by thy wrath and judgment just,
Let my contrite heart rejoice
and in gladness hear thy voice;
From my sins O hide thy face,
blot them out in boundless grace.
Gracious God, my heart renew,
make my spirit right and true;
Cast me not away from thee,
let thy Spirit dwell in me;
Thy salvation’s joy impart,
steadfast make my willing heart.
Sinners then shall learn from me
and return, O God, to thee;
Savior, all my guilt remove,
and my tongue shall sing thy love;
Touch my silent lips, O Lord,
and my mouth shall praise accord.
FROM THE PSALTER, 1912, FROM PSALM 51:1-15
Alternate tune: “Rock of Ages 5
Chapter
THE COVENANTS
BETWEEN GOD AND MAN
What principles determine the way
God relates to us?
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
How does God relate to man? Since the creation of the world, God’s relationship to
man has been defined by specific requirements and promises. God tells people how
he wants them to act and also makes promises about how he will act toward them in
various circumstances. The Bible contains several summaries of the provisions that
define the different relationships between God and man that occur in Scripture, and it
often calls these summaries “covenants.” With respect to covenants between God and
man in Scripture, we may give the following definition: A covenant is an unchangeable,
divinely imposed legal agreement between God and man that stipulates the conditions of
their relationship.
Although this definition includes the word agreement in order to show that there
are two parties, God and man, who must enter into the provisions of the relationship,
the phrase ‘divinely imposed” is also included to show that man can never negotiate
with God or change the terms of the covenant: he can only accept the covenant obliga-
tions or reject them. Probably for this reason the Greek translators of the Old Testament
(known as the Septuagint), and, following them, the New Testament authors, did not use
the ordinary Greek word for contracts or agreements in which both parties were equal
( syntheke ), but rather chose a less common word, diatheke, which emphasized that the
provisions of the covenant were laid down by one of the parties only. (In fact, the word
diatheke was often used to refer to a “testament” or “will” that a person would leave to
assign the distribution of his or her goods after death.)
This definition also notes that covenants are “unchangeable.” They may be super-
seded or replaced by a different covenant, but they may not be changed once they are
established. Although there have been many additional details specified in the covenants
515
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
516
God has made with man throughout the history of Scripture, the essential element at the
heart of all of them is the promise, “I will be their God, and they shall be my people” ( Jer.
31:33; 2 Cor. 6:16, et al.).
Since the covenant relationship between God and man occurs in various forms
throughout Scripture from Genesis to Revelation, a treatment of this subject might be
put at several different points in the study of systematic theology. I have put it here at the
end of the treatment of man as created (in the image of God) and man as fallen into sin,
but before the discussion of the person and work of Christ.
A. The Covenant of Works
Some have questioned whether it is appropriate to speak of a covenant of works that
God had with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. The actual word covenant is not used
in the Genesis narratives. However, the essential parts of the covenant are all there — a
clear definition of the parties involved, a legally binding set of provisions that stipulates
the conditions of their relationship, the promise of blessings for obedience, and the con-
dition for obtaining those blessings. Moreover, Hosea 6:7, in referring to the sins of Israel,
says, “But like Adam they transgressed the covenant ” (RSV mg.; so NIV, NASB). 1 This
passage views Adam as existing in a covenant relationship that he then transgressed in
the Garden of Eden. In addition, in Romans 5:12-21 Paul sees both Adam and Christ as
heads of a people whom they represent, something that would be entirely consistent with
the idea of Adam being in a covenant before the fall.
In the Garden of Eden, it seems quite clear that there was a legally binding set of pro-
visions that defined the conditions of the relationship between God and man. The two
parties are evident as God speaks to Adam and gives commands to him. The require-
ments of the relationship are clearly defined in the commands that God gave to Adam
and Eve (Gen. 1:28-30; cf. 2:15) and in the direct command to Adam, “You may freely
eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall
not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die” (Gen. 2:16-17).
In this statement to Adam about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil there is a
promise of punishment for disobedience — death, most fully understood to mean death
in an extensive sense, physical, spiritual, and eternal death and separation from God. 2
In the promise of punishment for disobedience there is implicit a promise of blessing for
The RSV text translates, “But at Adam they transgressed
the covenant,” but the marginal note admits that this is a con-
jectural emendation and that the Hebrew text actually reads
“like Adam” (Heb. ke'addm). The Hebrew preposition ke means
“like,” not “at.” The word translated “Adam” (Heb. ’ addm ) can
also be translated “man,” but the statement would make little
sense: there is no single well-known transgression of a covenant
by man to which it could refer. Moreover, it would do little good
to compare the Israelites to what they already are (that is, men)
and say that they “like man” broke the covenant. Such a sen-
tence would almost imply that the Israelites were not men, but
some other kind of creature. For these reasons, the translation
“like Adam” is to be preferred. (The identical Hebrew expres-
sion is translated “like Adam” in Job 31:33 in the NASB, RSV
margin, and NIV margin.)
The punishment of death began to be carried out on the
day that Adam and Eve sinned, but it was carried out slowly
over time, as their bodies grew old and they eventually died.
The promise of spiritual death was put into effect immedi-
ately, since they were cut off from fellowship with God. The
death of eternal condemnation was rightfully theirs, but the
hints of redemption in the text (see Gen. 3:15, 21) suggest that
this penalty was ultimately overcome by the redemption that
Christ purchased.
CHAPTER 25 • THE COVENANTS BETWEEN GOD AND MAN
517
obedience. This blessing would consist of not receiving death, and the implication is that
the blessing would be the opposite of “death.” It would involve physical life that would not
end and spiritual life in terms of a relationship with God that would go on forever. The
presence of the “tree of life ... in the midst of the garden” (Gen. 2:9) also signified the
promise of eternal life with God if Adam and Eve had met the conditions of a covenant
relationship by obeying God completely until he decided that their time of testing was
finished. After the fall, God removed Adam and Eve from the garden, partly so that they
would not be able to take from the tree of life “and eat, and live for ever” (Gen. 3:22).
Another evidence that the covenant relationship with God in the garden included a
promise of eternal life if Adam and Eve had perfectly obeyed is the fact that even in the
New Testament Paul speaks as though perfect obedience, if it were possible, would actu-
ally lead to life. He speaks of a “commandment which promised life” (Rom. 7:10; lit.,
“the commandment unto life”) and, in order to demonstrate that the law does not rest
on faith, he quotes Leviticus 18:5 to say, about the provisions of the law, “He who does
them shall live by them” (Gal. 3:12; cf. Rom. 10:5).
Other covenants in Scripture generally have an outward “sign” associated with them
(such as circumcision, or baptism and the Lord’s Supper). No “sign” for the covenant of
works is clearly designated as such in Genesis, but if we were to name one, it would prob-
ably be the tree of life in the midst of the garden. By partaking of that tree Adam and Eve
would be partaking of the promise of eternal life that God would give. The fruit itself did
not have magical properties but would be a sign by which God outwardly guaranteed that
the inward reality would occur.
Why is it important to speak of the relationship between God and man in the garden
as a covenant relationship? To do so reminds us of the fact that this relationship, including
the commands of obedience and promise of blessing for obedience, was not something
that automatically occurred in the relationship between Creator and creature. God did
not make any such covenant with the animals that he created, for example. 3 Nor did the
nature of man as God created him demand that God have any fellowship with man or
that God make any promises concerning his relationship with men or give man any clear
directions concerning what he should do. All this was an expression of God’s fatherly love
for the man and woman he had created. Moreover, when we specify this relationship as a
“covenant,” it helps us to see the clear parallels between this and the subsequent covenant
relationships that God had with his people. If all the elements of a covenant are present
(clear stipulation of the parties involved, statement of the conditions of the covenant, and
a promise of blessing for obedience and punishment for disobedience), then there seems
no reason why we should not refer to it as a covenant, for that is indeed what it was.
Although the covenant that existed before the fall has been referred to by various
terms (such as the Adamic Covenant, or the Covenant of Nature), the most helpful des-
ignation seems to be “covenant of works,” since participation in the blessings of the cov-
enant clearly depended on obedience or “works” on the part of Adam and Eve.
3 However, animals were included with human beings in
the covenant that God spoke to Noah, promising that he would
never again destroy the earth with a flood (Gen. 9:8-17).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
518
As in all covenants that God makes with man, there is here no negotiating over the
provisions. God sovereignly imposes this covenant on Adam and Eve, and they have no
opportunity to change the details — their only choice is to keep it or to break it.
Is the covenant of works still in force? In several important senses it is. First of all, Paul
implies that perfect obedience to God’s laws, if it were possible, would lead to life (see
Rom. 7:10; 10:5; Gal. 3:12). We should also notice that the punishment for this covenant
is still in effect, for “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). This implies that the covenant
of works is still in force for every human being apart from Christ, even though no sinful
human being can fulfill its provisions and gain blessing by it. Finally, we should note that
Christ perfectly obeyed the covenant of works for us since he committed no sin (1 Peter
2:22) but completely obeyed God on our behalf (Rom. 5:18- 19).
On the other hand, in certain senses, the covenant of works does not remain in force:
(1) We no longer are faced with the specific command not to eat of the tree of the knowl-
edge of good and evil. (2) Since we all have a sinful nature (both Christians and non-
Christians), we are not able to fulfill the provisions of the covenant of works on our own
and receive its benefits — as this covenant applies to people directly, it only brings pun-
ishments. (3) For Christians, Christ has fulfilled the provisions of this covenant success-
fully once for all, and we gain the benefits of it not by actual obedience on our part but by
trusting in the merits of Christ’s work. In fact, for Christians today to think of themselves
as obligated to try to earn God’s favor by obedience would be to cut themselves off from
the hope of salvation. “All who rely on works of the law are under a curse Now it is
evident that no man is justified before God by the law (Gal. 3:10—11). Christians have
been freed from the covenant of works by virtue of Christ’s work and their inclusion in
the new covenant, the covenant of grace (see below).
B. The Covenant of Redemption
Theologians speak of another kind of covenant, a covenant that is not between God
and man, but is among the members of the Trinity. This covenant they call the “covenant
of redemption.” It is an agreement among the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in which the
Son agreed to become a man, be our representative, obey the demands of the covenant of
works on our behalf, and pay the penalty for sin, which we deserved. Does Scripture teach
its existence? Yes, for it speaks about a specific plan and purpose of God that was agreed
upon by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in order to gain our redemption.
On the part of the Father, this “covenant of redemption” included an agreement to
give to the Son a people whom he would redeem for his own possession (John 17:2, 6), to
send the Son to be their representative (John 3:16; Rom. 5:18-19), to prepare a body for
the Son to dwell in as a man (Col. 2:9; Heb. 10:5), to accept him as representative of his
people whom he had redeemed (Heb. 9:24), and to give him all authority in heaven and
on earth (Matt. 28:18), including the authority to pour out the Holy Spirit in power to
apply redemption to his people (Acts 1:4; 2:33).
On the part of the Son, there was an agreement that he would come into the world
as a man and live as a man under the Mosaic law (Gal. 4:4; Heb. 2:14-18), and that he
would be perfectly obedient to all the commands of the Father (Heb. 10:7-9), becoming
CHAPTER 25 • THE COVENANTS BETWEEN GOD AND MAN
519
obedient unto death, even death on a cross (Phil. 2:8). The Son also agreed that he would
gather for himself a people in order that none whom the Father had given him would be
lost (John 17:12).
The role of the Holy Spirit in the covenant of redemption is sometimes overlooked in
discussions of this subject, but certainly it was a unique and essential one. He agreed to do
the will of the Father and fill and empower Christ to carry out his ministry on earth (Matt.
3:16; Luke 4:1, 14, 18; John 3:34), and to apply the benefits of Christ’s redemptive work to
his people after Christ returned to heaven (John 14:16- 17, 26; Acts 1:8; 2:17- 18, 33).
To refer to the agreement among the members of the Trinity as a “covenant,” reminds
us that it was something voluntarily undertaken by God, not something that he had
to enter into by virtue of his nature. However, this covenant is also different from the
covenants between God and man because the parties enter into it as equals, whereas in
covenants with man God is the sovereign Creator who imposes the provisions of the cov-
enant by his own decree. On the other hand, it is like the covenants God makes with man
in that it has the elements (specifying the parties, conditions, and promised blessings)
that make up a covenant.
C. The Covenant of Grace
1. Essential Elements. When man failed to obtain the blessing offered in the covenant
of works, it was necessary for God to establish another means, one by which man could
be saved. The rest of Scripture after the story of the fall in Genesis 3 is the story of God
working out in history the amazing plan of redemption whereby sinful people could
come into fellowship with himself. Once again, God clearly defines the provisions of a
covenant that would specify the relationship between himself and those whom he would
redeem. In these specifications we find some variation in detail throughout the Old and
New Testaments, but the essential elements of a covenant are all there, and the nature of
those essential elements remains the same throughout the Old Testament and the New
Testament.
The parties to this covenant of grace are God and the people whom he will redeem.
But in this case Christ fulfills a special role as “mediator” (Heb. 8:6; 9:15; 12:24) in which
he fulfills the conditions of the covenant for us and thereby reconciles us to God. (There
was no mediator between God and man in the covenant of works.)
The condition (or requirement) of participation in the covenant is faith in the work of
Christ the redeemer (Rom. 1:17; 5:1, et al.). This requirement of faith in the redemptive
work of the Messiah was also the condition of obtaining the blessings of the covenant in
the Old Testament, as Paul clearly demonstrates through the examples of Abraham and
David (Rom. 4:1—15). They, like other Old Testament believers, were saved by looking
forward to the work of the Messiah who was to come and putting faith in him. 4
But while the condition of beginning the covenant of grace is always faith in Christ’s
work alone, the condition of continuing in that covenant is said to be obedience to God’s
4 See chapter 7, pp. 117- 18, for a discussion of the fact that
Old Testament believers were saved only by trusting in the
Messiah who was to come.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
520
commands. Though this obedience did not in the Old Testament and does not in the
New Testament earn us any merit with God, nonetheless, if our faith in Christ is genu-
ine, it will produce obedience (see James 2:17), and obedience to Christ is in the New
Testament seen as necessary evidence that we are truly believers and members of the new
covenant (see 1 John 2:4-6).
The promise of blessings in the covenant was a promise of eternal life with God. This
promise was repeated frequently throughout the Old and the New Testaments. God
promised that he would be their God and that they would be his people. “And I will
establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you throughout
their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants
after you” (Gen. 17:7). “I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Jer. 31:33).
“And they shall be my people, and I will be their God ... I will make with them an ever-
lasting covenant” (Jer. 32:38-40; cf. Ezek. 34:30-31; 36:28; 37:26-27). That theme is
picked up in the New Testament as well: “I will be their God , and they shall be my people”
(2 Cor. 6:16; cf. a similar theme in vv. 17-18; also 1 Peter 2:9-10). In speaking of the
new covenant, the author of Hebrews quotes Jeremiah 31: “I will be their God, and they
shall be my people” (Heb. 8:10). This blessing finds fulfillment in the church, which is
the people of God, but it finds its greatest fulfillment in the new heaven and new earth,
as John sees in his vision of the age to come: “Behold, the dwelling of God is with men.
He will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself will be with them”
(Rev. 21:3).
The sign of this covenant (the outward, physical symbol of inclusion in the covenant)
varies between the Old Testament and the New Testament. In the Old Testament the out-
ward sign of beginning the covenant relationship was circumcision. The sign of continu-
ing the covenant relationship was continuing to observe all the festivals and ceremonial
laws that God gave the people at various times. In the new covenant, the sign of begin-
ning a covenant relationship is baptism, while the sign of continuing in that relationship
is participation in the Lord’s Supper.
The reason this covenant is called a “covenant of grace” is that it is entirely based on
God’s “grace” or unmerited favor toward those whom he redeems.
2. Various Forms of the Covenant. Although the essential elements of the covenant of
grace remain the same throughout the history of God’s people, the specific provisions of
the covenant vary from time to time. At the time of Adam and Eve, there was only the
bare hint of the possibility of a relationship with God found in the promise about the seed
of the woman in Genesis 3:15 and in God’s gracious provision of clothing for Adam and
Eve (Gen. 3:21). The covenant that God made with Noah after the flood (Gen. 9:8-17)
was not a covenant that promised all the blessings of eternal life or spiritual fellowship
with God, but simply one in which God promised all mankind and the animal creation
that the earth would no longer be destroyed by a flood. In this sense the covenant with
Noah, although it certainly does depend on God’s grace or unmerited favor, appears to
be quite different in the parties involved (God and all mankind, not just the redeemed),
the condition named (no faith or obedience is required of man), and the blessing that
is promised (that the earth will not be destroyed again by flood, certainly a different
CHAPTER 25 • THE COVENANTS BETWEEN GOD AND MAN
promise from that of eternal life) . The sign of the covenant (the rainbow) is also different
in that it requires no active or voluntary participation on man’s part.
But beginning with the covenant with Abraham (Gen. 15:1-21; 17:1-27), the
essential elements of the covenant of grace are all there. In fact, Paul can say that “the
scripture . . . preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham” (Gal. 3:8). Moreover, Luke
tells us that Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, prophesied that the coming of
John the Baptist to prepare the way for Christ was the beginning of God’s working
to fulfill the ancient covenant promises to Abraham (“to perform the mercy prom-
ised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant, the oath which he swore to our
father Abraham,” Luke 1:72—73). So the covenant promises to Abraham remained
in force even as they found fulfillment in Christ (see Rom. 4:1-25; Gal. 3:6-18, 29;
Heb. 2:16; 6:13— 20). 5
What then is the “old covenant” in contrast with the “new covenant” in Christ? It is
not the whole of the Old Testament, because the covenants with Abraham and David are
never called “old” in the New Testament. Rather, only the covenant under Moses, the cov-
enant made at Mount Sinai (Ex. 19-24) is called the “old covenant” (2 Cor. 3:14; cf. Heb.
8:6, 13), to be replaced by the “new covenant” in Christ (Luke 22:20; 1 Cor. 11:25; 2 Cor.
3:6; Heb. 8:8, 13; 9:15; 12:24). The Mosaic covenant was an administration 6 of detailed
written laws given for a time to restrain the sins of the people and to be a custodian to
point people to Christ. Paul says, “Why then the law? It was added because of transgres-
sions, till the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made” (Gal. 3:19),
and, “The law was our custodian until Christ came” (Gal. 3:24).
We should not assume that there was no grace available to people from Moses until
Christ, because the promise of salvation by faith that God had made to Abraham
remained in force:
Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring ...the law, which
came four hundred and thirty years afterward, does not annul a covenant previ-
ously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. For if the inheritance is
by the law, it is no longer by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise.
(Gal. 3:16-18)
Moreover, although the sacrificial system of the Mosaic covenant did not really take away
sins (Heb. 10:1—4), it foreshadowed the bearing of sin by Christ, the perfect high priest
who was also the perfect sacrifice (Heb. 9:11-28). Nevertheless, the Mosaic covenant itself,
with all its detailed laws, could not save people. It is not that the laws were wrong in them-
selves, for they were given by a holy God, but they had no power to give people new life, and
the people were not able to obey them perfectly: “Is the law then against the promises of
5 The covenant promises to Abraham were renewed and fur-
ther assurances given when God spoke with David (see esp. 2
Sam. 7:5-16; cf. Jer. 33:19-22), giving to David the promise
that a Davidic king would reign over the people of God forever.
For an excellent discussion of the continuity of God’s promises
as seen in the covenants made with Abraham and David, and in
the new covenant, see Thomas E. McComiskey, The Covenants
of Promise: A Theology of the Old Testament Covenants (Grand
Rapids: Baker, 1985), esp. pp. 59-93.
6 For an excellent discussion of the difference between the
overarching covenant of promise and the various “admin-
istrative covenants” that God used at different times, see
McComiskey, Covenants of Promise, esp. pp. 139-77 and
193-211.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
522
God? Certainly not; for if a law had been given which could make alive, then righteousness
would indeed be by the law” (Gal. 3:21). Paul realizes that the Holy Spirit working within
us can empower us to obey God in a way that the Mosaic law never could, for he says that
God “has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not in a written code but
in the Spirit; for the written code kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Cor. 3:6).
The new covenant in Christ, then, is far better because it fulfills the promises made in
Jeremiah 31:31-34, as quoted in Hebrews 8:
But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry which is as much more excellent
than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better
promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been
no occasion for a second.
For he finds fault with them when he says:
“The days will come, says the Lord,
when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah;
not like the covenant that I made with their fathers
on the day when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of the land of Egypt;
for they did not continue in my covenant,
and so I paid no heed to them, says the Lord.
This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
after those days, says the Lord:
I will put my laws into their minds,
and write them on their hearts,
and I will be their God,
and they shall be my people.
And they shall not teach every one his fellow
or every one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,'
for all shall know me,
from the least of them to the greatest.
For I will be merciful toward their iniquities,
and I will remember their sins no more ”
In speaking of a new covenant he treats the first as obsolete. And what is
becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. (Heb. 8:6-13)
In this new covenant, there are far greater blessings, for Jesus the Messiah has come;
he has lived, died, and risen among us, atoning once for all for our sins (Heb. 9:24-28);
he has revealed God most fully to us (John l:14;Heb. 1:1 -3); he has poured out the Holy
Spirit on all his people in new covenant power (Acts 1:8; 1 Cor. 12:13; 2 Cor. 3:4-18);
he has written his laws on our hearts (Heb. 8:10). This new covenant is the “eternal cov-
enant” (Heb. 13:20) in Christ, through which we shall forever have fellowship with God,
and he shall be our God, and we shall be his people.
CHAPTER 25 • THE COVENANTS BETWEEN GOD AND MAN
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. Before reading this chapter, had you thought of your relationship to God in terms
of a covenant ? Does it give you any added degree of certainty or sense of security
in your relationship to God to know that he governs that relationship by a set of
promises that he will never change?
2. If you were to think of the relationship between God and yourself personally in
terms of a covenant, whereby you and God are the only two parties involved, then
what would be the conditions of this covenant between you and God? Are you now
fulfilling those conditions? What role does Christ play in the covenant relation-
ship between you and God? What are the blessings God promises to you if you
fulfill those conditions? What are the signs of participation in this covenant? Does
this understanding of the covenant increase your appreciation of baptism and the
Lord’s Supper?
SPECIAL TERMS
covenant
covenant of grace
covenant of redemption
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter 1,
pp. 38-39. Complete bibliographical data maybe found on pp. 1224-30.)
covenant of works
new covenant
old covenant
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1882 - 92 Litton (no explicit treatment)
1930 Thomas, 134-41
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1983 Carter, 1:476 - 83
3. Baptist
1767
1887
4. Dispensational
1947
1949
1986
5. Lutheran
Gill, 1:300-359, 491-530
Boyce, 247-58
Chafer, 7:96-99
Thiessen, 199-205
Ryrie, 453-60
1934
Mueller (no explicit treatment)
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
524
6. Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1861 Heppe, 281-319, 371 -409
1871-73 Hodge, 2:117-22, 354-77
1878 Dabney, 292-305, 429-63
1889 Shedd, 2a: 148 -67
1937-66 Murray, CW, 2:47-59, 123-31
1938 Berkhof, 211-18, 262-301
1962 Buswell, 1:307-20
7. Renewal (or charismatic/Pentecostal)
1988-92 Williams, 1:275-304
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
1. Roman Catholic: Traditional
1955 Ott (no explicit treatment)
2. Roman Catholic: Post-Vatican II
1980 McBrien (no explicit treatment)
Other Works
Archer, G. L. “Covenant” In EDT, pp. 276-78.
Collins, G. N. M. “Federal Theology” In EDT, pp. 413-14.
Dumbrell, W. J. Covenant and Creation . Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1984.
Fuller, Daniel P. Gospel and Law: Contrast or Continuum? The Hermeneutics ofDispensa-
tionalism and Covenant Theology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980.
Jocz, Jakob. The Covenant: A Theology of Human Destiny Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1968.
Kaiser, Walter C., Jr. Toward An Old Testament Theology. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1978.
Martens, Elmer. God's Design: A Focus on Old Testament Theology. Grand Rapids: Baker,
1981.
McComiskey, Thomas E. The Covenants of Promise: A Theology of the Old Testament Cov-
enants. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1985.
Murray, John. Covenant of Grace. London: Tyndale, 1954.
Osterhaven, M. E. “Covenant Theology” In EDT, pp. 279-80.
Pentecost, J. Dwight. Thy Kingdom Come. Wheaton, 111.: Scripture Press, 1990.
Peters, G. N. H. The Theocratic Kingdom. 3 vols. New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1952 (first
published 1884).
Rayburn, R. S. “Covenant, The New.” In EDT, pp. 278-79.
Robertson, O. Palmer. The Christ of the Covenants. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980.
Ryrie, C. C. Dispensationalism Today. Chicago: Moody, 1965.
VanGemeren, Willem. The Progress of Redemption. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1988.
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
Hebrews 8:10:
u This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
after those days,” says the Lord:
CHAPTER 25 • THE COVENANTS BETWEEN GOD AND MAN
525
“I will put my laws into their minds,
and write them on their hearts,
and I will be their God,
and they shall be my people.”
HYMN
“Trust and Obey”
This hymn reminds us that the enjoyment of God’s blessings depends on our continu-
ing to fulfill the conditions of faith and obedience as stipulated in the New Testament,
which is the written record of the provisions of the new covenant that God has made
with us.
When we walk with the Lord in the light of his Word,
What a glory he sheds on our way!
While we do his good will, he abides with us s till,
And with all who will trust and obey.
Chorus:
Trust and obey, for there’s no other way
To be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.
Not a shadow can rise, not a cloud in the skies.
But his smile quickly drives it away;
Not a doubt or a fear, not a sigh nor a tear.
Can abide while we trust and obey.
Not a burden we bear, not a sorrow we share.
But our toil he doth richly repay;
Not a grief nor a loss, not a frown or a cross,
But is blest if we trust and obey.
But we never can prove the delights of his love
Until all on the altar we lay;
For the favor he shows, and the joy he bestows,
Are for them who will trust and obey.
Then in fellowship sweet we will sit at his feet,
Or we’ll walk by his side in the way;
What he says we will do, where he sends we will go.
Never fear, only trust and obey.
AUTHOR: JAMES H. SAMMIS, D. 1919
Part
THE DOCTRINES
OF CHRIST AND
THE HOLY SPIRIT
Chapter
THE PERSON OF CHRIST
How is Jesus fully God and fully man,
yet one person ?
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
We may summarize the biblical teaching about the person of Christ as follows: Jesus
Christ was fully God and fully man in one person, and will be so forever.
The scriptural material supporting this definition is extensive. We will discuss first
the humanity of Christ, then his deity, and then attempt to show how Jesus’ deity and
humanity are united in the one person of Christ.
A. The Humanity of Christ
1. Virgin Birth. When we speak of the humanity of Christ it is appropriate to begin
with a consideration of the virgin birth of Christ. Scripture clearly asserts that Jesus was
conceived in the womb of his mother Mary by a miraculous work of the Holy Spirit and
without a human father.
“Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had
been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child of the
Holy Spirit (Matt. 1:18). Shortly after that an angel of the Lord said to Joseph, who was
engaged to Mary, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife, for that which
is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 1:20). Then we read that Joseph “did as
the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took his wife, but knew her not until she had
borne a son; and he called his name Jesus” (Matt. 1:24-25).
The same fact is affirmed in Luke’s gospel, where we read about the appearance of the
angel Gabriel to Mary. After the angel had told her that she would bear a son, Mary said,
“How shall this be, since I have no husband?” The angel answered,
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you,
and the power of the Most High will overshadow you;
529
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
530
therefore the child to be born will be called holy ,
the Son of God .” (Luke 1:35; cf. 3:23)
The doctrinal importance of the virgin birth is seen in at least three areas.
1. It shows that salvation ultimately must come from the Lord. Just as God had prom-
ised that the “seed” of the woman (Gen. 3:15) would ultimately destroy the serpent, so
God brought it about by his own power, not through mere human effort. The virgin birth
of Christ is an unmistakable reminder that salvation can never come through human
effort, but must be the work of God himself. Our salvation only comes about through
the supernatural work of God, and that was evident at the very beginning of Jesus’ life
when “God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who
were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Gal. 4:4-5).
2. The virgin birth made possible the uniting of full deity and full humanity in one
person. This was the means God used to send his Son (John 3:16; Gal. 4:4) into the world
as a man. If we think for a moment of other possible ways in which Christ might have
come to the earth, none of them would so clearly unite humanity and deity in one per-
son. It probably would have been possible for God to create Jesus as a complete human
being in heaven and send him to descend from heaven to earth without the benefit of
any human parent. But then it would have been very hard for us to see how Jesus could
be fully human as we are, nor would he be a part of the human race that physically
descended from Adam. On the other hand, it probably would have been possible for God
to have Jesus come into the world with two human parents, both a father and a mother,
and with his full divine nature miraculously united to his human nature at some point
early in his life. But then it would have been hard for us to understand how Jesus was
fully God, since his origin was like ours in every way. When we think of these two other
possibilities, it helps us to understand how God, in his wisdom, ordained a combination
of human and divine influence in the birth of Christ, so that his full humanity would
be evident to us from the fact of his ordinary human birth from a human mother, and
his full deity would be evident from the fact of his conception in Mary’s womb by the
powerful work of the Holy Spirit. 1
3. The virgin birth also makes possible Christ’s true humanity without inherited sin.
As we noted in chapter 24, all human beings have inherited legal guilt and a corrupt
moral nature from their first father, Adam (this is sometimes called “inherited sin” or
“original sin”). But the fact that Jesus did not have a human father means that the line of
descent from Adam is partially interrupted. Jesus did not descend from Adam in exactly
the same way in which every other human being has descended from Adam. And this
helps us to understand why the legal guilt and moral corruption that belongs to all other
human beings did not belong to Christ.
This idea seems to be indicated in the statement of the angel Gabriel to Mary, where
he says to her,
This is not to say that it would have been impossible for God virgin birth does help us understand how Jesus can be fully God
to bring Christ into the world in any other way, but only to say and fully man. Whether any other means of bringing Christ
that God, in his wisdom, decided that this would be the best way into the world would have been “possible” i n some absolute
to bring it about, and part of that is evident in the fact that the sense of “possible,” Scripture does not tell us.
CHAPTER 26 • THE PERSON OF CHRIST
531
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you,
and the power of the Most High will overshadow you;
therefore the child to be born will be called holy,
the Son of God.” (Luke 1:35)
Because the Spirit brought about the conception of Jesus in the womb of Mary, the child
was to be called “holy.” 2 Such a conclusion should not be taken to mean that the trans-
mission of sin comes only through the father, for Scripture nowhere makes such an asser-
tion. It is enough for us merely to say that in this case the unbroken line of descent from
Adam was interrupted, and Jesus was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit. Luke
1:35 connects this conception by the Holy Spirit with the holiness or moral purity of
Christ, and reflection on that fact allows us to understand that through the absence of a
human father, Jesus was not fully descended from Adam, and that this break in the line
of descent was the method God used to bring it about that Jesus was fully human yet did
not share inherited sin from Adam.
But why did Jesus not inherit a sinful nature from Mary? The Roman Catholic Church
answers this question by saying that Mary herself was free from sin, but Scripture
nowhere teaches this, and it would not really solve the problem anyway (for why then
did Mary not inherit sin from her mother?). 3 A better solution is to say that the work of
the Holy Spirit in Mary must have prevented not only the transmission of sin from Joseph
2 I have quoted here the translation of the RSV, which I think
to be correct (so NIV margin). But it is also grammatically pos-
sible to translate the words as “so the holy one to be born will
be called the Son of God” (NIV; similarly, NASB). The Greek
phrase is dio kai to gennomenon hagion klethesetai, huios theou.
The decision on which translation is correct depends on whether
we take to gennomenon as the subject, meaning “the child to be
born,” or whether we think that the subject is to hagion, “the
holy one,” with the participle gennomenon then functioning as
an adjective, giving the sense “the being-born holy one” (this is
the way the NIV and NASB understand it).
Recently, more extensive lexical research seems to indi-
cate that the expression to gennomenon was a fairly common
expression that was readily understood to mean “the child to
be born.” Examples of this use can be seen in Plotinus, Nead,
3.6.20-24; Plato, Menexenus , 237E; Laws, 6,775C; Philo, On
the Creation, 100; On the Change of Names, 267; Plutarch,
Moralia, “Advice to Bride and Groom,” HOF; “On Affec-
tion for Offspring,” 495E. More examples could probably
be found with a more extensive computer search, but these
should be sufficient to demonstrate that the mere grammati-
cal possibility of translating Luke 1:35 the way the NIV and
NASB do is not a strong argument in favor of their trans-
lations, because Greek-speaking readers in the first century
would ordinarily have understood the words to gennomenon
as a unit meaning “the child to be born.” Because of this fact,
the RSV represents the sense that first-century readers would
have understood from the sentence: “therefore the child to
be born will be called holy.” (I discovered these examples of
to gennomenon by searching the Thesaurus Linguae Grae-
cae data base on the Ibycus computer at Trinity Evangelical
Divinity School.)
3 The Roman Catholic Church teaches the doctrine of the
immaculate conception. This doctrine does not refer to the
conception of lesus in Mary’s womb, but to the conception of
Mary in her mother’s womb, and teaches that Mary was free
from inherited sin. On December 8, 1854, Pope Pius IX pro-
claimed, “The Most Holy Virgin Mary was, in the first moment
of her conception ... in view of the merits of lesus Christ . . .
preserved free from all stain of original sin” (Ludwig Ott, Fun-
damentals of Catholic Dogma, trans. Patrick Lynch [Rockford:
Tan, 1960FNT#], p. 190). (The Catholic Church also teaches
that “in consequence of a Special Privilege of Grace from God,
Mary was free from every personal sin during her whole life,”
p. 203.)
In response, we must say that the New Testament does
highly honor Mary as one who has “found favor with God”
(Luke 1:30) and one who is “Blessed . . . among women” (Luke
1:42), but nowhere does the Bible indicate that Mary was free
from inherited sin. The expression, “Hail, O favored one, the
Lord is with you!” (Luke 1:28) simply means that Mary has
found much blessing from God; the same word translated
“ favored ” in Luke 1:28 (Gk. charitoo) is used to refer to all
Christians in Eph. 1:6: “his glorious grace which he freely
bestowed on us in the Beloved.” In fact, Ott says, “The doc-
trine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary is not explicitly
revealed in Scripture” (p. 200), though he thinks it is implicit
in Gen. 3:15 and Luke 1:28, 41.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
532
(for Jesus had no human father) but also, in a miraculous way, the transmission of sin
from Mary: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you . . . therefore the child to be born will
be called holy” (Luke 1:35).
It has been common, at least in previous generations, for those who do not accept the
complete truthfulness of Scripture to deny the doctrine of the virgin birth of Christ. But
if our beliefs are to be governed by the statements of Scripture, then we will certainly not
deny this teaching. Whether or not we could discern any aspects of doctrinal importance
for this teaching, we should believe it first of all simply because Scripture affirms it. Cer-
tainly such a miracle is not too hard for the God who created the universe and everything
in it — anyone who affirms that a virgin birth is “impossible” is just confessing his or her
own unbelief in the God of the Bible. Yet in addition to the fact that Scripture teaches the
virgin birth, we can see that it is doctrinally important, and if we are to understand the
biblical teaching on the person of Christ correctly, it is important that we begin with an
affirmation of this doctrine.
2. Human Weaknesses and Limitations.
a. Jesus Had a Human Body: The fact that Jesus had a human body just like our human
bodies is seen in many passages of Scripture. He was born just as all human babies are
born (Luke 2:7). He grew through childhood to adulthood just as other children grow:
“And the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was
upon him” (Luke 2:40). Moreover, Luke tells us that “Jesus increased in wisdom and in
stature , and in favor with God and man” (Luke 2:52).
Jesus became tired just as we do, for we read that “Jesus, wearied as he was with his
journey, sat down beside the well” in Samaria (John 4:6). He became thirsty, for when he
was on the cross he said, “7 thirst” (John 19:28). After he had fasted for forty days in the
wilderness, we read that “he was hungry” (Matt. 4:2). He was at times physically weak,
for during his temptation in the wilderness he fasted for forty days (the point at which
a human being’s physical strength is almost entirely gone and beyond which irreparable
physical harm will occur if the fast continues). At that time “angels came and minis-
tered to him” (Matt. 4:11), apparently to care for him and provide nourishment until he
regained enough strength to come out of the wilderness. When Jesus was on his way to be
crucified, the soldiers forced Simon of Cyrene to carry his cross (Luke 23:26), most likely
because Jesus was so weak following the beating he had received that he did not have
strength enough to carry it himself. The culmination of Jesus’ limitations in terms of his
human body is seen when he died on the cross (Luke 23:46). His human body ceased to
have life in it and ceased to function, just as ours does when we die.
Jesus also rose from the dead in a physical, human body, though one that was made
perfect and was no longer subject to weakness, disease, or death. He demonstrates repeat-
edly to his disciples that he does have a real physical body: he says, “See my hands and my
feet, that it is I myself; handle me, and see; for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see
that I have” (Luke 24:39). He is showing them and teaching them that he has “flesh and
bones” and is not merely a “spirit” without a body. Another evidence of this fact is that
“they gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate before them” (Luke 24:42;
cf. v. 30; John 20:17, 20, 27; 21:9, 13).
CHAPTER 26 • THE PERSON OF CHRIST
In this same human body (though a resurrection body that was made perfect), Jesus
also ascended into heaven. He said before he left, “I am leaving the world and going to
the Father (John 16:28; cf. 17:11). The way in which Jesus ascended up to heaven was
calculated to demonstrate the continuity between his existence in a physical body here
on earth and his continuing existence in that body in heaven. Just a few verses after Jesus
had told them, “A spirit has not flesh and bones as you see that I have” (Luke 24:39), we
read in Luke’s gospel that Jesus “led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands
he blessed them. While he blessed them, he parted from them, and was carried up into
heaven (Luke 24:50—51). Similarly, we read in Acts, “As they were looking on, he was
lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight” (Acts 1:9).
All of these verses taken together show that, as far as Jesus’ human body is concerned,
it was like ours in every respect before his resurrection, and after his resurrection it was
still a human body with flesh and bones,” but made perfect, the kind of body that we
will have when Christ returns and we are raised from the dead as well. 4 Jesus continues
to exist in that human body in heaven, as the ascension is designed to teach.
b. Jesus Had A Human Mind: The fact that Jesus “ increased in wisdom ” (Luke 2:52) says
that he went through a learning process just as all other children do— he learned how to
eat, how to talk, how to read and write, and how to be obedient to his parents (see Heb.
5:8). This ordinary learning process was part of the genuine humanity of Christ.
We also see that Jesus had a human mind like ours when he speaks of the day on which
he will return to earth: “But of that day or that hour no one knows, not even the angels
in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (Mark 13:32). 5
c. Jesus Had a Human Soul and Human Emotions: We see several indications that Jesus
had a human soul (or spirit). Just before his crucifixion, Jesus said, “Now is my soul
troubled ” (John 12:27). John writes just a little later, “When Jesus had thus spoken, he
was troubled in spirit” (John 13:21). In both verses the word troubled represents the Greek
term tarasso, a word that is often used of people when they are anxious or suddenly very
surprised by danger. 6
Moreover, before Jesus’ crucifixion, as he realized the suffering he would face, he said,
“My soul is very sorrowful, even to death” (Matt. 26:38). So great was the sorrow he felt
that it seemed as though, if it were to become any stronger, it would take his very life.
Jesus had a full range of human emotions. He “marveled” at the faith of the centurion
(Matt. 8:10). He wept with sorrow at the death of Lazarus (John 11:35). And he prayed
with a heart full of emotion, for in the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and
4 See chapter 28, pp. 608-13, and chapter 42, pp. 831-36, on
the nature of the resurrection body.
5 See further discussion of this verse below, pp. 560-61.
6 The word tarasso , “troubled,” is used, for example, to
speak of the fact that Herod was “troubled” when he heard
that the wise men had come looking for the new king of the
Jews (Matt. 2:3); the disciples “were troubled” when they
suddenly saw Jesus walking on the sea and thought he was
a ghost (Matt. 14:26); Zechariah was “troubled” when he
suddenly saw an angel appear in the temple in Jerusalem (Luke
1:12); and the disciples were “troubled” when Jesus suddenly
appeared among them after his resurrection (Luke 24:38). But
the word is also used in John 14:1, 27, when Jesus says, “Let not
your hearts be troubled .” When Jesus was troubled in his spirit,
therefore, we must not think that there was any lack of faith or
any sin involved, but it was definitely a strong human emotion
that accompanied a time of extreme danger.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
534
supplications, with loud cries and tears , to him who was able to save him from death, and
he was heard for his godly fear” (Heb. 5:7).
Moreover, the author tells us, “Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through
what he suffered; and being made perfect he became the source of eternal salvation to
all who obey him” (Heb. 5:8-9). Yet if Jesus never sinned, how could he “learn obedi-
ence”? Apparently as Jesus grew toward maturity he, like all other human children, was
able to take on more and more responsibility. The older he became the more demands
his father and mother could place on him in terms of obedience, and the more difficult
the tasks that his heavenly Father could assign to him to carry out in the strength of his
human nature. With each increasingly difficult task, even when it involved some suffer-
ing (as Heb. 5:8 specifies), Jesus’ human moral ability, his ability to obey under more and
more difficult circumstances, increased. We might say that his “moral backbone” was
strengthened by more and more difficult exercise. Yet in all this he never once sinned.
The complete absence of sin in the life of Jesus is all the more remarkable because of
the severe temptations he faced, not only in the wilderness, but throughout his life. The
author of Hebrews affirms that Jesus “in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet
without sin” (Heb. 4:15). The fact that he faced temptation means that he had a genuine
human nature that could be tempted, for Scripture clearly tells us that “God cannot be
tempted with evil” (James 1:13).
d. People Near Jesus Saw Him As Only a Man: Matthew reports an amazing incident
in the middle of Jesus’ ministry. Even though Jesus had taught throughout all Galilee,
“healing every disease and every infirmity among the people,” so that “great crowds fol-
lowed him” (Matt. 4:23-25), when he came to his own village of Nazareth, the people
who had known him for many years did not receive him:
And when Jesus had finished these parables, he went away from there, and
coming to his own country he taught them in their synagogue, so that they
were astonished, and said, “ Where did this man get this wisdom and these mighty
works? Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are
not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And are not all his
sisters with us? Where then did this man get all this?” And they took offense at
him And he did not do many mighty works there, because of their unbelief
(Matt. 13:53-58)
This passage indicates that those people who knew Jesus best, the neighbors with
whom he had lived and worked for thirty years, saw him as no more than an ordinary
man — a good man, no doubt, fair and kind and truthful, but certainly not a prophet of
God who could work miracles and certainly not God himself in the flesh. Although in
the following sections we will see how Jesus was fully divine in every way — was truly
God and man in one person — we must still recognize the full force of a passage like this.
For the first thirty years of his life Jesus lived a human life that was so ordinary that the
people of Nazareth who knew him best were amazed that he could teach with authority
and work miracles. They knew him. He was one of them. He was “the carpenter’s son”
(Matt. 13:55), and he was himself “the carpenter” (Mark 6:3), so ordinary that they could
CHAPTER 26 • THE PERSON OF CHRIST
ask, “Where then did this man get all this?” (Matt. 13:56). And John tells us, “Even his
brothers did not believe in him” (John 7:5).
Was Jesus fully human? He was so fully human that even those who lived and worked
with him for thirty years, even those brothers who grew up in his own household, did not
realize that he was anything more than another very good human being. They apparently
had no idea that he was God come in the flesh.
3. Sinlessness. Though the New Testament clearly affirms that Jesus was fully human
just as we are, it also affirms that Jesus was different in one important respect: he was
without sin, and he never committed sin during his lifetime. Some have objected that
if Jesus did not sin, then he was not truly human, for all humans sin. But those making
that objection simply fail to realize that human beings are now in an abnormal situation.
God did not create us sinful, but holy and righteous. Adam and Eve in the Garden of
Eden before they sinned were truly human, and we now, though human, do not match
the pattern that God intends for us when our full, sinless humanity is restored.
The sinlessness of Jesus is taught frequently in the New Testament. We see sugges-
tions of this early in his life when he was “filled with wisdom” and “the favor of God was
upon him” (Luke 2:40). Then we see that Satan was unable to tempt Jesus successfully,
but failed, after forty days, to persuade him to sin: “And when the devil had ended every
temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time” (Luke 4:13). We also see in
the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) no evidence of wrongdoing on Jesus’
part. To the Jews who opposed him, Jesus asked, “Which of you convicts me of sin?”
(John 8:46), and received no answer.
The statements about Jesus’ sinlessness are more explicit in John’s gospel. Jesus made
the amazing proclamation, “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12). If we understand
light to represent both truthfulness and moral purity, then Jesus is here claiming to
be the source of truth and the source of moral purity and holiness in the world — an
astounding claim, and one that could only be made by someone who was free from sin.
Moreover, with regard to obedience to his Father in heaven, he said, “I always do what
is pleasing to him” (John 8:29; the present tense gives the sense of continual activity, “I
am always doing what is pleasing to him”). At the end of his life, Jesus could say, “I have
kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love” (John 15:10). It is significant that
when Jesus was put on trial before Pilate, in spite of the accusations of the Jews, Pilate
could only conclude, “I find no crime in him” (John 18:38).
In the book of Acts Jesus is several times called the “Holy One” or the “Righteous
One,” or is referred to with some similar expression (see Acts 2:27; 3:14; 4:30; 7:52;
13:35). When Paul speaks of Jesus coming to live as a man he is careful not to say that
he took on “sinful flesh,” but rather says that God sent his own Son “in the likeness of
sinful flesh and for sin” (Rom. 8:3). And he refers to Jesus as “him . . . who knew no sin”
(2 Cor. 5:21).
The author of Hebrews affirms that Jesus was tempted but simultaneously insists that
he did not sin: Jesus is “one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without
sin ” (Heb. 4:15). He is a high priest who is “holy, blameless, unstained, separated from
sinners, exalted above the heavens” (Heb. 7:26). Peter speaks of Jesus as “a lamb without
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
536
blemish or spot” (1 Peter 1:19), using Old Testament imagery to affirm his freedom from
any moral defilement. Peter directly states, “He committed no sin; no guile was found on
his lips” (1 Peter 2:22). When Jesus died, it was “the righteous for the unrighteous, that
he might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18). And John, in his first epistle, calls him “Jesus
Christ the righteous” (1 John 2:1) and says, “In him there is no sin” (1 John 3:5). It is hard
to deny, then, that the sinlessness of Christ is taught clearly in all the major sections of
the New Testament. He was truly man yet without sin.
In connection with Jesus’ sinlessness, we should notice in more detail the nature of his
temptations in the wilderness (Matt. 4:1-11; Mark 1:12-13; Luke 4:1-13). The essence
of these temptations was an attempt to persuade Jesus to escape from the hard path of
obedience and suffering that was appointed for him as the Messiah. Jesus was “led by
the Spirit for forty days in the wilderness, tempted by the devil” (Luke 4:1-2). In many
respects this temptation was parallel to the testing that Adam and Eve faced in the Gar-
den of Eden, but it was much more difficult. Adam and Eve had fellowship with God and
with each other and had an abundance of all kinds of food, for they were only told not
to eat from one tree. By contrast, Jesus had no human fellowship and no food to eat, and
after he had fasted for forty days he was near the point of physical death. In both cases
the kind of obedience required was not obedience to an eternal moral principle rooted
in the character of God, but was a test of pure obedience to God’s specific directive. With
Adam and Eve, God told them not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
and the question was whether they would obey simply because God told them. In the case
of Jesus, “led by the Spirit” for forty days in the wilderness, he apparently realized that it
was the Father’s will that he eat nothing during those days but simply remain there until
the Father, through the leading of the Holy Spirit, told him that the temptations were
over and he could leave.
We can understand, then, the force of the temptation, “If you are the Son of God,
command this stone to become bread” (Luke 4:3). Of course Jesus was the Son of God,
and of course he had the power to make any stone into bread instantly. He was the one
who would soon change water into wine and multiply the loaves and the fishes. The
temptation was intensified by the fact that it seemed as though, if he did not eat soon, his
very life would be taken from him. Yet he had come to obey God perfectly in our place,
and to do so as a man . This meant that he had to obey in his human strength alone. If
he had called upon his divine powers to make the temptation easier for himself, then he
would not have obeyed God fully as a man. The temptation was to use his divine power to
“cheat” a bit on the requirements and make obedience somewhat easier. But Jesus, unlike
Adam and Eve, refused to eat what appeared to be good and necessary for him, choosing
rather to obey the command of his heavenly Father.
The temptation to bow down and worship Satan for a moment and then receive
authority over “all the kingdoms of the world” (Luke 4:5) was a temptation to receive
power not through the path of lifelong obedience to his heavenly Father, but through
wrongful submission to the Prince of Darkness. Again, Jesus rejected the apparently easy
path and chose the path of obedience that led to the cross.
Similarly, the temptation to throw himself down from the pinnacle of the temple
(Luke 4:9-11) was a temptation to “force” God to perform a miracle and rescue him
CHAPTER26 ■ THE PERSON OF CHRIST
in a spectacular way, thus attracting a large following from the people without pursu-
ing the hard path ahead, the path that included three years of ministering to peoples
needs, teaching with authority, and exemplifying absolute holiness of life in the midst
of harsh opposition. But Jesus again resisted this “easy route” to the fulfillment of his
goals as the Messiah (again, a route that would not actually have fulfilled those goals
in any case).
These temptations were really the culmination of a lifelong process of moral strength-
ening and maturing that occurred throughout Jesus’ childhood and early adulthood,
as he “increased in wisdom . . . and in favor with God” (Luke 2:52) and as he “ learned
obedience through what he suffered” (Heb. 5:8). In these temptations in the wilderness
and in the various temptations that faced him through the thirty-three years of his life,
Christ obeyed God in our place and as our representative, thus succeeding where Adam
had failed, where the people of Israel in the wilderness had failed, and where we had failed
(see Rom. 5:18-19).
As difficult as it maybe for us to comprehend, Scripture affirms that in these tempta-
tions Jesus gained an ability to understand and help us in our temptations.“Because he
himself has suffered and been tempted , he is able to help those who are tempted” (Heb.
2:18). The author goes on to connect Jesus’ ability to sympathize with our weaknesses to
the fact the he was tempted as we are:
For we have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses,
but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us
then [lit., ‘therefore’] with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we
may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Heb. 4:15- 16)
This has practical application for us: in every situation in which we are struggling with
temptation, we should reflect on the life of Christ and ask if there were not similar situa-
tions that he faced. Usually, after reflecting for a moment or two, we will be able to think
of some instances in the life of Christ where he faced temptations that, though they were
not the same in every detail, were very similar to the situations that we face every day. 4 * * 7
4. Could Jesus Have Sinned? The question is sometimes raised, “Was it possible for
Christ to have sinned?” Some people argue for the impeccability of Christ, in which the
word impeccable means “not able to sin.” 8 Others object that if Jesus were not able to sin,
his temptations could not have been real, for how can a temptation be real if the person
being tempted is not able to sin anyway?
Particularly with respect to family life, it is helpful to
remember that Joseph is nowhere mentioned in the Gospels
after the incident in the temple when Jesus was twelve years
old. It is especially interesting that Joseph is omitted from
the verses that list Jesus’ mother and other family members,
even naming his brothers and sisters (see Matt. 13:55-56;
Mark 6:3; cf. Matt. 12:48). It would seem very strange, for
example, that “the mother of Jesus” was at the wedding at
Cana in Galilee (John 2:1) but not his father, if his father were
still living (cf. John 2:12). This suggests that sometime after
Jesus was twelve Joseph had died, and that for a period in
his life Jesus grew up in a “single-parent home.” This would
mean that, as he became older, he assumed more and more of
the responsibility of male leadership in that family, earning
a living as a “carpenter” (Mark 6:3) and no doubt helping
care for his younger brothers and sisters as well. Therefore,
although Jesus was never married, he no doubt experienced a
wide range of family situations and conflicts similar to those
experienced by families today.
8 The Latin word peccare means “to sin.”
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
538
In order to answer this question we must distinguish what Scripture clearly affirms,
on the one hand, and, on the other hand, what is more in the nature of possible inference
on our part. (1) Scripture clearly affirms that Christ never actually sinned (see above).
There should be no question in our minds at all on this fact. (2) It also clearly affirms
that Jesus was tempted, and that these were real temptations (Luke 4:2). If we believe
Scripture, then we must insist that Christ “in every respect has been tempted as we are , yet
without sin” (Heb. 4:15). If our speculation on the question ofwhether Christ could have
sinned ever leads us to say that he was not truly tempted, then we have reached a wrong
conclusion, one that contradicts the clear statements of Scripture.
(3) We also must affirm with Scripture that “God cannot be tempted with evil” (James
1:13). But here the question becomes difficult: if Jesus was fully God as well as fully man
(and we shall argue below that Scripture clearly and repeatedly teaches this), then must
we not also affirm that (in some sense) Jesus also “could not be tempted with evil”?
This is as far as we can go in terms of clear and explicit affirmations of Scripture. At this
point we are faced with a dilemma similar to a number of other doctrinal dilemmas where
Scripture seems to be teaching things that are, if not directly contradictory, at least very
difficult to combine together in our understanding. For example, with respect to the doc-
trine of the Trinity, we affirmed that God exists in three persons, and each is fully God, and
there is one God. Although those statements are not contradictory, they are, nonetheless,
difficult to understand in connection with each other, and although we can make some
progress in understanding how they fit together, in this life, at least, we have to admit that
there can be no final understanding on our part. Here the situation is somewhat similar.
We do not have an actual contradiction. Scripture does not tell us that “Jesus was tempted”
and that “Jesus was not tempted” (a contradiction if “Jesus” and “tempted” are used exactly
in the same sense in both sentences). The Bible tells us that “Jesus was tempted” and “Jesus
was fully man” and “Jesus was fully God” and “God cannot be tempted.” This combination
of teachings from Scripture leaves open the possibility that as we understand the way in
which Jesus’ human nature and divine nature work together, we might understand more
of the way in which he could be tempted in one sense and yet, in another sense, not be
tempted. (This possibility will be discussed further below.)
At this point, then, we pass beyond the clear affirmations of Scripture and attempt to
suggest a solution to the problem ofwhether Christ could have sinned. But it is important
to recognize that the following solution is more in the nature of a suggested means of
combining various biblical teachings and is not directly supported by explicit statements
of Scripture. With this in mind, it is appropriate for us to say: 9 (1) If Jesus’ human nature
had existed by itself, independent of his divine nature, then it would have been a human
nature just like that which God gave Adam and Eve. It would have been free from sin but
nonetheless able to sin . Therefore, if Jesus’ human nature had existed by itself, there was
the abstract or theoretical possibility that Jesus could have sinned, just as Adam and Eve’s
human natures were able to sin. (2) But Jesus’ human nature never existed apart from
union with his divine nature. From the moment of his conception, he existed as truly
9 In this discussion I am largely following the conclusions of
Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1948), pp. 339-42.
CHAPTER 26 ■ THE PERSON OF CHRIST
God and truly man as well. Both his human nature and his divine nature existed united
in one person. (3) Although there were some things (such as being hungry or thirsty or
weak) that Jesus experienced in his human nature alone and were not experienced in his
divine nature (see below), nonetheless, an act of sin would have been a moral act that
would apparently have involved the whole person of Christ. Therefore, if he had sinned,
it would have involved both his human and divine natures. (4) But if Jesus as a person
had sinned, involving both his human and divine natures in sin, then God himself would
have sinned, and he would have ceased to be God. Yet that is clearly impossible because
of the infinite holiness of Gods nature. (5) Therefore, if we are asking if it was actually
possible for Jesus to have sinned, it seems that we must conclude that it was not possible.
The union of his human and divine natures in one person prevented it.
But the question remains, “How then could Jesus’ temptations be real?” The example
of the temptation to change the stones into bread is helpful in this regard. Jesus had the
ability, by virtue of his divine nature, to perform this miracle, but if he had done it, he
would no longer have been obeying in the strength of his human nature alone, he would
have failed the test that Adam also failed, and he would not have earned our salvation for
us. Therefore, Jesus refused to rely on his divine nature to make obedience easier for him.
In like manner, it seems appropriate to conclude that Jesus met every temptation to sin,
not by his divine power, but on the strength of his human nature alone (though, of course,
it was not “alone” because Jesus, in exercising the kind of faith that humans should exer-
cise, was perfectly depending on God the Father and the Holy Spirit at every moment).
The moral strength of his divine nature was there as a sort of “backstop” that would have
prevented him from sinning in any case (and therefore we can say that it was not possible
for him to sin), but he did not rely on the strength of his divine nature to make it easier
for him to face temptations, and his refusal to turn the stones into bread at the beginning
of his ministry is a clear indication of this.
Were the temptations real then? Many theologians have pointed out that only he who
successfully resists a temptation to the end most fully feels the force of that temptation.
Just as a champion weightlifter who successfully lifts and holds over head the heaviest
weight in the contest feels the force of it more fully than one who attempts to lift it and
drops it, so any Christian who has successfully faced a temptation to the end knows that
that is far more difficult than giving in to it at once. So it was with Jesus: every tempta-
tion he faced, he faced to the end, and triumphed over it. The temptations were real, even
though he did not give in to them. In fact, they were most real because he did not give in
to them.
What then do we say about the fact that “God cannot be tempted with evil” (James
1:13)? It seems that this is one of a number of things that we must affirm to be true
of Jesus’ divine nature but not of his human nature. His divine nature could not be
tempted with evil, but his human nature could be tempted and was clearly tempted. How
these two natures united in one person in facing temptations, Scripture does not clearly
explain to us. But this distinction between what is true of one nature and what is true of
another nature is an example of a number of similar statements that Scripture requires
us to make (see more on this distinction, below, when we discuss how Jesus could be God
and man in one person).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
540
5. Why Was Jesus’ Full Humanity Necessary? When John wrote his first epistle, a hereti-
cal teaching was circulating in the church to the effect that Jesus was not a man. This
heresy became known as docetism. 10 So serious was this denial of truth about Christ,
that John could say it was a doctrine of the antichrist: “By this you know the Spirit of
God: every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and
every spirit which does not confess Jesus is not of God. This is the spirit of antichrist”
(1 John 4:2-3). The apostle John understood that to deny Jesus’ true humanity was to
deny something at the very heart of Christianity, so that no one who denied that Jesus
had come in the flesh was sent from God.
As we look through the New Testament, we see several reasons why Jesus had to be
fully man if he was going to be the Messiah and earn our salvation. We can list seven of
those reasons here.
a. For Representative Obedience: As we noted in the chapter on the covenants between
God and man above, 11 Jesus was our representative and obeyed for us where Adam
had failed and disobeyed. We see this in the parallels between Jesus’ temptation (Luke
4:1-13) and the time of testing for Adam and Eve in the garden (Gen. 2:15-3:7). It is
also clearly reflected in Paul’s discussion of the parallels between Adam and Christ, in
Adam’s disobedience and Christ’s obedience:
Then as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man’s act of
righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men. For as by one man’s disobe-
dience many were made sinners, so by one man’s obedience many will be made
righteous. (Rom. 5:18-19)
This is why Paul can call Christ “the last Adam” (1 Cor. 15:45) and can call Adam the
“first man” and Christ the “second man” (1 Cor. 15:47). Jesus had to be a man in order
to be our representative and obey in our place.
b. To Be a Substitute Sacrifice: If Jesus had not been a man, he could not have died in
our place and paid the penalty that was due to us. The author of Hebrews tells us that
“For surely it is not with angels that he is concerned but with the descendants of Abra-
ham. Therefore he had to be made like his brethren in every respect, so that he might
become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make expiation
[more accurately, propitiation’] for the sins of the people” (Heb. 2:16-17; cf. v. 14). Jesus
had to become a man, not an angel, because God was concerned with saving men, not
with saving angels. But to do this he “ had to” be made like us in every way, so that he
might become “the propitiation” for us, the sacrifice that is an acceptable substitute for
us. Though this idea will be discussed more fully in chapter 27, on the atonement, it is
10 The word docetism comes from the Greek verb doked, “to
seem, to appear to be.” Any theological position that says that
Jesus was not really a man, but only appeared to be a man, is
called a “docetic” position. Behind docetism is an assumption
that the material creation is inherently evil, and therefore the
Son of God could not have been united to a true human nature.
No prominent church leader ever advocated docetism, but it was
a troublesome heresy that had various supporters in the first
four centuries of the church. Modern evangelicals who neglect
to teach on the full humanity of Christ can unwittingly support
docetic tendencies in their hearers.
“See chapter 25, p. 518; also chapter 27, pp. 570-71.
CHAPTER 26 * THE PERSON OF CHRIST
important here to realize that unless Christ was fully man, he could not have died to pay
the penalty for man’s sins. He could not have been a substitute sacrifice for us.
c. To Be the One Mediator Between God and Men: Because we were alienated from God
by sin, we needed someone to come between God and ourselves and bring us back to him.
We needed a mediator who could represent us to God and who could represent God to us.
There is only one person who has ever fulfilled that requirement: “There is one God, and
there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5). In order
to fulfill this role of mediator, Jesus had to be fully man as well as fully God.
d. To Fulfill God’s Original Purpose for Man to Rule Over Creation: As we saw in
the discussion of the purpose for which God created man, 12 God put mankind on the
earth to subdue it and rule over it as Gods representatives. But man did not fulfill that
purpose, for he instead fell into sin. The author of Hebrews realizes that God intended
everything to be in subjection to man, but he admits, “As it is, we do not yet see every-
thing in subjection to him” (Heb. 2:8). Then when Jesus came as a man, he was able to
obey God and thereby have the right to rule over creation as a man , thus fulfilling God’s
original purpose in putting man on the earth. Hebrews recognizes this when it says that
now “we see Jesus” in the place of authority over the universe, “crowned with glory and
honor” (Heb. 2:9; cf. the same phrase in v. 7). Jesus in fact has been given “all authority
in heaven and on earth” (Matt. 28:18), and God has “put all things under his feet and has
made him the head over all things for the church” (Eph. 1:22). Indeed, we shall someday
reign with him on his throne (Rev. 3:21) and experience, in subjection to Christ our Lord,
the fulfillment of God’s purpose that we reign over the earth (cf. Luke 19:17, 19; 1 Cor.
6:3). Jesus had to be a man in order to fulfill God’s original purpose that man rule over
his creation.
e. To Be Our Example and Pattern in Life: John tells us, “He who says he abides in
him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked ” (1 John 2:6), and reminds us
that “when he appears we shall be like him,” and that this hope of future conformity to
Christ’s character even now gives increasing moral purity to our lives (1 John 3:2-3).
Paul tells us that we are continually being “changed into his likeness” (2 Cor. 3:18), thus
moving toward the goal for which God saved us, that we might “be conformed to the
image of his Son” (Rom. 8:29). Peter tells us that especially in suffering we have to con-
sider Christ’s example: “Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example , that you
should follow in his steps” (1 Peter 2:21). Throughout our Christian life, we are to run
the race set before us “looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith” (Heb. 12:2).
If we become discouraged by the hostility and opposition of sinners, we are to “consider
him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself” (Heb. 12:3). Jesus is also
our example in death. Paul’s goal is to become “ like him in his death” (Phil. 3:10; cf. Acts
7:60; 1 Peter 3:17-18 with 4:1). Our goal should be to be like Christ all our days, up to
the point of death, and to die with unfailing obedience to God, with strong trust in him,
12 See chapter 15, pp. 272-73, and chapter 21, pp. 447-48.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
542
and with love and forgiveness to others. Jesus had to become a man like us in order to
live as our example and pattern in life.
f. To Be the Pattern for Our Redeemed Bodies: Paul tells us that when Jesus rose from
the dead he rose in a new body that was “imperishable . . . raised in glory . . . raised in
power . . . raised a spiritual body” (1 Cor. 15:42-44). This new resurrection body that
Jesus had when he rose from the dead is the pattern for what our bodies will be like when
we are raised from the dead, because Christ is “the first fruits” (1 Cor. 15:23) — an agri-
cultural metaphor that likens Christ to the first sample of the harvest, showing what the
other fruit from that harvest would be like. We now have a physical body like Adam’s,
but we will have one like Christ’s: “Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust,
we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven” (1 Cor. 15:49). Jesus had to be raised
as a man in order to be the “first-born from the dead” (Col. 1:18), the pattern for the
bodies that we would later have.
g. To Sympathize As High Priest: The author of Hebrews reminds us that “because he
himself has suffered and been tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted” (Heb.
2:18; cf. 4:15-16). If Jesus had not been a man, he would not have been able to know by
experience what we go through in our temptations and struggles in this life. But because
he has lived as a man, he is able to sympathize more fully with us in our experiences. 13
6. Jesus Will Be a Man Forever. Jesus did not give up his human nature after his death
and resurrection, for he appeared to his disciples as a man after the resurrection, even
with the scars of the nail prints in his hands (John 20:25-27). He had “flesh and bones”
(Luke 24:39) and ate food (Luke 24:41-42). Later, when he was talking with his dis-
ciples, he was taken up into heaven, still in his resurrected human body, and two angels
promised that he would return in the same way: “This Jesus, who was taken up from you
into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11). Still
later, Stephen gazed into heaven and saw Jesus as “the Son of man standing at the right
hand of God” (Acts 7:56). Jesus also appeared to Saul on the Damascus Road and said, “I
am Jesus, whom you are persecuting” (Acts 9:5) — an appearance that Saul (Paul) later
coupled with the resurrection appearances of Jesus to others (1 Cor. 9:1; 15:8). In John’s
vision in Revelation, Jesus still appears as “one like a son of man” (Rev. 1:13), though
he is filled with great glory and power, and his appearance causes John to fall at his feet
in awe (Rev. 1:13-17). He promises one day to drink wine again with his disciples in
13 This is a difficult concept for us to understand, because
we do not want to say that Jesus acquired additional knowledge
or information by becoming man: certainly as omniscient God
he knew every fact there was to know about the experience of
human suffering. But the book of Hebrews does say, “ Because
he himself has suffered and been tempted, he is able to help
those who are tempted” (Heb. 2:18), and we must insist that
that statement is true — there is a relationship between Jesus’
suffering and his ability to sympathize with us and help us in
temptation. Apparently the author is speaking not of any addi-
tional factual or intellectual knowledge, but of an ability to
recall a personal experience that he had himself gone through,
an ability he would not have if he had not had that personal
experience. Some faint parallel to this might be seen in the fact
that a man who is a medical doctor, and has perhaps even writ-
ten a textbook on obstetrics, might know far more information
about childbirth than any of his patients. Yet, because he is a
man, he will never share in that actual experience. A woman
who has herself had a baby (or, to give a closer parallel, a woman
physician who first writes a textbook and then has a baby her-
self) can sympathize much more fully with other women who
are having babies.
CHAPTER 26 • THE PERSON OF CHRIST
his Father’s kingdom (Matt. 26:29) and invites us to a great marriage supper in heaven
(Rev. 19:9). Moreover, Jesus will continue forever in his offices as prophet, priest, and
king, all of them carried out by virtue of the fact that he is both God and man forever. 14
All of these texts indicate that Jesus did not temporarily become man, but that his
divine nature was permanently united to his human nature, and he lives forever not just
as the eternal Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, but also as Jesus, the man who
was born of Mary, and as Christ, the Messiah and Savior of his people. Jesus will remain
fully God and fully man, yet one person, forever.
B. The Deity of Christ
To complete the biblical teaching about Jesus Christ, we must affirm not only that he
was fully human, but also that he was fully divine. Although the word does not explicitly
occur in Scripture, the church has used the term incarnation to refer to the fact that Jesus
was God in human flesh. The incarnation was the act of God the Son whereby he took to
himself a human nature. 15 The scriptural proof for the deity of Christ is very extensive in
the New Testament. We shall examine it under several categories. 16
1. Direct Scriptural Claims. In this section we examine direct statements of Scripture
that Jesus is God or that he is divine. 17
a. The Word God (Theos) Used of Christ: Although the word theos, “God,” is usually
reserved in the New Testament for God the Father, nonetheless, there are several passages
where it is also used to refer to Jesus Christ. In all of these passages the word “God” is
used in the strong sense to refer to the one who is the Creator of heaven and earth, the
ruler over all. These passages include John 1:1; 1:18 (in older and better manuscripts);
20:28; Romans 9:5; Titus 2:13; Hebrews 1:8 (quoting Ps. 45:6); and 2 Peter 1:1. 18 As these
passages have been discussed in some detail in the chapter on the Trinity, 19 the discus-
sion will not be repeated here. It is enough to note that there are at least these seven clear
passages in the New Testament that explicitly refer to Jesus as God.
One Old Testament example of the name God applied to Christ is seen in a familiar
messianic passage: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government
14 See chapter 29, pp. 624-33, on the offices of Christ.
15 The Latin word incarnare means “to make flesh,” and is
derived from the prefix in- (which has a causative sense, “to
cause something to be something”) and the stem caro, carnis-,
“flesh.”
16 In the following section I have not distinguished between
claims to deity made by Jesus himself and claims made about
him by others: while such a distinction is helpful for tracing
development in people’s understanding of Christ, for our
present purposes both kinds of statements are found in our
canonical New Testament Scriptures and are valid sources for
building Christian doctrine.
17 An excellent discussion of New Testament evidence for
the deity of Christ, drawn especially from the titles of Christ
in the New Testament, is found in Donald Guthrie, New Testa-
ment Theology (Leicester and Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity
Press, 1981), pp. 235-365.
18 Titus 1:3, in connection with the fact that v. 4 calls Christ
Jesus “our Savior” and the fact that it was Jesus Christ who
commissioned Paul to preach the gospel, might also be con-
sidered another example of the use of the word God to refer
to Christ.
19 See chapter 14, pp. 233-37, for discussion of passages
that refer to Jesus as “God.” See also Murray J. Harris, Jesus
as God (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992), for the most extensive
exegetical treatment ever published dealing with New Testa-
ment passages that refer to Jesus as “God.”
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
will be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called ‘Wonderful Counselor, Mighty
God..r (Isa. 9:6).
b. The Word Lord (Kyrios) Used of Christ: Sometimes the word Lord (Gk. kyrios) is used
simply as a polite address to a superior, roughly equivalent to our word sir (see Matt.
13:27; 21:30; 27:63; John 4:11). Sometimes it can simply mean “master” of a servant or
slave (Matt. 6:24; 21:40). Yet the same word is also used in the Septuagint (the Greek
translation of the Old Testament, which was commonly used at the time of Christ) as a
translation for the Hebrew yhwh, “Yahweh,” or (as it is frequently translated) “the Lord,”
or “Jehovah.” The word kyrios is used to translate the name of the Lord 6,814 times in the
Greek Old Testament. Therefore, any Greek-speaking reader at the time of the New Tes-
tament who had any knowledge at all of the Greek Old Testament would have recognized
that, in contexts where it was appropriate, the word “Lord” was the name of the one who
was the Creator and Sustainer of heaven and earth, the omnipotent God.
Now there are many instances in the New Testament where “Lord” is used of Christ
in what can only be understood as this strong Old Testament sense, “the Lord” who is
Yahweh or God himself. This use of the word “Lord” is quite striking in the word of the
angel to the shepherds of Bethlehem: “For to you is born this day in the city of David a
Savior, who is Christ the Lord ” (Luke 2:11). Though these words are familiar to us from
frequent reading of the Christmas story, we should realize how surprising it would be
to any first-century Jew to hear that someone born as a baby was the “Christ” (or “Mes-
siah”), 20 and, moreover, that this one who was the Messiah was also “the Lord” — that is,
the Lord God himself! The amazing force of the angeLs statement, which the shepherds
could hardly believe, was to say, essentially, “Today in Bethlehem a baby has been born
who is your Savior and your Messiah, and who is also God himself.” It is not surprising
that “all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them” (Luke 2:18).
When Mary comes to visit Elizabeth several months before Jesus is to be born, Eliza-
beth says, “Why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? ” (Luke
1:43). Because Jesus was not even born, Elizabeth could not be using the word “Lord” to
mean something like human “master.” She must rather be using it in the strong Old Tes-
tament sense, giving an amazing sense to the sentence: “Why is this granted me, that the
mother of the Lord God himself should come to me?” Though this is a very strong state-
ment, it is difficult to understand the word “Lord” in this context in any weaker sense.
We see another example when Matthew says that John the Baptist is the one who cries
out in the wilderness, “Prepare the way of the Lord , make his paths straight” (Matt. 3:3). In
doing this John is quoting Isaiah 40:3, which speaks about the Lord God himself coming
among his people. But the context applies this passage to John’s role of preparing the way
for Jesus to come. The implication is that when Jesus comes, the Lord himself will come.
Jesus also identifies himself as the sovereign Lord of the Old Testament when he asks
the Pharisees about Psalm 110:1, “The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, till
I put your enemies under your feet” (Matt. 22:44). The force of this statement is that
20 The word Christ is the Greek translation of the Hebrew
word Messiah.
CHAPTER 26 • THE PERSON OF CHRIST
“God the Father said to God the Son [David’s Lord] , ‘Sit at my right hand. . . The
Pharisees know he is talking about himself and identifying himself as one worthy of the
Old Testament title kyrios, “Lord.”
Such usage is seen frequently in the Epistles, where “the Lord” is a common name to
refer to Christ. Paul says “there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for
whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through
whom we exist” (1 Cor. 8:6; cf. 12:3, and many other passages in the Pauline epistles).
A particularly clear passage is found in Hebrews 1, where the author quotes Psalm 102,
which speaks about the work of the Lord in creation and applies it to Christ:
You, Lord, founded the earth in the beginning,
and the heavens are the work of your hands;
they will perish, but you remain;
they will all grow old like a garment,
like a mantle you will roll them up,
and they will be changed.
But you are the same,
and your years will never end. (Heb. 1:10- 12)
Here Christ is explicitly spoken of as the eternal Lord of heaven and earth who created
all things and will remain the same forever. Such strong usage of the term “Lord” to refer
to Christ culminates in Revelation 19:16, where we see Christ returning as conquering
King, and “On his robe and on his thigh he has a name inscribed, King of kings and Lord
of lords”
c. Other Strong Claims to Deity: In addition to the uses of the word God and Lord to refer
to Christ, we have other passages that strongly claim deity for Christ. When Jesus told his
Jewish opponents that Abraham had seen his (Christ’s) day, they challenged him, “You
are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” (John 8:57). Here a sufficient
response to prove Jesus’ eternity would have been, “Before Abraham was, I was.” But
Jesus did not say this. Instead, he made a much more startling assertion: “Truly, truly, I
say to you, before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58). Jesus combined two assertions whose
sequence seemed to make no sense: “Before something in the past happened [Abraham
was], something in the present happened [I am].” The Jewish leaders recognized at once
that he was not speaking in riddles or uttering nonsense: when he said, “I am,” he was
repeating the very words God used when he identified himself to Moses as “J AM who I
AM” (Ex. 3:14). Jesus was claiming for himself the title “I AM,” by which God designates
himself as the eternal existing One, the God who is the source of his own existence and
who always has been and always will be. When the Jews heard this unusual, emphatic,
solemn statement, they knew that he was claiming to be God. “So they took up stones to
throw at him; but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple” (John 8: 59). 21
21 The other “I am” sayings in John’s gospel, where Jesus (14:6), and the true vine (15:1), also contribute to the overall
claims to be the bread of life (6:35), the light of the world (8:12), picture of deity that John paints of Christ: see Donald Guthrie,
the door of the sheep (10:7), the good shepherd (10:11), the res- New Testament Theology ; pp. 330-32.
urrection and the life (11:25), the way, the truth, and the life
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
546
Another strong claim to deity is Jesus’ statement at the end of Revelation, “I am the
Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end” (Rev. 22:13).
When this is combined with the statement of God the Father in Revelation 1:8, “I
am the Alpha and the Omega,” it also constitutes a strong claim to equal deity with
God the Father. Sovereign over all of history and all of creation, Jesus is the beginning
and the end.
In John 1:1, John not only calls Jesus “God” but also refers to him as “the Word” (Gk.
logos), John’s readers would have recognized in this term logos a dual reference, both
to the powerful, creative Word of God in the Old Testament by which the heavens and
earth were created (Ps. 33:6) and to the organizing or unifying principle of the universe,
the thing that held it together and allowed it to make sense, in Greek thinking. 22 John
is identifying Jesus with both of these ideas and saying that he is not only the powerful,
creative Word of God and the organizing or unifying force in the universe, but also that
he became man: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth;
we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father” (John 1:14). Here is
another strong claim to deity coupled with an explicit statement that Jesus also became
man and moved among us as a man.
Further evidence of claims to deity can be found in the fact that Jesus calls himself
“ the Son of man.” This title is used eighty- four times in the four gospels but only by Jesus
and only to speak of himself (note, e.g., Matt. 16:13 with Luke 9:18). In the rest of the
New Testament, the phrase “ the Son of man” (with the definite article “the”) is used only
once, in Acts 7:56, where Stephen refers to Christ as the Son of Man. This unique term
has as its background the vision in Daniel 7 where Daniel saw one like a “Son of Man”
who “came to the Ancient of Days” and was given “dominion and glory and kingdom,
that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting
dominion, which shall not pass away” (Dan. 7: 13 - 14). It is striking that this “son of man”
came “with the clouds of heaven” (Dan. 7:13). This passage clearly speaks of someone
who had heavenly origin and who was given eternal rule over the whole world . The high
priests did not miss the point of this passage when Jesus said, “Hereafter you will see the
Son of man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven” (Matt.
26:64). The reference to Daniel 7:13-14 was unmistakable, and the high priest and his
council knew that Jesus was claiming to be the eternal world ruler of heavenly origin
spoken of in Daniel’s vision. Immediately they said, “He has uttered blasphemy. ... He
deserves death” (Matt. 26:65-66). Here Jesus finally made explicit the strong claims to
eternal world rule that were earlier hinted at in his frequent use of the title “the Son of
man” to apply to himself.
Though the title “Son of God” can sometimes be used simply to refer to Israel (Matt.
2:15), or to man as created by God (Luke 2:38), or to redeemed man generally (Rom.
8:14, 19, 23), there are nevertheless instances in which the phrase “Son of God” refers to
Jesus as the heavenly, eternal Son who is equal to God himself (see Matt. 11:25-30; 17:5;
1 Cor. 15:28; Heb. 1:1 -3, 5, 8). This is especially true in John’s gospel where Jesus is seen
as a unique Son from the Father (John 1:14, 18, 34, 49) who fully reveals the Father (John
22 See Donald Guthrie, New Testament Theology, esp. p. 326.
CHAPTER 26 • THE PERSON OF CHRIST
8:19; 14:9). As Son he is so great that we can trust in him for eternal life (something
that could be said of no created being: John 3:16, 36; 20:31). He is also the one who has
all authority from the Father to give life, pronounce eternal judgment, and rule over
all (John 3:36; 5:20—22, 25; 10:17; 16:15). As Son he has been sent by the Father, and
therefore he existed before he came into the world (John 3:17; 5:23; 10:36).
The first three verses of Hebrews are emphatic in saying that the Son is the one whom
God “appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world” (Heb.
1:2). This Son, says the writer, “reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp [lit., is
the ‘exact duplicate,’ Gk. charakter) of his nature, upholding the universe by his word of
power” (Heb. 1:3). Jesus is the exact duplicate of the “nature” (or being, Gk. hypostasis )
of God, making him exactly equal to God in every attribute. Moreover, he continually
upholds the universe “by his word of power,” something that only God could do.
These passages combine to indicate that the title “Son of God” when applied to Christ
strongly affirms his deity as the eternal Son in the Trinity, one equal to God the Father
in all his attributes.
2. Evidence That Jesus Possessed Attributes of Deity. In addition to the specific affirma-
tions of Jesus deity seen in the many passages quoted above, we see many examples of
actions in Jesus’ lifetime that point to his divine character.
Jesus demonstrated his omnipotence when he stilled the storm at sea with a word
(Matt. 8:26-27), multiplied the loaves and fish (Matt. 14:19), and changed water into
wine (John 2:1 — 11). Some might object that these miracles just showed the power of the
Holy Spirit working through him, just as the Holy Spirit could work through any other
human being, and therefore these do not demonstrate Jesus’ own deity. But the contex-
tual explanations of these events often point not to what they demonstrate about the
power of the Holy Spirit but to what they demonstrate about Jesus himself. For instance,
after Jesus turned water into wine, John tells us, “This, the first of his miraculous signs,
Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory; and his disciples believed in him”
(John 2:11). It was not the glory of the Holy Spirit that was manifested but the glory of
Jesus himself, as his divine power worked to change water into wine. Similarly, after Jesus
stilled the storm on the Sea of Galilee, the disciples did not say, “How great is the power
of the Holy Spirit working through this prophet,” but rather, “What sort of man is this,
that even winds and sea obey him?” (Matt. 8:27). It was the authority of Jesus himself to
which the winds and the waves were subject, and this could only be the authority of God
who rules over the seas and has power to still the waves (cf. Ps. 65:7; 89:9; 107:29). 23
Jesus asserts his eternity when he says, “Before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58, see
discussion above), or, “I am the Alpha and the Omega” (Rev. 22:13).
The omniscience of Jesus is demonstrated in his knowing people’s thoughts (Mark 2:8)
and seeing Nathaniel under the fig tree from far away (John 1:48), and knowing “from
the first who those were that did not believe, and who it was that would betray him ”
(John 6:64). Of course, the revelation of individual, specific events or facts is something
23 I recognize that other passages attribute some of Christ’s
miracles to the Holy Spirit— see Matt. 12:28; Luke 4:14, 18, 40.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
548
that God could give to anyone who had a gift of prophecy in the Old or New Testaments.
But Jesus’ knowledge was much more extensive than that. He knew “who those were that
did not believe,” thus implying that he knew the belief or unbelief that was in the hearts
of all men. In fact, John says explicitly that Jesus “knew all men and needed no one to
bear witness of man” (John 2:25). The disciples could later say to him, “Now we know
that you know all things ” (John 16:30). These statements say much more than what could
be said of any great prophet or apostle of the Old Testament or New Testament, for they
imply omniscience on the part of Jesus. 24
Finally, after his resurrection, when Jesus asked Peter if he loved him, Peter answered,
“Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you” (John 21:17). Here Peter is saying
much more than that Jesus knows his heart and knows that he loves him. He is rather
making a general statement (“You know everything”) and from it he is drawing a specific
conclusion (“You know that I love you”). Peter is confident that Jesus knows what is in
the heart of every person, and therefore he is sure that Jesus knows his own heart.
The divine attribute of omnipresence is not directly affirmed to be true of Jesus during
his earthly ministry. However, while looking forward to the time that the church would
be established, Jesus could say, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am
I in the midst of them” (Matt. 18:20). Moreover, before he left the earth, he told his dis-
ciples, “I am with you always, to the close of the age” (Matt. 28:20). 25
That Jesus possessed divine sovereignty, a kind of authority possessed by God alone,
is seen in the fact that he could forgive sins (Mark 2:5-7). Unlike the Old Testament
prophets who declared, “Thus says the Lord,” he could preface his statements with the
phrase, “But I say to you n (Matt. 5:22, 28, 32, 34, 39, 44) — an amazing claim to his own
authority. He could speak with the authority of God himself because he was himself
fully God. He had “all things” delivered into his hands by the Father and the authority to
reveal the Father to whomever he chose (Matt. 11:25-27). Such is his authority that the
future eternal state of everyone in the universe depends on whether they believe in him
or reject him (John 3:36).
Jesus also possessed the divine attribute of immortality, the inability to die. We see
this indicated near the beginning of John’s gospel, when Jesus says to the Jews, “Destroy
this temple, and in three days I will raise it up ” (John 2:19). John explains that he was not
speaking about the temple made with stones in Jerusalem, “but he spoke of the temple
of his body : When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that
he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken”
(John 2:21-22). We must insist of course that Jesus really did die: this very passage
speaks of the time when “he was raised from the dead.” But it is also significant that
Jesus predicts that he will have an active role in his own resurrection: “I will raise it up.”
Although other Scripture passages tell us that God the Father was active in raising Christ
from the dead, here he says that he himself will be active in his resurrection.
24 See below, pp. 560-63, on Mark 13:32, and on the ques-
tion of how omniscience can be consistent with Christ’s learn-
ing things as a man.
25 I do not mean to imply that these verses show that
Jesus’ human nature was omnipresent. Jesus’ human nature,
including his physical body, was never more than one place
at one time. It is probably best to understand these verses to
refer to Jesus’ divine nature (see below, pp. 556-61, for dis-
cussion of the distinction between Christ’s two natures). See
also Matt. 8:13.
CHAPTER 26 • THE PERSON OF CHRIST
549
Jesus claims the power to lay down his life and take it up again in another pas-
sage in John’s gospel: “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my
life, that I may take it again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own
accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again; this charge I
have received from my Father” (John 10:17-18). Here Jesus speaks of a power no other
human being has had — the power to lay down his own life and the power to take it
up again. Once again, this is an indication that Jesus possessed the divine attribute
of immortality. Similarly, the author of Hebrews says that Jesus “has become a priest,
not according to a legal requirement concerning bodily descent but by the power of
an indestructible life ” (Heb. 7:16). (The fact that immortality is a unique characteristic
of God alone is seen in 1 Tim. 6:16, which speaks of God as the one “who alone has
immortality.”)
Another clear attestation to the deity of Christ is the fact that he is counted worthy
to be worshiped, something that is true of no other creature, including angels (see Rev.
19:10), but only God alone. Yet Scripture says of Christ that “God has highly exalted him
and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue
confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:9-11). S imilar ly,
God commands the angels to worship Christ, for we read, “When he brings the first-born
into the world, he says, ‘Let all God’s angels worship him’ ” (Heb. 1:6).
John is allowed a glimpse of the worship that occurs in heaven, for he sees thousands
and thousands of angels and heavenly creatures around God’s throne saying, “Worthy
is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and
honor and glory and blessing!” (Rev. 5:12). Then he hears “ every creature in heaven and
on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all therein, saying, ‘To him who sits
upon the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might for ever and
ever!”’ (Rev. 5:13). Christ is here called “the Lamb who was slain,” and he is accorded
the universal worship offered to God the Father, thus clearly demonstrating his equality
in deity. 26
3. Did Jesus Give Up Some of His Divine Attributes While on Earth? (The Kenosis
Theory). Paul writes to the Philippians,
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though
he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be
grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the
likeness of men. (Phil. 2:5-7)
Beginning with this text, several theologians in Germany (from about 1860-1880)
and in England (from about 1890—1910) advocated a view of the incarnation that had
not been advocated before in the history of the church. This new view was called the
“kenosis theory,” and the overall position it represented was called “kenotic theology.”
26 See also Matt. 28:17 where Jesus accepted worship from
his disciples after his resurrection.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
550
The kenosis theory holds that Christ gave up some of his divine attributes while he was on
earth as a man. (The word kenosis is taken from the Greek verb kenoo t which generally
means “to empty” and is translated “emptied himself” in Phil. 2:7.) According to the
theory Christ “emptied himself” of some of his divine attributes, such as omniscience,
omnipresence, and omnipotence, while he was on earth as a man. This was viewed as
a voluntary self-limitation on Christ’s part, which he carried out in order to fulfill his
work of redemption. 27
But does Philippians 2:7 teach that Christ emptied himself of some of his divine attri-
butes, and does the rest of the New Testament confirm this? The evidence of Scripture
points to a negative answer to both questions. We must first realize that no recognized
teacher in the first 1,800 years of church history, including those who were native speak-
ers of Greek, thought that “emptied himself” in Philippians 2:7 meant that the Son of
God gave up some of his divine attributes. Second, we must recognize that the text does
not say that Christ “emptied himself of some powers” or “emptied himself of divine
attributes” or anything like that. Third, the text does describe what Jesus did in this
“emptying”: he did not do it by giving up any of his attributes but rather by “taking
the form of a servant,” that is, by coming to live as a man, and “being found in human
form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross” (Phil.
2:8). Thus, the context itself interprets this “emptying” as equivalent to “humbling him-
self” and taking on a lowly status and position. Thus, the NIV, instead of translating the
phrase, “He emptied himself,” translates it, “but made himself nothing” (Phil. 2:7 NIV).
The emptying includes change of role and status, not essential attributes or nature.
A fourth reason for this interpretation is seen in Paul’s purpose in this context. His
purpose has been to persuade the Philippians that they should “do nothing from selfish-
ness or conceit, but in humility count others better than yourselves” (Phil. 2:3), and he
continues by telling them, “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also
to the interests of others” (Phil. 2:4). To persuade them to be humble and to put the
interests of others first, he then holds up the example of Christ: “Have this mind among
yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did
not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form
of a servant . . .” (Phil. 2:5-7).
Now in holding up Christ as an example, he wants the Philippians to imitate Christ.
But certainly he is not asking the Philippian Christians to “give up” or “lay aside” any of
their essential attributes or abilities! He is not asking them to “give up” their intelligence
or strength or skill and become a diminished version of what they were. Rather, he is
asking them to put the interests of others first: “Let each of you look not only to his own
interests, but also to the interests of others” (Phil. 2:4). And because that is his goal, it
fits the context to understand that he is using Christ as the supreme example of one who
did just that: he put the interests of others first and was willing to give up some of the
privilege and status that was his as God.
Therefore, the best understanding of this passage is that it talks about Jesus giving
27 A very clear overview of the history of kenotic theology which his essay appears), Smith ends up endorsing kenotic the-
is found in the article “Kenosis, a Kenotic Theology” by S. M. ology as a valid form of orthodox, biblical faith (p. 602)!
Smith, in EDT, pp. 600-602. Surprisingly (for the volume in
CHAPTER 26 • THE PERSON OF CHRIST
up the status and privilege that was his in heaven: he “did not count equality with God
a thing to be grasped” (or “dung to for his own advantage”), but “emptied himself”
or humbled himself” for our sake, and came to live as a man. Jesus speaks elsewhere
of the “glory” he had with the Father “before the world was made” (John 17:5), a glory
that he had given up and was going to receive again when he returned to heaven. And
Paul could speak of Christ who, “though he was rich, yet for your sake he became
poor” (2 Cor. 8:9), once again speaking of the privilege and honor that he deserved but
temporarily gave up for us.
The fifth and final reason why the “kenosis” view of Philippians 2:7 must be rejected
is the larger context of the teaching of the New Testament and the doctrinal teaching
of the entire Bible. If it were true that such a momentous event as this happened, that
the eternal Son of God ceased for a time to have all the attributes of God — ceased, for
a time, to be omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent, for example — then we would
expect that such an incredible event would be taught clearly and repeatedly in the New
Testament, not found in the very doubtful interpretation of one word in one epistle. But
we find the opposite of that: we do not find it stated anywhere else that the Son of God
ceased to have some of the attributes of God that he had possessed from eternity. In fact,
if the kenosis theory were true (and this is a foundational objection against it), then we
could no longer affirm Jesus was fully God while he was here on earth. 28 The kenosis
theory ultimately denies the full deity of Jesus Christ and makes him something less than
fully God. S. M. Smith admits, “All forms of classical orthodoxy either explicitly reject or
reject in principle kenotic theology.” 29
It is important to realize that the major force persuading people to accept kenotic
theory was not that they had discovered a better understanding of Philippians 2:7 or any
other passage of the New Testament, but rather the increasing discomfort people were
feeling with the formulations of the doctrine of Christ in historic, classical orthodoxy.
It just seemed too incredible for modern rational and “scientific” people to believe that
Jesus Christ could be truly human and fully, absolutely God at the same time. 30 The
28 Sometimes the word kenosis is used in a weaker sense not
to apply to the kenosis theory in its full sense, but simply to
refer to a more orthodox understanding of Phil. 2:7, in which
it means simply that Jesus gave up his glory and privilege for a
time while he was on earth. (This is essentially the view we have
advocated in this text.) But it does not seem at all wise to use the
term “kenosis” to refer to such a traditional understanding of
Phil. 2:7, for it is too easily confused with the full-blown kenosis
doctrine that essentially denies the full deity of Christ. To take a
term that formally applies to a false doctrinal teaching and then
use it to apply to a scripturally sound position is just confusing
to most people.
29 S. M. Smith, “Kenosis, A Kenotic Theology,” p. 601.
30 Smith points out that one of the primary influences
leading some to adopt kenotic theology was the growth of
modern psychology in the nineteenth century: “The age was
learning to think in terms of the categories of psychology.
Consciousness was a central category. If at our ‘center’ is our
consciousness, and if Jesus was both omniscient God and
limited man, then he had two centers and was thus funda-
mentally not one of us. Christology was becoming inconceiv-
able for some” (ibid., pp. 600-601). In other words, pressures
of modern psychological study were making belief in the com-
bination of full deity and full humanity in the one person of
Christ difficult to explain or even intellectually embarrassing:
how could someone be so different from us and still be truly
a man?
Yet we might respond that modern psychology is inherently
limited in that its only object of study is simple human beings.
No modern psychologist has ever studied anyone who was per-
fectly free from sin (as Christ was) and who was both fully God
and fully man (as Christ was). If we limit our understanding to
what modern psychology tells us is “possible” or “conceivable,”
then we will have neither a sinless Christ nor a divine Christ.
In this as in many other points of doctrine, our understand-
ing of what is “possible” must be determined not by modern
empirical study of a finite, fallen world, but by the teachings of
Scripture itself.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
552
kenosis theory began to sound more and more like an acceptable way to say that (in some
sense) Jesus was God, but a kind of God who had for a time given up some of his Godlike
qualities, those that were most difficult for people to accept in the modern world.
4. Conclusion: Christ Is Fully Divine. The New Testament, in hundreds of explicit verses
that call Jesus “God” and “Lord” and use a number of other titles of deity to refer to him,
and in many passages that attribute actions or words to him that could only be true of
God himself, affirms again and again the full, absolute deity of Jesus Christ. “In him
all the fulness of God was pleased to dwell” (Col. 1:19), and “in him the whole fulness of
deity dwells bodily” (Col. 2:9). In an earlier section we argued that Jesus is truly and fully
man. Now we conclude that he is truly and fully God as well. His name is rightly called
“Emmanuel,” that is, “God with us” (Matt. 1:23).
5. Is The Doctrine of the Incarnation “Unintelligible” Today? Throughout history there
have been objections to the New Testament teaching on the full deity of Christ. One
recent attack on this doctrine deserves mention here because it created a large contro-
versy, since the contributors to the volume were all recognized church leaders in England.
The book was called The Myth of God Incarnate , edited by John Hick (London: SCM,
1977). The title gives away the thesis of the book: the idea that Jesus was “God incarnate”
or “God come in the flesh” is a “myth” — a helpful story, perhaps, for the faith of earlier
generations, but not one that can really be believed by us today.
The argument of the book begins with some foundational assumptions: (1) the Bible
does not have absolute divine authority for us today (p. i), and (2) Christianity, like all
human life and thought, is evolving and changing over time (p. ii). The basic claims of
the book are laid out in the first two chapters. In chapter 1, Maurice Wiles argues that it
is possible to have Christianity without the doctrine of the incarnation. The church has
given up earlier doctrines, such as the “real presence” of Christ in the Lord’s Supper, the
inerrancy of Scripture, and the virgin birth; therefore, it is possible to give up the tra-
ditional doctrine of the incarnation and still keep the Christian faith as well (pp. 2-3).
Moreover, the doctrine of the incarnation is not directly presented in Scripture but origi-
nated in a setting where belief in the supernatural was credible; nevertheless, it has never
been a coherent or intelligible doctrine through the history of the church (pp. 3-5).
Regarding the New Testament teaching, Francis Young, in chapter 2, argues that the
New Testament contains the writings of many diverse witnesses who tell of their own
understanding of Christ, but that no single or unified view of Christ can be gained from
the entire New Testament; the early church’s understanding of the person of Christ was
developing in various directions over time. Young concludes that the situation is similar
today: within the Christian church many diverse personal responses to the story of Jesus
Christ are acceptable for us as well, and that would certainly include the response that
sees Christ as a man in whom God was uniquely at work but not by any means a man
who was also fully God. 31
31 The book was quickly answered by another series Incarnate and several of their critics published the proceedings
of essays, The Truth of God Incarnate , ed. Michael Green of a three-day meeting in a third book: Michael Golder, ed.,
(Sevenoaks, Kent, U.K.: Hodder and Stoughton, and Grand Incarnation and Myth: The Debate Continued (London: SCM,
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977). Later the authors of The Myth of God 1979).
CHAPTER26 ■ THE PERSON OF CHRIST
From the standpoint of evangelical theology, it is significant to note that this forth-
right rejection of Jesus’ deity could only be advocated upon a prior assumption that the
New Testament is not to be accepted as an absolute divine authority for us, truthful at
every point. This question of authority is, in many cases, the great dividing line in con-
clusions about the person of Christ. Second, much of the criticism of the doctrine of the
incarnation focused on the claim that it was not “coherent” or “intelligible ” Yet at root
this is simply an indication that the authors are unwilling to accept anything that does
not appear to fit in with their “scientific” worldview in which the natural universe is a
closed system not open to such divine intrusions as miracles and the incarnation. The
assertion that “Jesus was fully God and fully man in one person,” though not a contra-
diction, is a paradox that we cannot fully understand in this age and perhaps not for all
eternity, but this does not give us the right to label it “incoherent” or “unintelligible.”
The doctrine of the incarnation as understood by the church throughout history has
indeed been coherent and intelligible, though no one maintains that it provides us with
an exhaustive explanation of how Jesus is both fully God and fully man. Our proper
response is not to reject the clear and central teaching of Scripture about the incarnation,
but simply to recognize that it will remain a paradox, that this is all that God has chosen
to reveal to us about it, and that it is true. If we are to submit ourselves to God and to his
words in Scripture, then we must believe it.
6. Why Was Jesus’ Deity Necessary? In the previous section we listed several reasons
why it was necessary for Jesus to be fully man in order to earn our redemption. Here it is
appropriate to recognize that it is crucially important to insist on the full deity of Christ
as well, not only because it is clearly taught in Scripture, but also because (1) only some-
one who is infinite God could bear the full penalty for all the sins of all those who would
believe in him — any finite creature would have been incapable of bearing that penalty;
(2) salvation is from the Lord (Jonah 2:9 NASB), and the whole message of Scripture is
designed to show that no human being, no creature, could ever save man — only God
himself could; and (3) only someone who was truly and fully God could be the one
mediator between God and man (1 Tim. 2:5), both to bring us back to God and also to
reveal God most fully to us (John 14:9).
Thus, if Jesus is not fully God, we have no salvation and ultimately no Christianity. It
is no accident that throughout history those groups that have given up belief in the full
deity of Christ have not remained long within the Christian faith but have soon drifted
toward the kind of religion represented by Unitarianism in the United States and else-
where. “No one who denies the Son has the Father” (1 John 2:23). “Any one who goes
ahead and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God; he who abides in
the doctrine has both the Father and the Son” (2 John 9).
C. The Incarnation: Deity and Humanity in the
One Person of Christ
The biblical teaching about the full deity and full humanity of Christ is so extensive
that both have been believed from the earliest times in the history of the church. But a
precise understanding of how full deity and full humanity could be combined together
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
554
in one person was formulated only gradually in the church and did not reach the final
form until the Chalcedonian Definition in A.D. 451. Before that point, several inadequate
views of the person of Christ were proposed and then rejected. One view, Arianism,
which held that Jesus was not fully divine, was discussed above in the chapter on the
doctrine of the Trinity. 32 But three other views that were eventually rejected as heretical
should be mentioned at this point.
1. Three Inadequate Views of the Person of Christ.
a. Apollinarianism: Apollinaris, who became bishop in Laodicea about A.D. 361, taught
that the one person of Christ had a human body but not a human mind or spirit, and that
the mind and spirit of Christ were from the divine nature of the Son of God. This view
maybe represented as in figure 26.1.
> <
► <
APOLLINARIANISM
Figure 26 . 1
But the views of Apollinaris were rejected by the leaders of the church at that time,
who realized that it was not just our human body that needed salvation and needed to
be represented by Christ in his redemptive work, but our human minds and spirits (or
souls) as well: Christ had to be fully and truly man if he was to save us (Heb. 2:17). Apol-
linarianism was rejected by several church councils, from the Council of Alexandria in
A.D. 362 to the Council of Constantinople in A.D. 381.
b. Nestorianism: Nestorianism is the doctrine that there were two separate persons in
Christ, a human person and a divine person, a teaching that is distinct from the biblical
view that sees Jesus as one person. Nestorianism may be diagramed as in figure 26.2.
32 See the discussion of Arianism in chapter 14, pp. 243-48.
NESTORIANISM
Figure 26.2
CHAPTER 26 • THE PERSON OF CHRIST
Nestorius was a popular preacher at Antioch, and from A.D. 428 was bishop of
Constantinople. Although Nestorius himself probably never taught the heretical view
that goes by his name (the idea that Christ was two persons in one body, rather than
one person), through a combination of several personal conflicts and a good deal of
ecclesiastical politics, he was removed from his office of bishop and his teachings were
condemned. 33
It is important to understand why the church could not accept the view that Christ
was two distinct persons. Nowhere in Scripture do we have an indication that the human
nature of Christ, for example, is an independent person, deciding to do something con-
trary to the divine nature of Christ. Nowhere do we have an indication of the human
and divine natures talking to each other or struggling within Christ, or any such thing.
Rather, we have a consistent picture of a single person acting in wholeness and unity.
Jesus always speaks as “I” not as “we,” 34 though he can refer to himself and the Father
together as “we” (John 14:23). The Bible always speaks of Jesus as “he,” not as “they.”
And, though we can sometimes distinguish actions of his divine nature and actions of
his human nature in order to help us understand some of the statements and actions
recorded in Scripture, the Bible itself does not say “Jesus’ human nature did this” or
Jesus divine nature did that,” as though they were separate persons, but always talks
about what the person of Christ did. Therefore, the church continued to insist that Jesus
was one person, although possessing both a human nature and a divine nature.
c. Monophysitism (Eutychianism): A third inadequate view is called monophysitism,
the view that Christ had one nature only (Gk. monos , “one,” and physis, “nature”). The
primary advocate of this view in the early church was Eutyches (c. A.D. 378-454), who
was the leader of a monastery at Constantinople. Eutyches taught the opposite error from
Nestorianism, for he denied that the human nature and divine nature in Christ remained
fully human and fully divine. He held rather that the human nature of Christ was taken
up and absorbed into the divine nature, so that both natures were changed somewhat and
a third kind of nature resulted. 35 An analogy to Eutychianism can be seen if we put a drop
of ink in a glass of water: the mixture resulting is neither pure ink nor pure water, but
some kind of third substance, a mixture of the two in which both the ink and the water
are changed. Similarly, Eutyches taught that Jesus was a mixture of divine and human
elements in which both were somewhat modified to form one new nature. This may be
represented as in figure 26.3.
33 Harold O. J. Brown says, “Nestorius’ incarnate person was
a single person, not two as his critics thought, but he could not
convince others that it was so. Consequently he has gone down
in history as a great heretic although what he actually believed
was reaffirmed at Chalcedon” {Heresies, p. 176). Brown s exten-
sive discussion of Nestorianism and related issues on pp. 172-84
is very helpful.
34 There is an unusual usage in John 3:11, where Jesus sud-
denly shifts to the plural, “Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak
of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen.” Jesus
may have been referring to himself and some disciples with
him who are not mentioned, in contrast with the “we” of the
Jewish rulers that Nicodemus alluded to when he opened the
conversation: “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come
from God” (John 3:2). Or Jesus may have been speaking of
himself together with the witness of the Holy Spirit, whose
work is the subject of the conversation (vv. 5-9). In any case,
Jesus is not referring to himself as “we,” but calls himself “I” in
that very sentence. See discussion in Leon Morris, The Gospel
According to John, pp. 221-22.
35 A variant form of Eutychianism held that the human
nature was simply lost in the divine, so that the resulting
single nature was the divine nature only.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
556
Monophysitism also rightly caused great concern in the church, because, by this doc-
trine, Christ was neither truly God nor truly man. And if that was so, he could not truly
represent us as a man nor could he be true God and able to earn our salvation.
2. The Solution to the Controversy: The Chalcedonian Definition of A.D. 451. In order
to attempt to solve the problems raised by the controversies over the person of Christ, a
large church council was convened in the city of Chalcedon near Constantinople (mod-
ern Istanbul), from October 8 to November 1, A.D. 451. The resulting statement, called
the Chalcedonian Definition, guarded against Apollinarianism, Nestorianism, and Euty-
chianism. It has been taken as the standard, orthodox definition of the biblical teaching
on the person of Christ since that day by Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox branches
of Christianity alike. 36
The statement is not long, and we may quote it in its entirety: 37
We, then, following the holy Fathers, all with one consent, teach men to confess
one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead and
also perfect in manhood; truly God and truly man, of a reasonable [rational]
soul and body; consubstantial [coessential] with the Father according to the God-
heady and consubstantial with us according to the Manhood; in all things like unto
us, without sin; begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhead,
and in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, the
Mother of God, according to the Manhood; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord,
Only-begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures , inconfusedly , unchangeably,
indivisibly, inseparably; the distinction of natures being by no means taken away
by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concur-
ring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons,
but one and the same Son, and only begotten, God, the Word, the Lord Jesus
Christ, as the prophets from the beginning [have declared] concerning him, and
36 However, it should be noted that three localized groups Syrian Jacobite church. See H. D. McDonald, “Monophysit-
of ancient churches rejected the Chalcedonian definition and ism,” in NDT, pp. 442-43.
still endorse monophysitism to this day: the Ethiopian Ortho- 37 English translation taken from Philip Schaff, Creeds of
dox church, the Coptic Orthodox church (in Egypt), and the Christendom , 2:62-63.
CHAPTER26 * THE PERSON OF CHRIST
557
the Lord Jesus Christ himself has taught us, and the Creed of the holy Fathers
has been handed down to us.
Against the view of Apollinaris that Christ did not have a human mind or soul, we
have the statement that he was “truly man, of a reasonable soul and body . . . consubstan-
tial with us according to the Manhood; in all things like unto us.” (The word consubstan-
tial means “having the same nature or substance.”)
In opposition to the view of Nestorianism that Christ was two persons united in one
body, we have the words “indivisibly, inseparably . . . concurring in one Person and one
Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons.”
Against the view of Monophysitism that Christ had only one nature, and that his
human nature was lost in the union with the divine nature, we have the words “to be
acknowledged in two natures , inconfusedly, unchangeably . . . the distinction of natures
being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being
preserved” The human and the divine natures were not confused or changed when Christ
became man, but the human nature remained a truly human nature, and the divine
nature remained a truly divine nature.
Figure 26.4 maybe helpful in showing this, in contrast to the earlier diagrams. It indi-
cates that the eternal Son of God took to himself a truly human nature, and that Christs
divine and human natures remain distinct and retain their own properties, yet they are
eternally and inseparably united together in one person.
Person of
Divine Christ Human
^ Nature
t
I
CHELCEDONIAN CHRISTOLOGY
Figure 26 A
Some have said that the Chalcedonian Definition really did not define for us in any
positive way what the person of Christ actually is, but simply told us several things that
it is not. In this way some have said that it is not a very helpful definition. But such an
accusation is misleading and inaccurate. The definition actually did a great deal to help
us understand the biblical teaching correctly. It taught that Christ definitely has two
natures, a human nature and a divine nature. It taught that his divine nature is exactly the
same as that of the Father (“consubstantial with the Father according to the Godhead”).
And it maintained that the human nature is exactly like our human nature, yet without
sin (“consubstantial with us according to the Manhood; in all things like unto us, with-
out sin ). Moreover, it affirmed that in the person of Christ the human nature retains
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
558
its distinctive characteristics and the divine nature retains its distinctive characteris-
tics (“the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather
the property of each nature being preserved”). Finally, it affirmed that, whether we can
understand it or not, these two natures are united together in the one person of Christ.
When the Chalcedonian Definition says that the two natures of Christ occur together
“in one Person and one Subsistence” the Greek word translated as “Subsistence” is the
word hypostasisy “being .” Hence the union of Christ’s human and divine natures in one
person is sometimes called the hypostatic union. This phrase simply means the union of
Christ’s human and divine natures in one being.
3. Combining Specific Biblical Texts on Christ’s Deity and Humanity. When we exam-
ine the New Testament, as we did above in the sections on Jesus’ humanity and deity,
there are several passages that seem difficult to fit together (How could Jesus be omni-
potent and yet weak? How could he leave the world and yet be present everywhere? How
could he learn things and yet be omniscient?). As the church struggled to understand
these teachings, it finally came up with the Chalcedonian Definition, which spoke of
two distinct natures in Christ that retain their own properties yet remain together in one
person. This distinction, which helps us in our understanding of the biblical passages
mentioned earlier, also seems to be demanded by those passages.
a. One Nature Does Some Things That the Other Nature Does Not Do: Evangelical
theologians in previous generations have not hesitated to distinguish between things
done by Christ’s human nature but not by his divine nature, or by his divine nature but
not by his human nature. It seems that we have to do this if we are willing to affirm the
Chalcedonian statement about “the property of each nature being preserved.” But few
recent theologians have been willing to make such distinctions, perhaps because of a
hesitancy to affirm something we cannot understand.
When we are talking about Jesus’ human nature, we can say that he ascended to
heaven and is no longer in the world (John 16:28; 17:11; Acts 1:9— 11). 38 But with respect
to his divine nature, we can say that Jesus is everywhere present: “Where two or three
are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matt. 18:20); “I am with you
always, to the close of the age” (Matt. 28:20); “If a man loves me, he will keep my word,
and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him”
(John 14:23). So we can say that both things are true about the person of Christ — he has
returned to heaven, and he is also present with us.
Similarly, we can say that Jesus was about thirty years old (Luke 3:23), if we are speak-
ing with respect to his human nature, but we can say that he eternally existed (John
1:1-2; 8:58) if we are speaking of his divine nature.
In his human nature, Jesus was weak and tired (Matt. 4:2; 8:24; Mark 15:21; John
4:6), but in his divine nature he was omnipotent (Matt. 8:26-27; Col. 1:17; Heb. 1:3).
Particularly striking is the scene on the Sea of Galilee where Jesus was asleep in the stern
38 Lutheran theologians, following Martin Luther, have church, and it seems to have been a position that Luther himself
sometimes claimed that Jesus’ human nature, even his human took mainly in an attempt to justify his view that Christ’s body
body, is also everywhere present or “ubiquitous.” But this posi- was actually present in the Lord’s Supper (not in the elements
tion has not been adopted by any other segment of the Christian themselves, but with them) .
CHAPTER26 • THE PERSON OF CHRIST
of the boat, presumably because he was weary (Matt. 8:24). But he was able to arise from
his sleep and calm the wind and sea with a word (Matt. 8:26-27)! Tired yet omnipotent!
Here Jesus weak human nature completely hid his omnipotence until that omnipotence
broke forth in a sovereign word from the Lord of heaven and earth.
If someone asks whether Jesus, when he was asleep in the boat, was also “continually
carrying along all things by his word of power” (Heb. 1:3, author’s translation), and
whether all things in the universe were being held together by him at that time (see Col.
1:17), the answer must be yes, for those activities have always been and will always be
the particular responsibility of the second person of the Trinity, the eternal Son of God.
Those who find the doctrine of the incarnation “inconceivable” have sometimes asked
whether Jesus, when he was a baby in the manger at Bethlehem, was also “upholding the
universe.” To this question the answer must also be yes: Jesus was not just potentially
God or someone in whom God uniquely worked, but was truly and fully God, with all
the attributes of God. He was “a Savior, who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:11). Those who
reject this as impossible simply have a different definition of what is “possible” than
God has, as revealed in Scripture. 39 To say that we cannot understand this is appropriate
humility. But to say that it is not possible seems more like intellectual arrogance.
In a similar way, we can understand that in his human nature, Jesus died (Luke 23:46;
1 Cor. 15:3). But with respect to his divine nature, he did not die, but was able to raise
himself from the dead (John 2:19; 10:17— 18; Heb. 7:16). Yet here we must give a note of
caution, it is true that when Jesus died his physical body died and his human soul (or
spirit) was separated from his body and passed into the presence of God the Father in
heaven (Luke 23:43, 46). In this way he experienced a death that is like the one we as
believers experience if we die before Christ returns. And it is not correct to say that Jesus’
divine nature died, or could die, if “die” means a cessation of activity, a cessation of con-
sciousness, or a diminution of power. Nevertheless, by virtue of union with Jesus’ human
nature, his divine nature somehow tasted something of what it was like to go through
death. The person of Christ experienced death. Moreover, it seems difficult to understand
how Jesus’ human nature alone could have borne the wrath of God against the sins of mil-
lions of people. It seems that Jesus’ divine nature had somehow to participate in the bear-
ing of wrath against sin that was due to us (though Scripture nowhere explicitly affirms
this). Therefore, even though Jesus divine nature did not actually die, Jesus went through
39 A. N. S. Lane explicitly denies the Chalcedonian view
of Christ on the ground that it cannot be: “Omniscience and
ignorance, omnipotence and impotence cannot coexist. The
former swamps the latter” (“Christology Beyond Chalcedon
in Christ the Lord: Studies in Christology Presented to Donald
Guthrie, edited by Harold H. Rowden (Leicester and Downers
Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press, 1982), p. 270. He says that Christ
“explicitly denied his omniscience (Mt. 24:36 = Mk. 13:32) but
even the clear words of Christ have not sufficed to counter the
pull of docetism The affirmation of the omniscience of the
historical Jesus has no biblical basis and indeed runs counter to
the clear teaching of the Gospels It has serious theological
implications in that it undermines his true humanity as taught
in Scripture” (p. 271).
But (see pp. 560-63, below) Matt. 24:36 and Mark 13:32
are certainly capable of being understood to refer to Jesus’
knowledge in his human nature. And when Lane says that
omniscience and ignorance “cannot coexist” he is simply pit-
ting one part of a biblical paradox against another and then
asserting that one part is impossible. On what grounds are
we justified in saying that an omniscient divine nature and a
human nature with limited knowledge “cannot coexist,”? Or
that an omnipotent divine nature and a weak human nature
“cannot coexist”? Such assertions fundamentally deny that
infinite deity and finite humanity can exist together in the
same person — in other words, they deny that Jesus could be
fully God and fully man at the same time. In this way, they
deny the essence of the incarnation.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
560
the experience of death as a whole person, and both human and divine natures somehow
shared in that experience. Beyond that, Scripture does not enable us to say more.
The distinction between Jesus’ human and divine natures also helps us understand
Jesus’ temptations. With respect to his human nature, he certainly was tempted in every
way as we are, yet without sin (Heb. 4:15). Yet with respect to his divine nature, he was
not tempted, because God cannot be tempted with evil (James 1:13).
At this point it seems necessary to say that Jesus had two distinct wills, a human will
and a divine will, and that the wills belong to the two distinct natures of Christ, not to
the person. In fact, there was a position, called the monothelite view, which held that
Jesus had only “one will,” but that was certainly a minority view in the church, and it was
rejected as heretical at a church council in Constantinople in A.D. 681. Since then the
view that Christ had two wills (a human will and a divine will) has been generally, but
not universally, held through the church. In fact, Charles Hodge says:
The decision against Nestorius, in which the unity of Christ’s person was
asserted; that against Eutyches, affirming the distinction of natures; and that
against the Monothelites, declaring that the possession of a human nature
involves of necessity the possession of a human will, have been received as the
true faith by the Church universal, the Greek, Latin, and Protestant. 40
Hodge explains that the church thought that “to deny Christ a human will, was to
deny he had a human nature, or was truly a man. Besides, it precluded the possibility of
his having been tempted, and therefore contradicted the Scriptures, and separated him so
far from his people he could not sympathize with them in their temptations.” 41 Moreover,
Hodge notes that along with the idea that Christ had two wills is the related idea that
he had two centers of consciousness or intelligence: “As there are two distinct natures,
human and divine, there are of necessity two intelligences and two wills, the one fallible
and finite, the other immutable and infinite.” 42
This distinction of two wills and two centers of consciousness helps us understand
how Jesus could learn things and yet know all things. On the one hand, with respect to
his human nature, he had limited knowledge (Mark 13:32; Luke 2:52). On the other
hand, Jesus clearly knew all things (John 2:25; 16:30; 21:17). Now this is only under-
standable if Jesus learned things and had limited knowledge with respect to his human
nature but was always omniscient with respect to his divine nature, and therefore he was
able any time to “call to mind” whatever information would be needed for his ministry.
In this way we can understand Jesus’ statement concerning the time of his return: “But
of that day or that hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but
only the Father” (Mark 13:32). This ignorance of the time of his return was true of Jesus’
human nature and human consciousness only, for in his divine nature he was certainly
omniscient and certainly knew the time when he would return to the earth. 43
40 Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, 2:405. [London: Macmillan, 1913], p. 316), and R. C. H. Lenski, a
41 Ibid., pp. 404-5. Lutheran commentator ( The Interpretation of St. Mark's Gos -
42 Ibid., p. 405. pel [Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1961 (reprint)] , p. 590), all attri-
43 In commenting on Mark 13:32, John Calvin, H. B. Swete, bute this ignorance of Jesus to his human nature only, not to
an Anglican commentator ( The Gospel According to St. Mark his divine nature.
CHAPTER 26 * THE PERSON OF CHRIST
At this point someone may object that if we say that Jesus had two centers of con-
sciousness and two wills, that requires that he was two distinct persons, and we have
really fallen into the error of “Nestorianism.” But in response, it must simply be
affirmed that two wills and two centers of consciousness do not require that Jesus be
two distinct persons. It is mere assertion without proof to say that they do. If some-
one responds that he or she does not understand how Jesus could have two centers of
consciousness and still be one person, then that fact may certainly be admitted by all.
But failing to understand something does not mean that it is impossible, only that our
understanding is limited. The great majority of the church throughout its history has
said that Jesus had two wills and centers of consciousness, yet he remained one per-
son. Such a formulation is not impossible, merely a mystery that we do not now fully
understand. To adopt any other solution would create a far greater problem: it would
require that we give up either the full deity or the full humanity of Christ, and that
we cannot do. 44
b. Anything Either Nature Does, the Person of Christ Does: In the previous section we
mentioned a number of things that were done by one nature but not the other in the per-
son of Christ. Now we must affirm that anything that is true of the human or the divine
nature is true of the person of Christ. Thus Jesus can say, “Before Abraham was, I am”
(John 8:58). He does not say, “Before Abraham was, my divine nature existed,” because
he is free to talk about anything done by his divine nature alone or his human nature
alone as something that he did.
In the human sphere, this is certainly true of our conversation as well. If I type a let-
ter, even though my feet and toes had nothing to do with typing the letter, I do not tell
people, “My fingers typed a letter and my toes had nothing to do with it” (though that is
true). Rather, I tell people, “I typed a letter.” That is true because anything that is done
by one part of me is done by me.
Thus, Christ died for our sins” (1 Cor. 15:3). Even though actually only his human
body ceased living and ceased functioning, it was nonetheless Christ as a person who died
for our sin. This is simply a means of affirming that whatever can be said of one nature
or the other can be said of the person of Christ.
Therefore it is correct for Jesus to say, “I am leaving the world” (John 16:28), or “I am
no more in the world” (John 17:11), but at the same time to say, “I am with you always”
(Matt. 28:20). Anything that is done by one nature or the other is done by the person
of Christ.
44 At this point an analogy from our human experience may
be somewhat helpful. Anyone who has run in a race knows that
near the end of the race there are conflicting desires within.
On the one hand, the runnels lungs and legs and arms seem
to be crying out, “Stop! Stop!” There is a clear desire to stop
because of the physical pain. On the other hand, something
in the runner’s mind says, “Go on! Go on! I want to win!” We
have all known similar instances of conflicting desires within.
Now if we, being ordinary human beings, can have differing or
distinct desires within us and yet be one person, how much
more possible is that for one who was both man and God at
the same time? If we say we do not understand how that could
be, we simply admit our ignorance of the situation, for none
of us has ever experienced what it is like to be both God and
man at the same time, nor will we ever have such an experience
ourselves. We should not say it is impossible, but, if we are con-
vinced that New Testament texts lead us to this conclusion, we
should accept it and agree with it.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
c. Titles That Remind Us of One Nature Can Be Used of the Person Even When the
Action Is Done By the Other Nature: The New Testament authors sometimes use titles
that remind us of either the human nature or the divine nature in order to speak of
the person of Christ, even though the action mentioned may be done only by the other
nature than the one we might think of from the title. For example, Paul says that if the
rulers of this world had understood the wisdom of God, “they would not have cruci-
fied the Lord of glory” (1 Cor. 2:8). Now when we see the phrase “the Lord of glory” it
reminds us specifically of Jesus’ divine nature. But Paul uses this title (probably inten-
tionally to show the horrible evil of the crucifixion) to say that Jesus was “crucified.”
Even though Jesus’ divine nature was not crucified, it was true of Jesus as a person that
he was crucified, and Paul affirms that about him even though he uses the title “the
Lord of glory.”
Similarly, when Elizabeth calls Mary “the mother of my Lord ” (Luke 1:43), the name
“my Lord” is a title that reminds us of Christ’s divine nature. Yet Mary of course is not
the mother of Jesus’ divine nature, which has always existed. Mary is simply the mother
of the human nature of Christ. Nevertheless, Elizabeth can call her “the mother of my
Lord” because she is using the title “Lord” to refer to the person of Christ. A similar
expression occurs in Luke 2:11: “For to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior,
who is Christ the Lord”
In this way, we can understand Mark 13:32, where Jesus says no one knows the time
of his return, “not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son , but only the Father.” Though
the term “the Son” specifically reminds us of Jesus’ heavenly, eternal sonship with God
the Father, it is really used here not to speak specifically of his divine nature, but to speak
generally of him as a person, and to affirm something that is in fact true of his human
nature only. 45 And it is true that in one important sense (that is, with respect to his
human nature) Jesus did not know the time when he would return.
d. Brief Summary Sentence: Sometimes in the study of systematic theology, the follow-
ing sentence has been used to summarize the incarnation: “Remaining what he was, he
became what he was not.” In other words, while Jesus continued “remaining” what he
was (that is, fully divine) he also became what he previously had not been (that is, fully
human as well). Jesus did not give up any of his deity when he became man, but he did
take on humanity that was not his before.
e. “Communication” of Attributes: Once we have decided that Jesus was fully man
and fully God, and that his human nature remained fully human and his divine
nature remained fully divine, we can still ask whether there were some qualities or
abilities that were given (or “communicated”) from one nature to the other. It seems
there were.
(1) From the Divine Nature to the Human Nature: Although Jesus’ human nature did
not change its essential character, because it was united with the divine nature in the
45 Similar usage is perhaps seen in John 3:13 and Acts 20:28 (in
this latter verse some manuscripts read “with his own blood”).
CHAPTER26 • THE PERSON OF CHRIST
one person of Christ, Jesus’ human nature gained (a) a worthiness to be worshiped and
(b) an inability to sin, both of which did not belong to human beings otherwise. 46
(2) From the Human Nature to the Divine Nature: Jesus’ human nature gave him
(a) an ability to experience suffering and death; (b) an ability to understand by experi-
ence what we are experiencing; and (c) an ability to be our substitute sacrifice, which
Jesus as God alone could not have done.
f. Conclusion: At the end of this long discussion, it may be easy for us to lose sight of
what is actually taught in Scripture. It is by far the most amazing miracle of the entire
Bible far more amazing than the resurrection and more amazing even than the cre-
ation of the universe. The fact that the infinite, omnipotent, eternal Son of God could
become man and join himself to a human nature forever, so that infinite God became
one person with finite man, will remain for eternity the most profound miracle and the
most profound mystery in all the universe.
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. After reading this chapter, are there specific ways in which you now think of
Jesus as being more like you than you did before? What are these? How can a
clearer understanding of Jesus’ humanity help you face temptations? How can it
help you to pray? What are the most difficult situations in your life right now?
Can you think of any similar situations that Jesus might have faced? Does that
encourage you to pray confidently to him? Can you picture what it would have
been like if you had been present when Jesus said, “Before Abraham was, I am”?
What would you have felt? Honestly, what would your response have been? Now
try visualizing yourself as present when Jesus made some of the other “I am”
statements recorded in John’s gospel. 47
2. After reading this chapter, is there anything that you understand more fully
about the deity of Jesus? Can you describe (and perhaps identify with) what
the disciples must have felt as they came to a growing realization of who Jesus
actually was? Do you think Jesus is the one person you would be able to trust
with your life for all eternity? Will you be happy to join with thousands of oth-
ers in worshiping around his throne in heaven? Do you delight in worshiping
him now?
See above, p. 558, note 38, on the Lutheran view that 47 See the list of “I am” statements at p. 545, note 21,
ubiquity was also communicated from the divine nature to the above,
human.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
564
SPECIAL TERMS
Apollinarianism
Arianism
Chalcedonian Definition
communication of attributes
docetism
Eutychianism
God
hypostatic union
impeccability
incarnation
kenosis theory
Logos
Lord
monophysitism
monothelite view
Nestorianism
Son of God
Son of Man
virgin birth
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter 1,
pp. 38- 39. Complete bibliographical data maybe found on pp. 1224-30.)
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1882-92 Litton, 178-218
1930 Thomas, 32 -49, 223 -28
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1875- 76 Pope, 2:106-51, 188-96, 254-62
1892-94 Miley, 2:4-62
1940 Wiley, 2:143-86
1960 Purkiser, 164-82
1983 Carter, 1:331-74
1987-90 Oden, 2:1-314, 527-42
3. Baptist
1767 Gill, 1:537-69
1887 Boyce, 258-91
1907 Strong, 669-700
1917 Mullins, 154-202
1976-83 Henry, 3:9-215
1983-85 Erickson, 661-758
1987-94 Lewis/Demarest, 2:251-370
4. Dispensational
1947 Chafer, 1:318-96; 5:3-176
1949 Thiessen, 206-28
1986 Ryrie, 235- 53, 260-66
CHAPTER 26 • THE PERSON OF CHRIST
5. Lutheran
1917-24
Pieper, 2:55-279
1934
Mueller, 255-86
Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1559
Calvin, 1:423-94 (2.9-14)
1724-58
Edwards, 2:499-510, 949-55
1861
Heppe, 410-47
1871-73
Hodge, l:483-521;2:378-454
1878
Dabney, 464-99
1887-1921
Warfield, BTS, 157-237; SSW, 1:139-66; BD, 71 - 100,
175-212; PWC, 4-319; LG, 1-304; CC, 3-389, 447-58
1889
Shedd, 2a:261 -349; 3:378-400
1937-66
Murray, CW, 1:29-35, 340-43; CW, 2:132-41; CW, 4:58-91
1938
Berkhof, 305-30
1962
Buswell, 2:17- 32, 40- 70
7. Renewal (or charismatic/Pentecostal)
1988-92 Williams, 1:305-52
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
1. Roman Catholic: Traditional
1955 Ott, 125-75
2. Roman Catholic: Post-Vatican II
1980 McBrien, 1:267-546
Other Works
Anselm. “The Incarnation of the Word.” In Anselm of Canterbury. Vol. 3. Toronto: Edwin
Mellen, 1976.
• Why God Became Man: and The Virgin Conception and Original Sin. Trans, by
Joseph M. Colleran. Albany, N.Y.: Magi, 1969.
Athanasius. On the Incarnation. Translated by a religious of C.S.M.V. New York:
Macmillan, 1946.
Berkouwer, G. C. The Person of Christ. Trans, by John Vriend. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1954.
Bray, G. L. Creeds, Councils and Christ. Leicester: Inter- Varsity Press, 1984.
. “Christology.” In NDT, pp. 137 -40.
Brown, Harold O. J. Heresies: The Image of Christ in the Mirror of Heresy and Orthodoxy
From the Apostles to the Present. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1984.
Bruce, F. F. Jesus: Lord and Savior. The Jesus Library, ed. by Michael Green. Downers Grove,
111.: InterVarsity Press, 1986.
Erickson, Millard. The Word Became Flesh: A Contemporary Incarnational Christology.
Grand Rapids: Baker, 1991.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
Guthrie, Donald. Jesus the Messiah . Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1972.
. New Testament Theology : Leicester and Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press, 1981,
pp. 219-365.
Harris, Murray ]. Jesus As God . Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992.
Hughes, Philip Edgcumbe. The True Image: The Origin and Destiny of Man in Christ Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, and Leicester: Inter- Varsity Press, 1989, pp. 211-414.
Longenecker, Richard. The Christology of Early Jewish Christianity. London: SCM, 1970.
Marshall, I. Howard. I Believe in the Historical Jesus . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977.
McGrath, Alister E. Understanding Jesus: Who He Is and Why He Matters. Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 1987.
Moule, C. F. D. The Origin of Christology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977.
Payne, Philip B. “Jesus 1 Implicit Claim to Deity in His Parables.” TrinJ , vol. 2, n.s., no. 1
(Spring 1981), pp. 3-23.
Reymond, Robert L. Jesus , Divine Messiah. Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed,
1990.
Runia, Klaas. The Present-Day Christological Debate. Leicester: Inter- Varsity Press, 1984.
Sproul, R. C. The Glory of Christ. Wheaton, 111.: Tyndale, 1990.
Stein, R. H. “Jesus Christ.” In EDT y pp. 582-85.
Wallace, R. S. “Christology.” In EDT t pp. 221-27.
Walvoord, John F. Jesus Christ Our Lord. Chicago: Moody, 1969.
Wells, David F. The Person of Christ: A Biblical and Historical Analysis of the Incarnation.
Westchester, 111.: Crossway, 1984.
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
John 1:14: And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have
beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father.
HYMN
“Fairest Lord Jesus”
Fairest Lord Jesus, ruler of all nature,
Son of God and Son of Man!
Thee will I cherish, thee will I honor,
Thou, my soul’s glory, joy, and crown.
Fair are the meadows, fair are the woodlands,
Robed in the blooming garb of spring:
Jesus is fairer, Jesus is purer,
Who makes the woeful heart to sing.
Fair is the sunshine, fair is the moonlight,
And all the twinkling, starry host:
CHAPTER 26 • THE PERSON OF CHRIST
567
Jesus shines brighter, Jesus shines purer
Than all the angels heav’n can boast.
Beautiful Savior! Lord of the nations!
Son of God and Son of Man!
Glory and honor, praise, adoration,
Now and forever more be thine.
VROM MONSTER GESANGBUCH, 1677, TRANSLATED 1850, 1873
Chapter
THE ATONEMENT
Was it necessary for Christ to die? Did Christ’s
entire earthly life earn any saving benefits
for us? The cause and nature of the atonement
Did Christ descend into hell?
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
We may define the atonement as follows: The atonement is the work Christ did in his
life and death to earn our salvation . This definition indicates that we are using the word
atonement in a broader sense than it is sometimes used. Sometimes it is used to refer
only to Jesus’ dying and paying for our sins on the cross. But, as will be seen below, since
saving benefits also come to us from Christ’s life, we have included that in our definition
as well. 1
A. The Cause of the Atonement
What was the ultimate cause that led to Christ’s coming to earth and dying for our
sins? To find this we must trace the question back to something in the character of God
himself. And here Scripture points to two things: the love and justice of God.
The love of God as a cause of the atonement is seen in the most familiar passage in the
Bible: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him
should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). But the justice of God also required
that God find a way that the penalty due to us for our sins would be paid (for he could
not accept us into fellowship with himself unless the penalty was paid). Paul explains that
this was why God sent Christ to be a “propitiation” (Rom. 3:25 NASB) (that is, a sacrifice
! Of course, there are also saving benefits that come to us sequent chapters of this book. For the sake of clarity, I have
from Christ’s resurrection and ascension, from his continu- here included under the title “atonement” only those things
ing high priestly work of intercession for us, and from his that Christ did for our salvation during his earthly life and in
second coming. These are discussed as separate topics in sub- his death.
568
CHAPTER 27 • THE ATONEMENT
that bears God’s wrath so that God becomes “propitious” or favorably disposed toward
us): it was “to show God's righteousness , because in his divine forbearance he had passed
over former sins” (Rom. 3:25). Here Paul says that God had been forgiving sins in the
Old Testament but no penalty had been paid — a fact that would make people wonder
whether God was indeed just and ask how he could forgive sins without a penalty. No
God who was truly just could do that, could he? Yet when God sent Christ to die and pay
the penalty for our sins, “it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous
and that he justifies him who has faith in Jesus” (Rom. 3:26).
Therefore both the love and the justice of God were the ultimate cause of the atone-
ment. It is not helpful for us to ask which is more important, however, because without the
love of God, he would never have taken any steps to redeem us, yet without the justice of
God, the specific requirement that Christ should earn our salvation by dying for our sins
would not have been met. Both the love and the justice of God were equally important.
B. The Necessity of the Atonement
Was there any other way for God to save human beings than by sending his Son to
die in our place?
Before answering this question, it is important to realize that it was not necessary for
God to save any people at all. When we appreciate that “God did not spare the angels
when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of nether gloom
to be kept until the judgment” (2 Peter 2:4), then we realize that God could also have
chosen with perfect justice to have left us in our sins awaiting judgment: he could have
chosen to save no one, just as he did with the sinful angels. So in this sense the atonement
was not absolutely necessary.
But once God, in his love, decided to save some human beings, then several passages in
Scripture indicate that there was no other way for God to do this than through the death
of his Son. Therefore, the atonement was not absolutely necessary, but, as a “consequence”
of Gods decision to save some human beings, the atonement was absolutely necessary.
This is sometimes called the “consequent absolute necessity” view of the atonement.
In the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus prays, “If it be possible, let this cup pass from me;
nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will” (Matt. 26:39). We may be confident that Jesus
always prayed according to the will of the Father, and that he always prayed with fullness
of faith. Thus it seems that this prayer, which Matthew takes pains to record for us, shows
that it was not possible for Jesus to avoid the death on the cross which was soon to come to
him (the “cup” of suffering that he had said would be his). If he was going to accomplish
the work that the Father sent him to do, and if people were going to be redeemed for God,
then it was necessary for him to die on the cross.
He said something similar after his resurrection, when he was talking with two dis-
ciples on the road to Emmaus. They were sad that Jesus had died, but his response was,
“O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it
not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” (Luke
24:25-26). Jesus understood that God’s plan of redemption (which he explained for the
disciples from many Old Testament Scriptures, Luke 24:27) made it necessary for the
Messiah to die for the sins of his people.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
570
As we saw above, Paul in Romans 3 also shows that if God were to be righteous, and
still save people, he had to send Christ to pay the penalty for sins: “It was to prove at the
present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies him who has faith in Jesus”
(Rom. 3:26). The epistle to the Hebrews emphasizes that Christ had to suffer for our sins:
“He had to be made like his brethren in every respect, so that he might become a merciful
and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make expiation [lit. ‘propitiation’] for
the sins of the people” (Heb. 2:17). The author of Hebrews also argues that since “it is
impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins” (Heb. 10:4), a better
sacrifice is required (Heb. 9:23). Only the blood of Christ, that is, his death, would be
able really to take away sins (Heb. 9:25-26). There was no other way for God to save us
than for Christ to die in our place.
C. The Nature of the Atonement
In this section we consider two aspects of Christ’s work: (1) Christ’s obedience for us,
in which he obeyed the requirements of the law in our place and was perfectly obedient
to the will of God the Father as our representative, and (2) Christ’s sufferings for us, in
which he took the penalty due for our sins and as a result died for our sins.
It is important to notice that in both of these categories the primary emphasis and the
primary influence of Christ’s work of redemption is not on us, but on God the Father.
Jesus obeyed the Father in our place and perfectly met the demands of the law. And
he suffered in our place, receiving in himself the penalty that God the Father would
have visited upon us. In both cases, the atonement is viewed as objective; that is, some-
thing that has primary influence directly on God himself. Only secondarily does it have
application to us, and this is only because there was a definite event in the relationship
between God the Father and God the Son that secured our salvation.
1. Christ’s Obedience for Us (Sometimes Called His "Active Obedience”). If Christ had
only earned forgiveness of sins for us, then we would not merit heaven. Our guilt would
have been removed, but we would simply be in the position of Adam and Eve before they
had done anything good or bad and before they had passed a time of probation success-
fully. To be established in righteousness forever and to have their fellowship with God
made sure forever, Adam and Eve had to obey God perfectly over a period of time. Then
God would have looked on their faithful obedience with pleasure and delight, and they
would have lived with him in fellowship forever. 2
For this reason, Christ had to live a life of perfect obedience to God in order to earn
righteousness for us. He had to obey the law for his whole life on our behalf so that
the positive merits of his perfect obedience would be counted for us. Sometimes this is
called Christ’s “active obedience,” while his suffering and dying for our sins is called his
“passive obedience.” 3 Paul says his goal is that he may be found in Christ, “ not having a
2 See discussion of the covenant of works in chapter 25, minology is not entirely satisfactory, because even in pay-
pp. 516-18. ing for our sins Christ was in one sense actively accepting
3 Some have objected that this “active” and “passive” ter- the suffering given him by the Father and was even active in
CHAPTER27 * THE ATONEMENT
righteousness of [his] own , based on law, but that which is through faith in Christ , the righ-
teousness from God that depends on faith” (Phil. 3:9). It is not just moral neutrality that
Paul knows he needs from Christ (that is, a clean slate with sins forgiven), but a positive
moral righteousness. And he knows that that cannot come from himself, but must come
through faith in Christ. Similarly, Paul says that Christ has been made “ our righteousness ”
(1 Cor. 1:30). And he quite explicitly says, “For as by one man’s disobedience many were
made sinners, so by one man’s obedience many will be made righteous” (Rom. 5:19).
Some theologians have not taught that Christ needed to achieve a lifelong record
of perfect obedience for us. They have simply emphasized that Christ had to die and
thereby pay the penalty for our sins. 4 But such a position does not adequately explain
why Christ did more than just die for us; he also became our “righteousness” before God.
lesus said to John the Baptist, before he was baptized by him, “It is fitting for us to fulfil
all righteousness ” (Matt. 3:15).
It might be argued that Christ had to live a life of perfect righteousness for his own
sake, not for ours, before he could be a sinless sacrifice for us. But Jesus had no need to
live a life of perfect obedience for his own sake — he had shared love and fellowship with
the Father for all eternity and was in his own character eternally worthy of the Father’s
good pleasure and delight. He rather had to “fulfill all righteousness” for our sake; that
is, for the sake of the people whom he was representing as their head. Unless he had done
this for us, we would have no record of obedience by which we would merit God’s favor
and merit eternal life with him. Moreover, if Jesus had needed only sinlessness and not
also a life of perfect obedience, he could have died for us when he was a young child
rather than when he was thirty-three years old.
By way of application, we ought to ask ourselves whose lifelong record of obedience
we would rather rely on for our standing before God, Christ’s or our own? As we think
about the life of Christ, we ought to ask ourselves, was it good enough to deserve God’s
approval? And are we willing to rely on his record of obedience for our eternal destiny?
2. Christ’s Sufferings for Us (Sometimes Called His “Passive Obedience”). In addition
to obeying the law perfectly for his whole life on our behalf, Christ also took on himself
the sufferings necessary to pay the penalty for our sins.
a. Suffering for His Whole Life: In a broad sense the penalty Christ bore in paying for
our sins was suffering in both his body and soul throughout his life. Though Christ’s
sufferings culminated in his death on the cross (see below), his whole life in a fallen
world involved suffering. For example, Jesus endured tremendous suffering during the
laying down his own life (John 10:18). Moreover, both aspects of
Christ’s obedience continued through his whole life: his active
obedience included faithful obedience from birth up to and
including the point of his death; and his suffering on our behalf,
which found its climax in the crucifixion, continued through
his whole life (see discussion below). Nevertheless, the distinc-
tion between active and passive obedience is still useful because
it helps us appreciate the two aspects of Christ’s work for us.
(See the discussion in John Murray, Redemption Accomplished
and Applied [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1955], pp. 20-24.) R. L.
Reymond prefers the terms preceptive (for active) and penal (for
passive), in his article “Obedience of Christ,” EDT, p. 785.
4 For example, I could find no discussion of the active obe-
dience of Christ in the seven-volume Systematic Theology by
Lewis Sperry Chafer (Dallas: Dallas Seminary Press, 1947-48)
or in Millard Erickson’s Christian Theology, pp. 761-800.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
572
temptation in the wilderness (Matt . 4 : 1 - 1 1 ) , when he was assaulted for forty days by the
attacks of Satan. 5 He also suffered in growing to maturity, “Although he was a Son, he
learned obedience through what he suffered ” (Heb. 5:8). He knew suffering in the intense
opposition he faced from Jewish leaders throughout much of his earthly ministry (see
Heb. 12:3-4). We may suppose too that he experienced suffering and grief at the death
of his earthly father, 6 and certainly he experienced grief at the death of his close friend
Lazarus (John 11:35). In predicting the coming of the Messiah, Isaiah said he would be
“a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Isa. 53:3).
b. The Pain of the Cross: The sufferings of Jesus intensified as he drew near to the cross.
He told his disciples of something of the agony he was going through when he said, “My
soul is very sorrowful, even to death” (Matt. 26:38). It was especially on the cross that
Jesus’ sufferings for us reached their climax, for it was there that he bore the penalty for
our sin and died in our place. Scripture teaches us that there were four different aspects
of the pain that Jesus experienced:
(l)Physical Pain and Death: We do not need to hold that Jesus suffered more physical
pain than any human being has ever suffered, for the Bible nowhere makes such a claim.
But we still must not forget that death by crucifixion was one of the most horrible forms
of execution ever devised by man.
Many readers of the Gospels in the ancient world would have witnessed crucifixions and
thus would have had a painfully vivid mental picture upon reading the simple words “And
they crucified him” (Mark 15:24). A criminal who was crucified was essentially forced
to inflict upon himself a very slow death by suffocation. When the criminal’s arms were
outstretched and fastened by nails to the cross, he had to support most of the weight of
his body with his arms. The chest cavity would be pulled upward and outward, making it
difficult to exhale in order to be able to draw a fresh breath. But when the victim’s longing
for oxygen became unbearable, he would have to push himself up with his feet, thus giv-
ing more natural support to the weight of his body, releasing some of the weight from his
arms, and enabling his chest cavity to contract more normally. By pushing himself upward
in this way the criminal could fend off suffocation, but it was extremely painful because it
required putting the body’s weight on the nails holding the feet, and bending the elbows
and pulling upward on the nails driven through the wrists. 7 The criminal’s back, which had
been torn open repeatedly by a previous flogging, would scrape against the wooden cross
with each breath. Thus Seneca (first century A.D.) spoke of a crucified man “drawing the
breath of life amid long-drawn-out agony” (Epistle 101, to Lucilius, section 14).
A physician writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1986 explained
the pain that would have been experienced in death by crucifixion:
5 In Mark 1:13 the present participle peirazomenos, “being twelve years old: see discussion in chapter 26, p. 537, n. 7.
tempted,” modifies the imperfect main verb of the clause (en t 7 The Greek word usually translated “hand” ( cheir : Luke
“was”), indicating that Jesus was continually being tempted 24:39-40; John 20:20) can sometimes refer to the arm (BAGD,
throughout the forty days in which he was in the wilderness. p. 880; LSJ, p. 1983, 2). A nail through the hands would not
6 Although Scripture does not explicitly say that Joseph have been able to support the weight of the body, for the hands
died during Jesus’ life, we hear nothing of him after Jesus is would have torn.
CHAPTER 27 • THE ATONEMENT
Adequate exhalation required lifting the body by pushing up on the feet and by
flexing the elbows However, this maneuver would place the entire weight of
the body on the tarsals and would produce searing pain. Furthermore, flexion
of the elbows would cause rotation of the wrists about the iron nails and cause
fiery pain along the damaged median nerves. . . . Muscle cramps and pares-
thesias of the outstretched and uplifted arms would add to the discomfort. As
a result, each respiratory effort would become agonizing and tiring and lead
eventually to asphyxia. 8
In some cases, crucified men would survive for several days, nearly suffocating but not
quite dying. This was why the executioners would sometimes break the legs of a criminal,
so that death would come quickly, as we see in John 19:31-33:
Since it was the day of Preparation, in order to prevent the bodies from remain-
ing on the cross on the sabbath (for that sabbath was a high day), the Jews asked
Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away. So
the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first, and of the other who had been
crucified with him; but when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already
dead, they did not break his legs.
(2) The Pain of Bearing Sin: More awful than the pain of physical suffering that Jesus
endured was the psychological pain of bearing the guilt for our sin. In our own experi-
ence as Christians we know something of the anguish we feel when we know we have
sinned. The weight of guilt is heavy on our hearts, and there is a bitter sense of separa-
tion from all that is right in the universe, an awareness of something that in a very deep
sense ought not to be. In fact, the more we grow in holiness as God’s children, the more
intensely we feel this instinctive revulsion against evil.
Now Jesus was perfectly holy. He hated sin with his entire being. The thought of evil,
of sin, contradicted everything in his character. Far more than we do, Jesus instinctively
rebelled against evil. Yet in obedience to the Father, and out of love for us, Jesus took on
himself all the sins of those who would someday be saved. Taking on himself all the evil
against which his soul rebelled created deep revulsion in the center of his being. All that
he hated most deeply was poured out fully upon him.
Scripture frequently says that our sins were put on Christ: “The Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all” (Isa. 53:6), and “He bore tbesm of many” (Isa. 53:12). John the Baptist
calls Jesus “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). Paul declares
that God made Christ “to be sin” (2 Cor. 5:21) and that Christ became “a curse for us” (Gal.
3:13). The author of Hebrews says that Christ was “offered once to bear the sins of many”
(Hebi 9:28). And Peter says, “He himself bore owr sins in his body on the tree” (1 Peter2:24). 9
8 William Edwards, M.D., et al., JAMA vol. 255, no. 11
(March 21, 1986), p. 1461.
9 See Grudem, J Peter, pp. 133-34, for a detailed answer to
Deissipann’s view that 1 Peter 2:24 means that Christ “carried
our silks up to the cross” but did not himself bear the guilt for
our siAs on the cross. Influenced by Deissmann, BAGD, p. 63,
3, surprisingly deny that the verb anaphero, which is used in
1 Peter 2:24 can mean “bear,” but Polybius 1.36.3 and Thucy-
dides 3.38.3 provide extrabiblical examples of that meaning,
and it certainly has that meaning in the LXX of Isa. 53:4, 11,
12, and in the quotation of Isa. 53:12 in Heb. 9:28; cf. LSJ,
p. 125, 3.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
574
The passage from 2 Corinthians quoted above, together with the verses from Isaiah,
indicate that it was God the Father who put our sins on Christ. How could that be? In the
same way in which Adam’s sins were imputed to us, 10 so God imputed our sins to Christ;
that is, he thought of them as belonging to Christ , and, since God is the ultimate judge
and definer of what really is in the universe, when God thought of our sins as belonging
to Christ then in fact they actually did belong to Christ. This does not mean that God
thought that Christ had himself committed the sins, or that Christ himself actually had
a sinful nature, but rather that the guilt for our sins (that is, the liability to punishment)
was thought of by God as belonging to Christ rather than to us.
Some have objected that it was not fair for God to do this, to transfer the guilt of sin
from us to an innocent person, Christ. Yet we must remember that Christ voluntarily
took on himself the guilt for our sins, so this objection loses much of its force. Moreover,
God himself (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) is the ultimate standard of what is just and
fair in the universe, and he decreed that the atonement would take place in this way, and
that it did in fact satisfy the demands of his own righteousness and justice.
(3) Abandonment: The physical pain of crucifixion and the pain of taking on himself the
absolute evil of our sins were aggravated by the fact that Jesus faced this pain alone. In
the Garden of Gethsemane, when Jesus took with him Peter, James and John, he confided
something of his agony to them: “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here,
and watch” (Mark 14:34). This is the kind of confidence one would disclose to a close
friend, and it implies a request for support in his hour of greatest trial. Yet as soon as Jesus
was arrested, “all the disciples forsook him and fled” (Matt. 26:56).
Here also there is a very faint analogy in our experience, for we cannot live long
without tasting the inward ache of rejection, whether it be rejection by a close friend, by
a parent or child, or by a wife or husband. Yet in all those cases there is at least a sense
that we could have done something differently, that at least in small part we may be at
fault. It was not so with Jesus and the disciples, for, “having loved his own who were in
the world, he loved them to the end” (John 13:1). He had done nothing but love them; in
return, they all abandoned him.
But far worse than desertion by even the closest of human friends was the fact that Jesus
was deprived of the closeness to the Father that had been the deepest joy of his heart for all
his earthly life. When Jesus cried out “Eli, Eli, lama sabach-thani?” that is, “My God, my
God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46), he showed that he was finally cut off from
the sweet fellowship with his heavenly Father that had been the unfailing source of his
inward strength and the element of greatest joy in a life filled with sorrow. As Jesus bore
our sins on the cross, he was abandoned by his heavenly Father, who is “of purer eyes than
to behold evil” (Hab. 1:13). He faced the weight of the guilt of millions of sins alone.
(4) Bearing the Wrath of God: Yet more difficult than these three previous aspects of
Jesus’ pain was the pain of bearing the wrath of God upon himself. As Jesus bore the guilt
10 See chapter 24, pp. 494-96, for a discussion of the imputa-
tion of Adam’s sin to us.
CHAPTER 27 • THE ATONEMENT
of our sins alone, God the Father, the mighty Creator, the Lord of the universe, poured out
on Jesus the fury of his wrath: Jesus became the object of the intense hatred of sin and ven-
geance against sin which God had patiently stored up since the beginning of the world.
Romans 3:25 tells us that God put forward Christ as a “propitiation” (NASB) a word
that means a sacrifice that bears Gods wrath to the end and in so doing changes God’s
wrath toward us into favor. Paul tells us that “This was to show God’s righteousness,
because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins; it was to prove at the
present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies him who has faith in Jesus”
(Rom. 3:25-26). God had not simply forgiven sin and forgotten about the punishment
in generations past. He had forgiven sins and stored up his righteous anger against those
sins. But at the cross the fury of all that stored-up wrath against sin was unleashed against
Gods own Son.
Many theologians outside the evangelical world have strongly objected to the idea that
Jesus bore the wrath of God against sin. 11 Their basic assumption is that since God is a
God of love, it would be inconsistent with his character to show wrath against the human
beings he has created and for whom he is a loving Father. But evangelical scholars have
convincingly argued that the idea of the wrath of God is solidly rooted in both the Old
and New Testaments: “The whole of the argument of the opening part of Romans is that
all men, Gentiles and Jews alike, are sinners, and that they come under the wrath and
the condemnation of God.” 12
Three other crucial passages in the New Testament refer to Jesus’ death as a “propi-
tiation : Hebrews 2:17; 1 John 2:2; and 4:10. The Greek terms (the verb hilaskomai , “to
make propitiation ’ and the noun hilasmos , “a sacrifice of propitiation”) used in these
passages have the sense of “a sacrifice that turns away the wrath of God— and thereby
makes God propitious (or favorable) toward us.” 13 This is the consistent meaning of these
words outside the Bible where they were well understood in reference to pagan Greek
religions. These verses simply mean that Jesus bore the wrath of God against sin.
It is important to insist on this fact, because it is the heart of the doctrine of the
atonement. It means that there is an eternal, unchangeable requirement in the holiness
and justice of God that sin be paid for. Furthermore, before the atonement ever could
have an effect on our subjective consciousness, it first had an effect on God and his
relation to the sinners he planned to redeem. Apart from this central truth, the death
of Christ really cannot be adequately understood (see discussion of other views of the
atonement below).
Although we must be cautious in suggesting any analogies to the experience Christ went
through (for his experience was and always will be without precedent or comparison),
n See the detailed linguistic argument of C. H. Dodd, The
Bible and the Greeks (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1935),
pp. 82-95. Dodd argues that the idea of propitiation was com-
mon in pagan religions but foreign to the thought of Old Testa-
ment and New Testament writers.
12 Leon Morris, “Propitiation,” EDT, p. 888 (includes brief
bibliography). Morris’s own work has represented the best of
evangelical scholarship on this question: see his The Apostolic
Preaching of the Cross, 3d ed. (London: Tyndale Press, 1965),
pp. 144-213. See also the discussion of the wrath of God in
chapter 12, pp. 205-7.
13 Under the influence of scholars who denied that the idea
of propitiation was in the New Testament, the RSV translated
hilasmos as “expiation,” a word that means “an action that
cleanses from sin” but includes no concept of appeasing God’s
wrath.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
576
nonetheless, all our understanding of Jesus’ suffering comes in some sense by way of
analogous experiences in our life — for that is how God teaches us in Scripture. 14 Once
again our human experience provides a very faint analogy that helps us understand what
it means to bear the wrath of God. Perhaps as children we have faced the wrath of a
human father when we have done wrong, or perhaps as adults we have known the anger
of an employer because of a mistake we have made. We are inwardly shaken, disturbed
by the crashing of another personality, filled with displeasure, into our very selves, and
we tremble. We can hardly imagine the personal disintegration that would threaten if the
outpouring of wrath came not from some finite human being but from Almighty God. If
even the presence of God when he does not manifest wrath arouses fear and trembling in
people (cf. Heb. 12:21, 28-29), how terrible it must be to face the presence of a wrathful
God (Heb. 10:31).
With this in mind, we are now better able to understand Jesus’ cry of desolation, “My
God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46b). The question does not mean,
“Why have you left me forever?” for Jesus knew that he was leaving the world, that he
was going to the Father (John 14:28; 16:10, 17). Jesus knew that he would rise again (John
2:19; Luke 18:33; Mark 9:31, et al.). It was “for the joy that was set before him” that Jesus
“endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of
God” (Heb. 12:2). Jesus knew that he could still call God “my God.” This cry of desola-
tion is not a cry of total despair. Furthermore, “Why have you forsaken me?” does not
imply that Jesus wondered why he was dying. He had said, “The Son of man also came
not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).
Jesus knew that he was dying for our sins.
Jesus’ cry is a quotation from Psalm 22:1, a psalm in which the psalmist asks why God
is so far from helping him, why God delays in rescuing him:
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my
groaning?
O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer;
and by night, but find no rest. (Ps. 22:1-2)
Yet the psalmist was eventually rescued by God, and his cry of desolation turned into a
hymn of praise (w. 22-31). Jesus, who knew the words of Scripture as his own, knew well
the context of Psalm 22. In quoting this psalm, he is quoting a cry of desolation that also
has implicit in its context an unremitting faith in the God who will ultimately deliver
him. Nevertheless, it remains a very real cry of anguish because the suffering has gone
on so long and no release is in sight.
With this context for the quotation it is better to understand the question “Why have
you forsaken me?” as meaning, “Why have you left me for so long?” This is the sense it
has in Psalm 22. Jesus, in his human nature, knew he would have to bear our sins, to suf-
fer and to die. But, in his human consciousness, he probably did not know how long this
l4 See the discussion of anthropomorphic language in
Scripture to teach us about God in chapter 11, pp. 157-60.
CHAPTER 27 • THE ATONEMENT
suffering would take. Yet to bear the guilt of millions of sins even for a moment would
cause the greatest anguish of soul. To face the deep and furious wrath of an infinite God
even for an instant would cause the most profound fear. But Jesus’ suffering was not over
in a minute — or two — or ten. When would it end? Could there be yet more weight of
sin? Yet more wrath of God? Hour after hour it went on — the dark weight of sin and the
deep wrath of God poured over Jesus in wave after wave. Jesus at last cried out, “My God,
my God, why have you forsaken me?” Why must this suffering go on so long? Oh God,
my God, will you ever bring it to an end?
Then at last Jesus knew his suffering was nearing completion. He knew he had con-
sciously borne all the wrath of the Father against our sins, for God’s anger had abated
and the awful heaviness of sin was being removed. He knew that all that remained was to
yield up his spirit to his heavenly Father and die. With a shout of victory Jesus cried out,
It is finished!” (John 19:30). Then with a loud voice he once more cried out, “Father,
into your hands I commit my spirit!” (Luke 23:46). And then he voluntarily gave up the
life that no one could take from him (John 10:17— 18), and he died. As Isaiah had pre-
dicted, “he poured out his soul to death” and “bore the sin of many” (Isa. 53:12). God the
Father saw “the fruit of the travail of his soul” and was “satisfied” (Isa. 53:11).
c. Further Understanding of the Death of Christ:
(1) The Penalty Was Inflicted By God the Father: If we ask, “Who required Christ to pay
the penalty for our sins?” the answer given by Scripture is that the penalty was inflicted
by God the Father as he represented the interests of the Trinity in redemption. It was
God’s justice that required that sin be paid for, and, among the members of the Trinity, it
was God the Father whose role was to require that payment. God the Son voluntarily took
upon himself the role of bearing the penalty for sin. Referring to God the Father, Paul
says, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin [that is, Christ] , so that in him
we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21). Isaiah said, “The Lord has laid
on him the iniquity of us all” (Isa. 53:6). He goes on to describe the sufferings of Christ:
“Yet it was the will of the Lord to bruise him; he has put him to grief” (Isa. 53:10).
Herein we see something of the amazing love of both God the Father and God the Son
in redemption. Not only did Jesus know that he would bear the incredible pain of the
cross, but God the Father also knew that he would have to inflict this pain on his own
deeply loved Son. “God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died
for us” (Rom. 5:8).
(2) Not Eternal Suffering but Complete Payment: If we had to pay the penalty for our
own sins, we would have to suffer eternally in separation from God. 15 However, Jesus
did not suffer eternally. There are two reasons for this difference: (a) If we suffered for
our own sins, we would never be able to make ourselves right with God again. There
would be no hope because there would be no way to live again and earn perfect righ-
teousness before God, and there would be no way to undo our sinful nature and make it
l5 See chapter 56, pp. 1 149-53, on eternal punishment.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
578
right before God. Moreover, we would continue to exist as sinners who would not suffer
with pure hearts of righteousness before God, but would suffer with resentment and bit-
terness against God, thus continually compounding our sin. (b) Jesus was able to bear
all the wrath of God against our sin and to bear it to the end. No mere man could ever
have done this, but by virtue of the union of divine and human natures in himself, Jesus
was able to bear all the wrath of God against sin and bear it to the end. Isaiah predicted
that God “shall see the fruit of the travail of his soul and be satisfied” (Isa. 53:11). When
Jesus knew that he had paid the full penalty for our sin, he said, “It is finished” (John
19:30). If Christ had not paid the full penalty, there would still be condemnation left
for us. But since he has paid the full penalty that is due to us, “There is therefore now
no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1).
It should help us at this point to realize that nothing in the eternal character of God
and nothing in the laws God had given for mankind required that there be eternal suf-
fering to pay for mans sins. In fact, if there is eternal suffering, it simply shows that
the penalty has never been fully paid, and that the evildoer continues to be a sinner by
nature. But when Christ’s sufferings at last came to an end on the cross, it showed that
he had borne the full measure of God’s wrath against sin and there was no penalty left
to pay. It also showed that he was himself righteous before God. In this way the fact that
Christ suffered for a limited time rather than eternally shows that his suffering was a
sufficient payment for sins. The author of Hebrews repeats this theme again and again,
emphasizing the completion and the finality of Christ’s redemptive work:
Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the Holy Place
yearly with blood not his own; for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly
since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the
end of the age to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. . . . Christ, having been
offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with
sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. (Heb. 9:25-28)
This New Testament emphasis on the completion and finality of Christ’s sacrificial
death stands in contrast to the Roman Catholic teaching that in the mass there is a repeti-
tion of the sacrifice of Christ. 16 Because of this official teaching of the Roman Catholic
Church, many Protestants since the Reformation, and still today, are convinced that they
cannot in good conscience actually participate in the Roman Catholic mass, because
it would seem to be an endorsement of the Catholic view that the sacrifice of Christ is
repeated every time the mass is offered.
The New Testament emphasis on the completion and finality of Christ’s sacrifice of
himself for us has much practical application, because it assures us that there is no more
penalty for sin left for us to pay. The penalty has entirely been paid by Christ, and we
should have no remaining fear of condemnation or punishment.
16 Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma , p. 408, says,
“In the Sacrifice of the Mass and in the Sacrifice of the Cross the
Sacrificial Gift and the Primary Sacrificing Priest are identical;
only the nature and the mode of the offering are different
according to the Thomistic view, in every Mass Christ also per-
forms an actual immediate sacrificial activity, which, however,
must not be conceived as a totality of many successive acts but
as one single uninterrupted sacrificial act of the Transfigured
Christ. The purpose of the Sacrifice is the same in the Sacri-
fice of the Mass as in the Sacrifice of the Cross; primarily the
glorification of God, secondarily atonement, thanksgiving and
appeal.”
CHAPTER 27 • THE ATONEMENT
(3) The Meaning of the Blood of Christ: The New Testament frequently connects the
blood of Christ with our redemption. For example, Peter says, “You know that you were
ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your fathers, not with perishable things
such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without
blemish or spot” (1 Peter 1:18- 19).
The blood of Christ is the clear outward evidence that his life blood was poured out
when he died a sacrificial death to pay for our redemption — “the blood of Christ” means
his death in its saving aspects. 17 Although we may think that Christ’s blood (as evidence
that his life had been given) would have exclusive reference to the removal of our judicial
guilt before God — for this is its primary reference — the New Testament authors also
attribute to it several other effects. By the blood of Christ our consciences are cleansed
(Heb. 9:14), we gain bold access to God in worship and prayer (Heb. 10:19), we are pro-
gressively cleansed from remaining sin (1 John 1:7; cf. Rev. 1:5b), we are able to conquer
the accuser of the brethren (Rev. 12:10—11), and we are rescued out of a sinful way of life
(1 Peter 1:18— 19). 18
Scripture speaks so much about the blood of Christ because its shedding was very clear
evidence that his life was being given in judicial execution (that is, he was condemned to
death and died paying a penalty imposed both by an earthly human judge and by God
himself in heaven). Scripture’s emphasis on the blood of Christ also shows the clear con-
nection between Christ’s death and the many sacrifices in the Old Testament that involved
the pouring out of the life blood of the sacrificial animal. These sacrifices all pointed
forward to and prefigured the death of Christ.
(4) Christ’s Death as “Penal Substitution”: The view of Christ’s death presented here has
frequently been called the theory of “penal substitution.” Christ’s death was “penal” in that
he bore a penalty when he died. His death was also a “substitution” in that he was a substi-
tute for us when he died. This has been the orthodox understanding of the atonement held
by evangelical theologians, in contrast to other views that attempt to explain the atonement
apart from the idea of the wrath of God or payment of the penalty for sin (see below).
This view of the atonement is sometimes called the theory of vicarious atonement. A
“vicar” is someone who stands in the place of another or who represents another. Christ’s
death was therefore “vicarious” because he stood in our place and represented us. As our
representative, he took the penalty that we deserve.
d. New Testament Terms Describing Different Aspects of the Atonement: The atoning
work of Christ is a complex event that has several effects on us. It can therefore be viewed
from several different aspects. The New Testament uses different words to describe these;
we shall examine four of the more important terms.
The four terms show how Christ’s death met the four needs that we have as sinners:
1. We deserve to die as the penalty for sin.
2. We deserve to bear God’s wrath against sin.
17 S° Leon Morris, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross, 18 This paragraph has been taken from Wayne Grudem,
pp. 112-26. The First Epistle of Peter, p. 84.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
580
3. We are separated from God by our sins.
4. We are in bondage to sin and to the kingdom of Satan.
These four needs are met by Christ’s death in the following ways:
(1) Sacrifice: To pay the penalty of death that we deserved because of our sins, Christ
died as a sacrifice for us. “He has appeared once for all at the end of the age to put away
sin by the sacrifice of himself” (Heb. 9:26).
(2) Propitiation: To remove us from the wrath of God that we deserved, Christ died as a
propitiation for our sins. “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and
sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10 NASB).
(3) Reconciliation: To overcome our separation from God, we needed someone to pro-
vide reconciliation and thereby bring us back into fellowship with God. Paul says that
God “through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation;
that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself” (2 Cor. 5:18-19).
(4) Redemption: Because we as sinners are in bondage to sin and to Satan, we need
someone to provide redemption and thereby “redeem” us out of that bondage. When we
speak of redemption, the idea of a “ransom” comes into view. A ransom is the price paid
to redeem someone from bondage or captivity. Jesus said of himself, “For the Son of man
also came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many ” (Mark
10:45). If we ask to whom the ransom was paid, we realize that the human analogy of a
ransom payment does not fit the atonement of Christ in every detail. Though we were
in bondage to sin and to Satan, there was no “ransom” paid either to “sin” or to Satan
himself, for they did not have power to demand such payment, nor was Satan the one
whose holiness was offended by sin and who required a penalty to be paid for sin. As we
saw earlier, the penalty for sin was paid by Christ and received and accepted by God the
Father. But we hesitate to speak of paying a “ransom” to God the Father, because it was
not he who held us in bondage but Satan and our own sins. Therefore at this point the
idea of a ransom payment cannot be pressed in every detail. It is sufficient to note that
a price was paid (the death of Christ) and the result was that we were “redeemed” from
bondage.
We were redeemed from bondage to Satan because “the whole world is in the power
of the evil one” (1 John 5:19), and when Christ came he died to “deliver all those who
through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage” (Heb. 2:15). In fact, God the
Father “has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us to the
kingdom of his beloved Son” (Col. 1:13).
As for deliverance from bondage to sin, Paul says, “So you also must consider your-
selves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. . . . For sin will have no domin-
ion over you, since you are not under law but under grace” (Rom. 6:11, 14). We have
been delivered from bondage to the guilt of sin and from bondage to its ruling power in
our lives.
CHAPTER 27 • THE ATONEMENT
e. Other Views of the Atonement: In contrast to the penal substitution view of the atone-
ment presented in this chapter, several other views have been advocated in the history
of the church.
(1) The Ransom to Satan Theory: This view was held by Origen (c. A.D. 185-c. 254), a
theologian from Alexandria and later Caesarea, and after him by some others in the early
history of the church. According to this view, the ransom Christ paid to redeem us was
paid to Satan, in whose kingdom all people were by virtue of sin.
This theory finds no direct confirmation in Scripture and has few supporters in the
history of the church. It falsely thinks of Satan rather than God as the one who required
that a payment be made for sin and thus completely neglects the demands of God’s jus-
tice with respect to sin. It views Satan as having much more power than he actually does,
namely, power to demand whatever he wants from God, rather than as one who has been
cast down from heaven and has no right to demand anything of God. Nowhere does
Scripture say that we as sinners owe anything to Satan, but it repeatedly says that God
requires of us a payment for our sins. This view also fails to deal with the texts that speak
of Christ’s death as a propitiation offered to God the Father for our sins, or with the fact
that God the Father represented the Trinity in accepting the payment for sins from Christ
(see discussion above).
(2) The Moral Influence Theory: First advocated by Peter Abelard (1079- 1 142), a French
theologian, the moral influence theory of the atonement holds that God did not require
the payment of a penalty for sin, but that Christ’s death was simply a way in which God
showed how much he loved human beings by identifying with their sufferings, even to
the point of death. Christ’s death therefore becomes a great teaching example that shows
God’s love to us and draws from us a grateful response, so that in loving him we are
forgiven.
The great difficulty with this viewpoint is that it is contrary to so many passages of
Scripture that speak of Christ dying for sin, bearing our sin, or dying as a propitiation.
Moreover, it robs the atonement of its objective character, because it holds that the atone-
ment had no effect on God himself. Finally, it has no way of dealing with our guilt — if
Christ did not die to pay for our sins, we have no right to trust in him for forgiveness
of sins.
(3) The Example Theory: The example theory of the atonement was taught by the Socin-
ians, the followers of Faustus Socinus (1539-1604), an Italian theologian who settled
in Poland in 1578 and attracted a wide following. 19 The example theory, like the moral
influence theory, also denies that God’s justice requires payment for sin; it says that
Christ’s death simply provides us with an example of how we should trust and obey God
perfectly, even if that trust and obedience leads to a horrible death. Whereas the moral
influence theory says that Christ’s death teaches us how much God loves us, the example
I9 The Socinians were anti-trinitarian since they denied the
deity of Christ: their thought led to modern Unitarianism.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
582
theory says that Christ’s death teaches us how we should live. Support for this view could
be found in 1 Peter 2:21, “For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered
for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps .”
While it is true that Christ is an example for us even in his death, the question is
whether this fact is the complete explanation of the atonement. The example theory fails
to account for the many Scriptures that focus on Christ’s death as a payment for sin, the
fact that Christ bore our sins, and the fact that he was the propitiation for our sins. These
considerations alone mean that the theory must be rejected. Moreover, this view really
ends up arguing that man can save himself by following Christ’s example and by trusting
and obeying God just as Christ did. Thus it fails to show how the guilt of our sin can be
removed, because it does not hold that Christ actually paid the penalty for our sins or
made provision for our guilt when he died.
(4) The Governmental Theory: The governmental theory of the atonement was first taught
by a Dutch theologian and jurist, Hugo Grotius (1583-1645). This theory holds that God
did not actually have to require payment for sin, but, since he was omnipotent God, he
could have set aside that requirement and simply forgiven sins without the payment of a
penalty. Then what was the purpose of Christ’s death? It was God’s demonstration of the
fact that his laws had been broken, that he is the moral lawgiver and governor of the uni-
verse, and that some kind of penalty would be required whenever his laws were broken.
Thus Christ did not exactly pay the penalty for the actual sins of any people, but simply
suffered to show that when God’s laws are broken there must be some penalty paid.
The problem with this view again is that it fails to account adequately for all the
Scriptures that speak of Christ bearing our sins on the cross, of God laying on Christ the
iniquity of us all, of Christ dying specifically for our sins, and of Christ being the propi-
tiation for our sins. Moreover, it takes away the objective character of the atonement by
making its purpose not the satisfaction of God’s justice but simply that of influencing
us to realize that God has laws that must be kept. This view also implies that we cannot
rightly trust in Christ’s completed work for forgiveness of sin, because he has not actu-
ally made payment for those sins. Moreover, it makes the actual earning of forgiveness
for us something that happened in God’s own mind apart from the death of Christ on
the cross — he had already decided to forgive us without requiring any penalty from us
and then punished Christ only to demonstrate that he was still the moral governor of the
universe. But this means that Christ (in this view) did not actually earn forgiveness or
salvation for us, and thus the value of his redemptive work is greatly minimized. Finally,
this theory fails to take adequate account of the unchangeableness of God and the infinite
purity of his justice. To say that God can forgive sins without requiring any penalty (in
spite of the fact that throughout Scripture sin always requires the payment of a penalty)
is seriously to underestimate the absolute character of the justice of God.
f. Did Christ Descend Into Hell? 20 It is sometimes argued that Christ descended into hell
after he died. The phrase “he descended into hell” does not occur in the Bible. But the
20 The following section is taken from Wayne Grudem, “He Instead of the Apostles* Creed,” JETS vol. 34, no. 1 (March,
Did Not Descend Into Hell: A Plea for Following Scripture 1991), pp. 103-13.
CHAPTER 27 • THE ATONEMENT
583
THE GRADUAL FORMATION OF THE APOSTLES' CREED
CREDO (I believe)
Art. Ill
Ultimate Text of the
Western Creed
Qui Conceptus est
De Spirita Sancto
Natus
Ex Maria Virgine
Pirminius, A.D. 750
Who was
conceived
By the Holy
Ghost
Born
Of the Virgin
Mary
St. Irenaeus,
A.D. 200
xov oapK-
a>0evxa vke p
iif^iip.exepac;
aotJXTipiac;
(avOpcDTroq
eyevexo)
(Generationum)
xrjv eKTtapGe-
vou ye wriaiv
(ex Virgine)
II.
Tertullian,
A.D. 220
(missum a Petre
in Virginem)
(EX SPIRITU
Patris Dei et
virtute)
NATUM (carnem
factum et ex ea
natum)
EX VIRGINE
MARIA
III.
St. Cyprian,
A.D. 250
IV.
Novatian,
A.D. 260
V.
Marcellus,
A.D. 341
eKTtve'upotxoq
dyiou
yevvTiGevxa
Kai Mapia^
xifgTtapGevou
VI.
Rufinus,
A.D. 390
Aquileja
QUI
de Spiritu
SANCTO
natus est
ex Maria Virgine
VII.
Rufinus,
Rome, A.D. 390
qui
de Spiritu Sancto
natus est
ex Maria Virgine
VIII.
St. Augustine,
A.D. 400
qui
de Spiritu Santo
also [per Sp.
Sanct.]
natus est
ex Maria Virgine
also [et]
IX.
St. Nicetas,
A.D. 450
qui
ex Spiritu Sancto
natus est
et Virgine Maria
X.
Eusebius Gallus,
A.D. 550 (?)
qui
de Spiritu Sancto
natus est
ex Maria Virgine
XI.
Sacramentarium
Gallicanum.
A.D. 650
qui conceptus
est
de Spiritu Sancto
natus est
ex Maria Virgine
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
584
THE GRADUAL FORMATION OF THE APOSTLES' CREED
Art. Ill
Passus
Sub Pontio Pilato
Crucifixus
Mortuus
EtSepultus
Suffered
Under Pontius
Pilate
Was crucified
Dead
And buried
Kai to 7ta0o<;
(SUB PONTIO
PILATO)
CRUCIFIXUM
(passum)
sub Pontio Pilato
(MORTUUM)
(ET SEPULTUM
secundum
Scripturas)
TO V ETUI TCOVTIOt)
niXaxov
axaupcDGevTa
Kai Ta<t>evxa
sub Pontio Pilate
crucifixus
et sepultus
sub Pontio Pilate
crucifixus
et sepultus
passus
sub Pontio Pilate
crucifixus
et sepultus
passus
sub Pontio Pilate
mortuus
et sepultus
passus
sub Pontio Pilate
crucifixus
mortuus
et sepultus
CHAPTER 27 • THE ATONEMENT
585
THE GRADUAL FORMATION OF THE APOSTLES' CREED
Art.V
Art. VI
Descenditad
Inferna
Tertia die
Resurrexit
a mortuis
Ascenditad
coelos
Sedet ad dex-
teram
He descended
into hell
The third day
He rose again
From the dead
He ascended
into heaven
And sitteth
at the right
hand
Kai xrjv
e yepaiv (et
resurgens)
£K V£KpO) V
eiqxouq
ou’pavout;
ava'A.r|(x\j/iv
(et in claritate
receptus)
TERTIA DIE
resuscitatum
(a Patre)
(resurrexisse)
E MORTUIS
receptum in
coelis (in coe-
los resump-
tum) (in coelos
ereptum)
SEDENTEM
nunc AD
DEXTERAM
Kai xrf
Tpixrt lipepa
avaaxavxa
£K TO) V
VEKpCOV
a’vapavxa
ei^xouc;
oupavoi)^
Kai Ka0i|-
pevov ev
8e£ia
DESCENDITin
INFERNA
tertia die
RESURREXIT
A mortuis
ASCENDITin
COELOS
SEDETad
dexteram
tertia die
resurrexit
a mortuis
ascendit in
coelos
SEDETad
dexteram
tertio die
resurrexit
a mortuis
ascendit in
coelos
sedet ad
dexteram
tertio die
resurrexit
vivus a mor-
tuis
ascendit in
coelos
sedet ad
dexteram
tertia die
resurrexit
a mortuis
ascendit AD
coelos
sedet ad
dexteram
Descendit AD
Inferna
tertia die
resurrexit
a mortuis
ascenditad
coelos
sedet ad
dexteram
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
586
widely used Apostles’ Creed reads, “was crucified, dead, and buried, he descended into
hell; the third day he rose again from the dead.” Does this mean that Christ endured fur-
ther suffering after his death on the cross? As we shall see below, an examination of the
biblical evidence indicates that he did not. But before looking at the relevant biblical texts,
it is appropriate to examine the phrase “he descended into hell” in the Apostles’ Creed.
(1) The Origin of the Phrase, “He Descended Into Hell”: A murky background lies
behind much of the history of the phrase itself. Its origins, where they can be found, are
far from praiseworthy. The great church historian Philip Schaff has summarized the
development of the Apostles’ Creed in an extensive chart, part of which is reproduced in
part on pages 583 -85. 21
This chart shows that, unlike the Nicene Creed and the Chalcedonian Definition, the
Apostles’ Creed was not written or approved by a single church council at one specific
time. Rather, it gradually took shape from about A.D. 200 to 750.
It is surprising to find that the phrase “he descended into hell” was not found in any
of the early versions of the Creed (in the versions used in Rome, in the rest of Italy, and
in Africa) until it appeared in one of two versions from Rufinus in A.D. 390. Then it
was not included again in any version of the Creed until A.D. 650. Moreover, Rufinus,
the only person who included it before A.D. 650, did not think that it meant that Christ
descended into hell, but understood the phrase simply to mean that Christ was “bur-
ied.” 22 In other words, he took it to mean that Christ “descended into the grave.” (The
Greek form has hades, which can mean just “grave,” not geenna, “hell, place of punish-
ment.”). We should also note that the phrase only appears in one of the two versions of
the Creed that we have from Rufinus: it was not in the Roman form of the Creed that
he preserved.
This means, therefore, that until A.D. 650 no version of the Creed included this phrase
with the intention of saying that Christ “descended into hell” — the only version to
include the phrase before A.D. 650 gives it a different meaning. At this point one wonders
if the term apostolic can in any sense be applied to this phrase, or if it really has a rightful
place in a creed whose title claims for itself descent from the earliest apostles of Christ.
This survey of the historical development of the phrase also raises the possibility
that when the phrase first began to be more commonly used, it may have been in other
versions (now lost to us) that did not have the expression “and buried.” If so, it probably
would have meant to others just what it meant to Rufinus: “descended into the grave.”
But later when the phrase was incorporated into different versions of the Creed that
already had the phrase “and buried,” some other explanation had to be given to it. This
2l This chart is taken from The Creeds of Christendom , It should be noted that Schaff throughout his Creeds of
2:52-55. Christendom has several editorial comments defending an
22 See Schaff, Creeds, 1.21, n. 6; see also 46, n. 2. Schaff notes actual descent of Christ into hell after his death on the cross,
that the phrase was found somewhat earlier (around A.D. 360), Thus, for example, he says that “Rufinus himself, however,
but then it was not in any orthodox creeds or any versions of the misunderstood it by making it to mean the same as buried”
Apostles’ Creed but in some creeds of the Arians — people who (1.21, n. 6) — thus Schaff assumes that to understand the
denied the full deity of Christ, holding that the Son was created phrase to mean “he descended into the grave” is to misunder-
by the Father (see Schaff, Creeds, 2.46, n. 2). (Schaff does not stand it (see also 2.46, n. 2; 3.321, n. 1).
give documentation for this reference to Arian creeds.)
CHAPTER 27 ■ THE ATONEMENT
mistaken insertion of the phrase after the words “and buried”— apparently done by
someone around A.D. 650— led to all sorts of attempts to explain “he descended into
hell” in some way that did not contradict the rest of Scripture.
Some have taken it to mean that Christ suffered the pains of hell while on the cross.
Calvin, for example, says that Christ s descent into hell” refers to the fact that he not
only died a bodily death but that “it was expedient at the same time for him to undergo
the severity of God’s vengeance, to appease his wrath and satisfy his just judgment.” 23
Similarly, the Heidelberg Catechism, Question 44, asks,
Why is it added: He descended into Hades?
Answer: That in my greatest temptations I may be assured that Christ, my Lord,
by his inexpressible anguish, pains, and terrors which he suffered in his soul on
the cross and before, has redeemed me from the anguish and torment of hell. 24
But is this a satisfactory explanation of the phrase, “he descended into hell”? While it
is true that Christ suffered the outpouring of God’s wrath on the cross, this explanation
does not really fit the phrase in the Apostles’ Creed— “descended” hardly represents this
idea, and the placement of the phrase after “was crucified, dead, and buried” makes this
an artificial and unconvincing interpretation.
Others have understood it to mean that Christ continued in the “state of death” until
his resurrection. The Westminster Larger Catechism, Question 50, says,
Christ’s humiliation after his death consisted in his being buried, and continu-
ing in the state of the dead, and under the power of death till the third day;
which hath been otherwise expressed in these words, He descended into hell.
Though it is true that Christ continued in the state of death until the third day, once
again it is a strained and unpersuasive explanation of “he descended into hell,” for the
placement of the phrase would then give the awkward sense, “he was crucified, dead,
and buried, he descended to being dead. This interpretation does not explain what the
words first meant in this sequence but is rather an unconvincing attempt to salvage some
theologically acceptable sense out of them.
Moreover, the English word “hell” has no such sense as simply “being dead” (though
the Greek word hades can mean this), so this becomes a doubly artificial explanation for
English-speaking people.
Finally, some have argued that the phrase means just what it appears to mean on first
reading: that Christ actually did descend into hell after his death on the cross. It is easy
to understand the Apostles’ Creed to mean just this (indeed, that is certainly the natural
sense), but then another question arises: Can this idea be supported from Scripture?
(2) Possible Biblical Support for a Descent Into Hell: Support for the idea that Christ
descended into hell has been found primarily in five passages: Acts 2:27; Romans 10:6-7;
Ephesians 4:8-9; 1 Peter 3:18-20; and 1 Peter 4:6. (A few other passages have been
23 John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1.515 24 Schaff Creeds 3 321
(2.16.10).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
588
appealed to, but less convincingly.) 25 On closer inspection, do any of those passages
clearly establish this teaching?
(a) Acts 2:27. This is part of Peters sermon on the Day of Pentecost, where he is quot-
ing Psalm 16:10. In the King James Version the verse reads: “because thou wilt not leave
my soul in hell , neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.”
Does this mean that Christ entered hell after he died? Not necessarily, because another
sense is certainly possible for these verses. The word “hell” here represents a New Testa-
ment Greek term (hades) and an Old Testament Hebrew term (? ’ ol y popularly translated
as sheol) that can mean simply “the grave” or “death” (the state of being dead). Thus,
the NIV translates: “Because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your
Holy One see decay” (Acts 2:27). This sense is preferable because the context emphasizes
that Christ’s body rose from the grave, unlike David’s, which remained in the grave. The
reasoning is: “My body also will live in hope” (v. 26), “because you will not abandon
me to the grave” (v. 27). Peter is using David’s psalm to show that Christ’s body did not
decay — he is therefore unlike David, who “died and was buried, and his tomb is here to
this day” (v. 29 NIV). Therefore this passage about Christ’s resurrection from the grave
does not convincingly support the idea that Christ descended into hell.
(b) Romans 10:6-7. These verses contain two rhetorical questions, again Old Testa-
ment quotations (from Deut. 30:13): “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into
heaven?’ (that is, to bring Christ down) or ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’ (that is, to
bring Christ up from the dead).” But this passage hardly teaches that Christ descended
into hell. The point of the passage is that Paul is telling people not to ask these questions,
because Christ is not far away — he is near — and faith in him is as near as confessing
with our mouth and believing in our heart (v. 9). These prohibited questions are ques-
tions of unbelief, not assertions of what Scripture teaches. However, some may object
that Paul would not have anticipated that his readers would ask such questions unless it
was widely known that Christ did in fact descend “into the abyss.” However, even if this
were true, Scripture would not be saying or implying that Christ went into “hell” (in the
sense of a place of punishment for the dead, ordinarily expressed by Gk. geenna ), but
rather that he went into “the abyss” (Gk. abyssos , a term which often in the LXX is used
of the depths of the ocean [Gen. 1:2; 7:11; 8:2; Deut. 8:7; Ps. 106(107):26],butitcanalso
apparently refer just to the realm of the dead [Ps. 70(71):20]). 26
Paul here uses the word “deep” ( abyssos ) as a contrast to “heaven” in order to give
the sense of a place that is unreachable, inaccessible to human beings. The contrast is
not, “Who shall go to find Christ in a place of great blessing (heaven) or a place of great
punishment (hell)?” but rather, “Who shall go to find Christ in a place that is inaccessibly
25 For example, Matt. 12:40, which says that Christ will be refer to the abode of condemned demons (as in Revelation),
three days and nights “in the heart of the earth,” simply refers this is not its common sense in the LXX or a necessary sense
to the fact that he was in the grave between his death and resur- in its New Testament usage. The primary force of the term is a
rection (cf., in the LXX, Ps. 45 [46] :2 with Jonah 2:3). place that is deep, unfathomable to human beings, ordinarily
26 1 Clem. 28:3 uses abyssos instead of the Septuagint’s unable to be reached by them. (C. E. B. Cranfield, A Critical
hades to translate Ps. 139:8, “If I make my bed in Sheol, thou and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans , 2.525,
art there ! ” In the New Testament, the term is used only in Luke notes that abyssos is the ordinary LXX translation for Hebrew
8:31; Rom. 10:7; and seven times in Revelation (there it refers tehom, and that tehom is used in the Mishnah [Pesahim 7:7;
to the “bottomless pit”). Therefore, although the term can Nazir 9:2] to refer to a grave that had been unknown.)
CHAPTER 27 • THE ATONEMENT
high (heaven) or in a place that is inaccessibly low (the deep, or the realm of death)?” No
clear affirmation or denial of a "descent into hell” can be found in this passage.
(c) Ephesians 4:8—9. Here Paul writes, “In saying, ‘He ascended,’ what does it mean
but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth?”
Does this mean that Christ “descended” to hell? It is at first unclear what is meant by
“the lower parts of the earth,” but another translation seems to give the best sense: “What
does ‘he ascended’ mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions?”
(NIV). Here the NIV takes “descended” to refer to Christ’s coming to earth as a baby
(the Incarnation). The last four words are an acceptable understanding of the Greek text,
taking the phrase “the lower regions of the earth” to mean “lower regions which are the
earth (the grammatical form in Greek would then be called a genitive of apposition).
We do the same thing in English— for example, in the phrase “the city of Chicago,” we
mean “the city which is Chicago.”
The NIV rendering is preferable in this context because Paul is saying that the Christ
who went up to heaven (in his ascension) is the same one who earlier came down from
heaven (v. 10). That “descent” from heaven occurred, of course, when Christ came to be
born as a man. So the verse speaks of the incarnation, not of a descent into hell. 27
(d) 1 Peter 3:18-20. For many people this is the most puzzling passage on this entire
subject. Peter tells us that Christ was put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit;
in which he went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly did not obey, when
God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark” (RSV).
Does this refer to Christ preaching in hell?
Some have taken “he went and preached to the spirits in prison” to mean that Christ
went into hell and preached to the spirits who were there— either proclaiming the gospel
and offering a second chance to repent, or just proclaiming that he had triumphed over
them and that they were eternally condemned.
But these interpretations fail to explain adequately either the passage itself or its set-
ting in this context. Peter does not say that Christ preached to spirits generally, but only
to those “who formerly did not obey . . . during the building of the ark.” Such a limited
audience — those who disobeyed during the building of the ark— would be a strange
group for Christ to travel to hell and preach to. If Christ proclaimed his triumph, why
only to these sinners and not to all? And if he offered a second chance for salvation, why
only to these sinners and not to all? Even more difficult for this view is the fact that
Scripture elsewhere indicates that there is no opportunity for repentance after death
(Luke 16:26; Heb. 10:26-27).
Moreover, the context of 1 Peter 3 makes “preaching in hell” unlikely. Peter is
encouraging his readers to witness boldly to hostile unbelievers around them. He just
told them to “always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you” (1 Peter
3:15 NIV). This evangelistic motif would lose its urgency if Peter were teaching a sec-
ond chance for salvation after death. And it would not fit at all with a “preaching” of
condemnation.
"Referring to Eph. 4:9, H. Bietenhard says, “In modern inferos (“he descended into hell” in the Apostles’ Creed) is
exposition the reference of this passage to the descensus ad almost without exception rejected” (NIDNTT, 2:210).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
590
Does it refer to Christ preaching to fallen angels?
To give a better explanation for these difficulties, several commentators have pro-
posed taking “spirits in prison” to mean demonic spirits, the spirits of fallen angels, and
have said that Christ proclaimed condemnation to these demons. This (it is claimed)
would comfort Peters readers by showing them that the demonic forces oppressing them
would also be defeated by Christ.
However, Peter’s readers would have to go through an incredibly complicated rea-
soning process to draw this conclusion when Peter does not explicitly teach it. They
would have to reason from (1) some demons who sinned long ago were condemned, to
(2) other demons are now inciting your human persecutors, to (3) those demons will
likewise be condemned someday, to (4) therefore your persecutors will finally be judged
as well. Finally Peters readers would get to Peter’s point: (5) Therefore don’t fear your
persecutors.
Those who hold this “preaching to fallen angels” view must assume that Peter’s readers
would “read between the lines” and conclude all this (points 2-5) from the simple state-
ment that Christ “preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly did not obey” (1 Peter
3:19-20). But does it not seem too farfetched to say that Peter knew his readers would
read all this into the text?
Moreover, Peter emphasizes hostile persons, not demons, in the context (1 Peter 3:14,
16). And where would Peter’s readers get the idea that angels sinned “during the building
of the ark”? There is nothing of that in the Genesis story about the building of the ark.
And (in spite of what some have claimed), if we look at all the traditions of Jewish inter-
pretation of the flood story, we find no mention of angels sinning specifically “during the
building of the ark.” 28 Therefore the view that Peter is speaking of Christ’s proclamation
of judgment to fallen angels is really not persuasive either.
Does it refer to Christ’s proclaiming release to Old Testament saints?
Another explanation is that Christ, after his death, went and proclaimed release to
Old Testament believers who had been unable to enter heaven until the completion of
Christ’s redemptive work.
But again we may question whether this view adequately accounts for what the text
actually says. It does not say that Christ preached to those who were believers or faithful
to God, but to those “who formerly did not obey ” — the emphasis is on their disobedience.
Moreover, Peter does not specify Old Testament believers generally, but only those who
were disobedient “in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark” (1 Peter 3:20).
Finally, Scripture gives us no clear evidence to make us think that full access to the
blessings of being in God’s presence in heaven were withheld from Old Testament believ-
ers when they died — indeed, several passages suggest that believers who died before
Christ’s death did enter into the presence of God at once because their sins were forgiven
by trusting in the Messiah who was to come (Gen. 5:24; 2 Sam. 12:23; Pss. 16:11; 17:15;
23:6; Eccl. 12:7; Matt. 22:31-32; Luke 16:22; Rom. 4:1-8; Heb. 11:5).
28 For an extensive discussion of Jewish interpretations of Dominant Themes in Jewish Literature,” in Wayne Grudem,
the sin of the “sons of God” in Gen. 6:2, 4, and of the identity The First Epistle of Peter y pp. 203-39. (This appendix has a
of those who sinned while the ark was being built, see “Christ lengthy discussion of 1 Peter 3:19-20, which I have only briefly
Preaching Through Noah: 1 Peter 3:19-20 in the Light of summarized here.)
CHAPTER27 • THE ATONEMENT
591
A more satisfying explanation.
The most satisfactory explanation of 1 Peter 3:19—20 seems rather to be one proposed
(but not really defended) long ago by Augustine: the passage refers not to something
Christ did between his death and resurrection, but to what he did “in the spiritual realm of
existence” (or “through the Spirit”) at the time of Noah. When Noah was building the ark,
Christ “in spirit” was preaching through Noah to the hostile unbelievers around him. 29
This view gains support from two other statements of Peter. In 1 Peter 1:11, he says
that the “Spirit of Christ” was speaking in the Old Testament prophets. This suggests that
Peter could readily have thought that the “Spirit of Christ” was speaking through Noah
as well. Then in 2 Peter 2:5, he calls Noah a “preacher of righteousness” (NIV), using
the noun ( keryx ) that comes from the same root as the verb “preached” ( ekeryxen ) in 1
Peter 3:19. So it seems likely that when Christ “preached to the spirits in prison” he did
so through Noah in the days before the flood.
The people to whom Christ preached through Noah were unbelievers on the earth
at the time of Noah, but Peter calls them “spirits in prison” because they are now in the
prison of hell— even though they were not just “spirits” but persons on earth when the
preaching was done. (The NASB says Christ preached “to the spirits now in prison.”)
We can speak the same way in English: “I knew President Clinton when he was a college
student” is an appropriate statement, even though he was not president when he was
in college. The sentence means, “I knew the man who is now President Clinton when
he was still a student in college.” So “Christ preached to the spirits in prison” means
Christ preached to people who are now spirits in prison when they were still persons
on earth ” 30
This interpretation is very appropriate to the larger context of 1 Peter 3:13-22. The
parallel between the situation of Noah and the situation of Peter’s readers is clear at
several points:
Noah
Righteous minority
Surrounded by hostile
unbelievers
Gods judgment was near
Noah witnessed boldly
(by Christ’s power)
Noah was finally saved
Peter’s readers
Righteous minority
Surrounded by hostile
unbelievers
Gods judgment may come soon
(1 Peter 4:5, 7; 2 Peter 3:10)
They should witness boldly
by Christ’s power
(1 Peter 3:14, 16-17; 3:15; 4:11)
They will finally be saved
(1 Peter 3:13- 14; 4:13; 5:10)
29 This section is a brief summary of a more extensive discus-
sion of this passage in Wayne Grudem, The First Epistle of Peter,
pp. 157-62 and 203-39.
30 My student Tet-Lim Yee has called my attention to
another very similar expression elsewhere in Scripture:
Naomi speaks of how kindly Ruth and Orpah “have dealt
with the dead” (Ruth 1:8), referring to their treatment of their
husbands while the husbands were still alive.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
592
Such an understanding of the text seems to be by far the most likely solution to a puz-
zling passage. Yet this means that our fourth possible support for a descent of Christ into
hell also turns up negative — the text speaks rather of something Christ did on earth at
the time of Noah.
(e) 1 Peter 4:6. This fifth and final passage says, “For this is why the gospel was
preached even to the dead, that though judged in the flesh like men, they might live in
the spirit like God.”
Does this verse mean that Christ went to hell and preached the gospel to those who
had died? If so, it would be the only passage in the Bible that taught a “second chance” for
salvation after death and would contradict passages such as Luke 16:19-31 and Hebrews
9:27, which clearly seem to deny this possibility. Moreover, the passage does not explicitly
say that Christ preached to people after they had died, and could rather mean that the gos-
pel in general was preached (this verse does not even say that Christ preached) to people
who are now dead, but that it was preached to them while they were still alive on earth.
This is a common explanation, and it seems to fit this verse much better. It finds
support in the second word of the verse, “this,” which refers back to the final judgment
mentioned at the end of verse 5. Peter is saying that it was because of the final judgment
that the gospel was preached to the dead.
This would comfort the readers concerning their Christian friends who had already
died. They may have wondered, “Did the gospel benefit them, since it didn’t save them
from death?” Peter answers that the reason the gospel was preached to those who had
died was not to save them from physical death (they were “judged in the flesh like men”)
but to save them from final judgment (they will “live in the spirit like God”). Therefore,
the fact that they had died did not indicate that the gospel had failed in its purpose — for
they would surely live forever in the spiritual realm.
Thus, “the dead” are people who have died and are now dead, even though they were
alive and on earth when the gospel was preached to them. (The NIV translates, “For
this is the reason the gospel was preached even to those who are now dead , ” and NASB
has “those who are dead.”) This avoids the doctrinal problem of a “second chance” of
salvation after death and fits both the wording and the context of the verse.
We conclude, therefore, that this last passage, when viewed in its context, turns out to
provide no convincing support for the doctrine of a descent of Christ into hell.
At this point, people on all sides of the question of whether Christ actually descended
into hell should be able to agree at least that the idea of Christ’s “descent into hell” is not
taught clearly or explicitly in any passage of Scripture. And many people (including the
present author) will conclude that this idea is not taught in Scripture at all. But beyond
the question of whether any passage positively teaches this idea, we must ask whether it
is contrary to any passages of Scripture.
(3) Biblical Opposition to a “Descent Into Hell”: In addition to the fact that there is little
if any biblical support for a descent of Christ into hell, there are some New Testament
texts that argue against the possibility of Christ’s going to hell after his death.
Jesus’ words to the thief on the cross, “Today you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke
23:43), imply that after Jesus died his soul (or spirit) went immediately to the presence
CHAPTER 27 • THE ATONEMENT
of the Father in heaven, even though his body remained on earth and was buried. Some
people deny this by arguing that “Paradise” is a place distinct from heaven, but in both
of the other New Testament uses the word clearly means “heaven”: in 2 Corinthians 12:4
it is the place to which Paul was caught up in his revelation of heaven, and in Revelation
2:7 it is the place where we find the tree of life — which is clearly heaven in Revelation
22:2 and 14. 31
In addition, the cry of Jesus, “It is finished” (John 19:30) strongly suggests that Christ’s
suffering was finished at that moment and so was his alienation from the Father because
of bearing our sin. This implies that he would not descend into hell, but would go at once
into the Father’s presence.
Finally, the cry, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” (Luke 23:46), also sug-
gests that Christ expected (correctly) the immediate end of his suffering and estrange-
ment and the welcoming of his spirit into heaven by God the Father (note Stephen’s
similar cry in Acts 7:59).
These texts indicate, then, that Christ in his death experienced the same things believ-
ers in this present age experience when they die: his dead body remained on earth and
was buried (as ours will be), but his spirit (or soul) passed immediately into the presence
of God in heaven (just as ours will). Then on the first Easter morning, Christ’s spirit was
reunited with his body and he was raised from the dead — just as Christians who have
died will (when Christ returns) be reunited to their bodies and raised in their perfect
resurrection bodies to new life. 32
This fact has pastoral encouragement for us: we need not fear death, not only because
eternal life lies on the other side, but also because we know that our Savior himself has gone
through exactly the same experience we will go through— he has prepared, even sanctified
the way, and we follow him with confidence each step of that way. This is much greater
comfort regarding death than could ever be given by any view of a descent into hell.
(4) Conclusion Regarding the Apostles’ Creed and the Question of Christ’s Possible
Descent Into Hell: Does the phrase he descended into hell” deserve to be retained in
the Apostles’ Creed alongside the great doctrines of the faith on which all can agree? The
single argument in its favor seems to be the fact that it has been around so long. But an
old mistake is still a mistake — and as long as it has been around there has been confusion
and disagreement over its meaning.
On the other side, there are several compelling reasons against keeping the phrase.
It has no clear warrant from Scripture and indeed seems to be contradicted by some
31 Further support for this idea is found in the fact that
though the word paradeisos y “paradise,” could simply mean
“pleasant garden” (esp. used in the LXX of the Garden of
Eden), it also frequently meant “heaven” or “a place of bless-
edness in the presence of God”: see Isa. 51:3; Ezek. 28:13;
31:8-9; T. Levi 18:10; 1 Enoch 20:7; 32:3; Sib. Or. 3:48. This
was increasingly the sense of the term in intertestamental
Jewish literature (for several more references see Joachim
Jeremias, paradeisos, TDNT 5 [1967], pp. 765-73, esp. 767,
nn. 16-23).
32 John 20:17 (“Do not hold me, for I have not yet ascended
to the Father”) is best understood to mean that Jesus in his
new resurrected state, with a resurrection body, had not yet
ascended back to heaven; therefore, Mary should not try
to hold on to Jesus’ body. The perfect tense of anabebeka ,
“ascended,” gives the sense, “I have not yet ascended and
remained in the place where I ascended” or “I am not yet in
the ascended state” (the latter phrase is from D. A. Carson,
The Gospel According to John [Leicester: Inter- Varsity Press,
and Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991], p. 644).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
594
passages in Scripture. It has no claim to being “apostolic” and no support (in the sense
of a “descent into hell”) from the first six centuries of the church. It was not in the earli-
est versions of the Creed and was only included in it later because of an apparent mis-
understanding about its meaning. Unlike every other phrase in the Creed, it represents
not some major doctrine on which all Christians agree, but rather a statement about
which most Christians seem to disagree. 33 It is at best confusing and in most cases mis-
leading for modern Christians. My own judgment is that there would be all gain and no
loss if it were dropped from the Creed once for all.
Concerning the doctrinal question of whether Christ did descend into hell after he
died, the answer from several passages of Scripture seems clearly to be no.
D. The Extent of the Atonement
One of the differences between Reformed theologians and other Catholic and Prot-
estant theologians has been the question of the extent of the atonement. The question
may be put this way: when Christ died on the cross, did he pay for the sins of the entire
human race or only for the sins of those who he knew would ultimately be saved?
Non-Reformed people argue that the gospel offer in Scripture is repeatedly made to
all people, and for this offer to be genuine, the payment for sins must have already been
made and must be actually available for all people. They also say that if the people whose
sins Christ paid for are limited, then the free offer of the gospel also is limited, and the
offer of the gospel cannot be made to all mankind without exception.
On the other hand, Reformed people argue that if Christ’s death actually paid for the
sins of every person who ever lived, then there is no penalty left for anyone to pay, and it
necessarily follows that all people will be saved, without exception. For God could not
condemn to eternal punishment anyone whose sins are already paid for: that would be
demanding double payment, and it would therefore be unjust. In answer to the objec-
tion that this compromises the free offer of the gospel to every person, Reformed people
answer that we do not know who they are who will come to trust in Christ, for only
God knows that. As far as we are concerned, the free offer of the gospel is to be made
to everybody without exception. We also know that everyone who repents and believes
in Christ will be saved, so all are called to repentance (cf. Acts 17:30). The fact that
God foreknew who would be saved, and that he accepted Christ’s death as payment for
their sins only, does not inhibit the free offer of the gospel, for who will respond to it is
hidden in the secret counsels of God. That we do not know who will respond no more
constitutes a reason for not offering the gospel to all than not knowing the extent of the
harvest prevents the farmer from sowing seed in his fields.
Finally, Reformed people argue that God’s purposes in redemption are agreed upon
within the Trinity and they are certainly accomplished. Those whom God planned to
save are the same people for whom Christ also came to die, and to those same people
the Holy Spirit will certainly apply the benefits of Christ’s redemptive work, even awak-
33 Randall E. Otto adopts a similar recommendation: “To very unwise” (“ Descendit in Inferna: A Reformed Review of a
include such a mysterious article in the creed, which is supposed Doctrinal Conundrum,” WTJ 52 [1990] , p. 150) .
to be a summary of the basic and vital tenets of the faith, seems
CHAPTER 27 • THE ATONEMENT
595
ening their faith (John 1:12; Phil. 1:29; cf. Eph. 2:2) and calling them to trust in him.
What God the Father purposed, God the Son and the Holy Spirit agreed to and surely
carried out.
1. Scripture Passages Used to Support the Reformed View. Several Scripture passages
speak of the fact that Christ died for his people. “The good shepherd lays down his life
for the sheep” (John 10:11). “I lay down my life for the sheep” (John 10:15). Paul speaks
of “the church of God which he obtained with the blood of his own Son” (Acts 20:28).
He also says, “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, will he not
also give us all things with him?” (Rom. 8:32). This passage indicates a connection
between God’s purpose in giving up his Son “for us all” and giving us “all things” that
pertain to salvation as well. In the next sentence Paul clearly limits the application of
this to those who will be saved because he says, “Who shall bring any charge against
God’s elect?” (Rom. 8:33) and in the next verse mentions Christ’s death as a reason
why no one shall bring a charge against the elect (8:34). In another passage, Paul says,
“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her”
(Eph. 5:25).
Moreover, Christ during his earthly ministry is aware of a group of people whom the
Father has given to him. All that the Father gives me will come to me; and him who
comes to me I will not cast out . . . this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose
nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up at the last day” (John 6:37-39). He
also says, I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for
they are yours” (John 17:9). He then goes on from this specific reference to the disciples
to say, “I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their
word” (John 17:20).
Finally, some passages speak of a definite transaction between the Father and the Son
when Christ died, a transaction that had specific reference to those who would believe.
For example, Paul says, God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners
Christ died for us (Rom. 5:8). He adds, “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled
to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved
by his life” (Rom. 5:10). This reconciliation to God occurred with respect to the specific
people who would be saved, and it occurred “while we were enemies.” Similarly, Paul
says, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might
become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21; cf. Gal. 1:4; Eph. 1:7). And “Christ
redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us” (Gal. 3:13).
Further support for the Reformed view is found in the consideration that all the
blessings of salvation, including faith, repentance, and all of the works of the Holy Spirit
in applying redemption, were also secured by Christ’s redemptive work specifically for
his people. Those for whom he earned forgiveness also have had those other benefits
earned for them (cf. Eph. 1:3-4; 2:8; Phil. 1:29). 34
I am not aware of any Arminians who hold what I have not seem logically impossible for someone to hold a traditional
called the Reformed view, the view that is commonly called Arminian position (that God foreknew who would believe and
“particular redemption” or “limited atonement.” But it does predestined them on the basis of that foreknowledge) coupled
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
596
What I have called “the Reformed view” in this section is commonly referred to as
“limited atonement.” 35 However, most theologians who hold this position today do not
prefer the term “limited atonement” because it is so easily subject to misunderstanding,
as if this view somehow held that Christ’s atoning work was deficient in some way. The
term that is usually preferred is particular redemption , since this view holds that Christ
died for particular people (specifically, those who would be saved and whom he came to
redeem), that he foreknew each one of them individually (cf. Eph. 1:3-5) and had them
individually in mind in his atoning work. 36
The opposite position, that Christ’s death actually paid for the sins of all people who
ever lived, is called “general redemption” or “unlimited atonement.”
2. Scripture Passages Used to Support the Non-Reformed View (General Redemption
or Unlimited Atonement). A number of Scripture passages indicate that in some sense
Christ died for the whole world. John the Baptist said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who
takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). And John 3:16 tells us that “God so loved
the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but
have eternal life.” Jesus said, “The bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my
flesh” (John 6:51). Paul says that in Christ “God was reconciling the world to himself”
(2 Cor. 5:19). We read of Christ that “he is the expiation [lit. ‘propitiation’] for our sins,
and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world ” (1 John 2:2). Paul writes
that Christ Jesus “gave himself as a ransom for all ” (1 Tim. 2:6). And the author of
Hebrews says that Jesus was for a little while made lower than the angels “so that by the
grace of God he might taste death for every one” (Heb. 2:9).
Other passages appear to speak of Christ dying for those who will not be saved. Paul
says, “Do not let what you eat cause the ruin of one for whom Christ died” (Rom. 14:15).
In a similar context he tells the Corinthians not to eat publicly at an idol’s temple because
they might encourage those who are weak in their faith to violate their consciences and eat
food offered to idols. He then says, “And so by your knowledge this weak man is destroyed,
the brother for whom Christ died” (1 Cor. 8:11). Peter writes about false teachers as follows:
“But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among
you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought
them y bringing upon themselves swift destruction” (2 Peter 2:1; cf. Heb. 10:29).
with the belief that Christ’s death actually paid the penalty for
the sins of those who God knew would believe and not for any
others. This is just to say that, while “limited atonement” is
necessarily part of a Reformed viewpoint because it logically
follows from the overall sovereignty of God in the entire work
of redemption, one could (in theory at least) hold to “limited
atonement” and not adopt a Reformed position on other points
concerning God’s sovereignty in life generally or in salvation
in particular.
35 Thus, it is the “L” in the acronym “TULIP,” which repre-
sents the so-called “five points of Calvinism,” five doctrinal
positions that distinguish Calvinists or Reformed theologians
from many other Protestants. The five points represented by
the word are: Total depravity, Unconditional election, Lim-
ited atonement, Irresistible grace, and Perseverance of the
saints. (This book advocates these five doctrinal points, but
it attempts in each case to point out the arguments in favor
of an opposing position and to provide an appropriate bibli-
ography representing both views; for the individual points
see the following chapters: 24 [T], 32 [U], 27 [L], 34 [I], and
40 [P].)
36 Reformed people argue that it is the other view that
really limits the power of the atonement because on that view
the atonement does not actually guarantee salvation for God’s
people but only makes salvation possible for all people. In
other words, if the atonement is not limited with respect to the
number of people to which it applies, then it must be limited
with respect to what it actually accomplishes.
CHAPTER27 • THE ATONEMENT
3. Some Points of Agreement and Some Conclusions About Disputed Texts. It would
be helpful first to list the points on which both sides agree:
1. Not all will be saved.
2. A free offer of the gospel can rightly be made to every person ever born. It is com-
pletely true that “whoever will” may come to Christ for salvation, and no one who comes
to him will be turned away. This free offer of the gospel is extended in good faith to every
person.
3. All agree that Christ’s death in itself, because he is the infinite Son of God, has infi-
nite merit and is in itself sufficient to pay the penalty of the sins of as many or as few as
the Father and the Son decreed. The question is not about the intrinsic merits of Christ’s
sufferings and death, but about the number of people for whom the Father and the Son
thought Christ’s death to be sufficient payment at the time Christ died.
Beyond these points of agreement, however, a difference remains concerning the fol-
lowing question: “When Christ died, did he actually pay the penalty only for the sins of
those who would believe in him, or for the sins of every person who ever lived?” On this
question it seems that those who hold to particular redemption have stronger arguments
on their side. First, an important point that is not generally answered by advocates of the
general redemption view is that people who are eternally condemned to hell suffer the
penalty for all of their own sins, and therefore their penalty could not have been fully
taken by Christ. Those who hold the general redemption view sometimes answer that
people suffer in hell because of the sin of rejecting Christ, even though their other sins
were paid for. But this is hardly a satisfactory position, for (1) some have never rejected
Christ because they have never heard of him, and (2) the emphasis of Scripture when it
speaks of eternal punishment is not on the fact that the people suffer because they have
rejected Christ, but on the fact that they suffer because of their own sins in this life (see
Rom. 5:6-8, 13-16, et al.). This significant point seems to tip the argument decisively
in favor of the particular redemption position.
Another significant point in favor of particular redemption is the fact that Christ com-
pletely earned our salvation, paying the penalty for all our sins. He did not just redeem
us potentially, but actually redeemed us as individuals whom he loved. A third weighty
point in favor of particular redemption is that there is eternal unity in the counsels and
plans of God and in the work of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in accomplishing their
plans (see Rom. 8:28-30).
With regard to Scripture passages used to support general redemption, the following
may be said: Several passages that speak about “the world” simply mean that sinners
generally will be saved, without implying that every single individual in the world will
be saved. So the fact that Christ is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world
(John 1:29) does not mean (on anybody’s interpretation) that Christ actually removes
the sins of every single person in the world, for both sides agree that not all are saved.
Similarly, the fact that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself (2 Cor. 5:19)
does not mean that every single person in the world was reconciled to God, but that sin-
ners generally were reconciled to God. Another way of putting these two passages would
be to say that Jesus was the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of sinners, or that God
was in Christ reconciling sinners to himself. This does not mean that all sinners will be
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
598
saved or were reconciled, but simply that these groups in general, but not necessarily
every single person in them, were the objects of God’s redeeming work: it essentially
means that “God so loved sinners that he gave his only Son . . .” without implying that
every sinner in the whole world will be saved.
The passages that speak about Christ dying “for” the whole world are best under-
stood to refer to the free offer of the gospel that is made to all people. When Jesus says,
“The bread which I shall give /or the life of the world is my flesh” (John 6:51), it is in
the context of speaking of himself as the Bread that came down from heaven, which is
offered to people and which they may, if they are willing, receive for themselves. Earlier
in the same discussion Jesus said that “the bread of God is that which comes down from
heaven, and gives life to the world” (John 6:33). This may be understood in the sense
of bringing redeeming life into the world but not meaning that every single person in
the world will have that redeeming life. Jesus then speaks of himself as inviting others
to come and take up this living bread: “He who comes to me shall not hunger, and he
who believes in me shall never thirst. . . . This is the bread which comes down from
heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down
from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I
shall give for the life of the world is my flesh” (John 6:35, 50-51). Jesus gives his flesh
to bring life into the world and to offer life to the world, but to say that Jesus came
to offer eternal life to the world (a point on which both sides agree) is not to say that
he actually paid the penalty for the sins of everyone who would ever live, for that is a
separate question.
When John says that Christ “is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but
also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2, author’s translation), he may simply
be understood to mean that Christ is the atoning sacrifice that the gospel now makes
available for the sins of everyone in the world. The preposition “for” (Gk. peri plus geni-
tive) is ambiguous with respect to the specific sense in which Christ is the propitiation
“for” the sins of the world. Peri simply means “concerning” or “with respect to” but is
not specific enough to define the exact way in which Christ is the sacrifice with respect
to the sins of the world. It would be entirely consistent with the language of the verse
to think that John is simply saying that Christ is the atoning sacrifice who is available
to pay for the sins of anyone in the world. 37 Likewise, when Paul says that Christ “gave
himself as a ransom for all ” (1 Tim. 2:6), we are to understand this to mean a ransom
available for all people, without exception. 38
37 Compare a similar sense for the phrase “for sins” (Gk. peri 38 When Paul says that God “is the Savior of all men, espe-
harmartidn) in Heb. 10:26 where the author says that if someone daily of those who believe” (1 Tim. 4:10), he is referring to
continues on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge God the Father, not to Christ, and probably uses the word
of the truth “there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins ” This “Savior” in the sense of “one who preserves people’s lives and
does not mean that Christ s sacrifice no longer exists, but it is rescues them from danger” rather than the sense of “one who
no longer available for that person who has willfully spurned it forgives their sins,” for surely Paul does not mean that every
and put himself beyond the realm of willing repentance. Here single person will be saved. However, another possible mean-
sacrifice for sins” means “a sacrifice available to be claimed for ing is that God “is the Savior of all sorts of people — that is, of
the payment of sins.” In the same way 1 John 2 :2 can mean “the people who believe” (for a defense of this view see George W.
propitiation available for the sins of the whole world [esp. with Knight III, The Pastoral Epistles , pp. 203-4).
reference to Gentiles as well as Jews] .”
CHAPTER 27 • THE ATONEMENT
599
When the author of Hebrews says that Christ was made lower than the angels “so that
by the grace of God he might taste death for every one” (Heb. 2:9), the passage is best
understood to refer to every one of Christ’s people, every one who is redeemed. It does
not say everyone “in the whole world” or any such expression, and in the immediate con-
text the author is certainly speaking of those who are redeemed (see “bringing many sons
to glory” [v. 10]; “those who are sanctified” [v. 11]; and “the children God has given me”
[v. 13]). The Greek word pas, here translated “every one,” is also used in a similar sense to
mean “all of God’s people” in Hebrews 8 : 1 1, “for all shall know me,” and in Hebrews 12:8,
“If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate
children and not sons.” In both cases the “all” is not explicitly restricted by a specific
phrase such as “all of God’s people,” but this is clearly the sense in the overall context. Of
course, in other contexts, the same word “all” can mean “all people without exception,”
but this must be determined from the individual context in each case.
When Paul speaks in Romans 14:15 and 1 Corinthians 8:11 about the possibility of
destroying one for whom Christ died, it seems best here as well to think of the word “for”
in the sense that Christ died “to make salvation available for” these people or “to bring
the free offer of the gospel to” these people who are associated with the fellowship of the
church. He does not seem to have in mind the specific question of the inter-trinitarian
decision regarding whose sins the Father counted Christ’s death as a payment for. Rather,
he is speaking of those to whom the gospel has been offered. In another passage, when
Paul calls the weak man a “brother for whom Christ died” in 1 Corinthians 8:11, he is
not necessarily pronouncing on the inward spiritual condition of a person’s heart, but
is probably just speaking according to what is often called the “judgment of charity” by
which people who are participating in the fellowship of the church can rightly be referred
to as brothers and sisters. 39
When Peter speaks of false teachers who bring in destructive heresies, “even denying
the Master who bought them” (2 Peter 2:1), it is unclear whether the word “Master” (Gk.
despotes) refers to Christ (as in Jude 4) or to God the Father (as in Luke 2:29; Acts 4:24;
Rev. 6:10). In either case, the Old Testament allusion is probably to Deuteronomy 32:6,
where Moses says to the rebellious people who have turned away from God, “Is not he
your Father who has bought you?” (author’s translation). 40 Peter is drawing an analogy
between the past false prophets who arose among the Jews and those who will be false
teachers within the churches to which he writes: “But false prophets also arose among
the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in
destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them” (2 Peter 2:1). In line
39 Another possible interpretation of these two passages is
that “destroy” means ruin the ministry or Christian growth
of someone who will nonetheless remain a believer but whose
principles will be compromised. That sense would certainly fit
the context well in both cases, but one argument against it is
that the Greek word apollymi, “destroy,” which is used in both
cases, seems a stronger word than would be appropriate if that
were Paul’s intention. The same word is used often of eternal
destruction (see John 3:16; Rom. 2:12; 1 Cor. 1:18; 15:18; 2 Cor.
2:15; 4:3; 2 Peter 3:9). However, the context of 1 Cor. 8:11 may
indicate a different sense than these other passages, for this verse
does not talk about God “destroying” someone but about other
human beings doing something to “destroy” another — which
suggests a weaker sense for the term here.
40 Though the Septuagint does not use Peter’s term agora-
zo but rather kataomai, the words are synonymous in many
cases, and both can mean “buy, purchase”; the Hebrew term in
Deut. 32:6 is qanah, which frequently means “purchase, buy”
in the Old Testament.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
600
with this clear reference to false prophets in the Old Testament, Peter also alludes to the
fact that the rebellious Jews turned away from God who “bought” them out of Egypt in
the exodus. From the time of the exodus onward, any Jewish person would have con-
sidered himself or herself one who was “bought” by God in the exodus and therefore a
person of God’s own possession. In this sense, the false teachers arising among the people
were denying God their Father, to whom they rightfully belonged. 41 So the text means
not that Christ had redeemed these false prophets, but simply that they were rebellious
Jewish people (or church attenders in the same position as the rebellious Jews) who were
rightly owned by God because they had been brought out of the land of Egypt (or their
forefathers had), but they were ungrateful to him. Christ’s specific redemptive work on
the cross is not in view in this verse. 42
With regard to the verses that talk of Christ’s dying for his sheep, his church, or his
people, non-Reformed people may answer that these passages do not deny that he died
to pay the penalty for others as well. In response, while it is true that they do not explic-
itly deny that Christ died for others as well, their frequent reference to his death for his
people would at least strongly suggest that this is a correct inference. Even if they do not
absolutely imply such a particularizing of redemption, these verses do at least seem to be
most naturally interpreted in this way.
In conclusion, it seems to me that the Reformed position of “particular redemption”
is most consistent with the overall teaching of Scripture. But once that has been said,
several points of caution need to be raised.
4. Points of Clarification and Caution Regarding This Doctrine. It is important to state
some points of clarification and also some areas in which we can rightly object to the way
in which some advocates of particular redemption have expressed their arguments. It is
also important to ask what the pastoral implications are for this teaching.
1. It seems to be a mistake to state the question as Berkhof does 43 and focus on the
purpose of the Father and the Son, rather than on what actually happened in the atone-
ment. If we confine the discussion to the purpose of the atonement, then this is just
another form of the larger dispute between Calvinists and Arminians over whether God’s
purpose is (a) to save all people, a purpose that is frustrated by man’s will to rebel — the
Arminian position — or whether God’s purpose is (b) to save those whom he has cho-
sen — the Calvinist position. This question will not be decided at the narrow point of the
question of the extent of the atonement, for the specific scriptural texts on that point are
too few and can hardly be said to be conclusive on either side. One’s decisions on these
passages will tend to be determined by one’s view of the larger question as to what Scrip-
41 This is the view taken by John Gill, The Cause of God and God in contexts that emphasize his role as Creator and Ruler
Truth (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980; repr. of 1855 ed.; first pub- of the world (Acts 4:24; Rev. 6:10).
lished 1735), p. 61. Gill discusses other possible interpretations 43 Berkhof says, “The question does relate to the design
of the passage, but this seems most persuasive. We should real- of the atonement. Did the Father in sending Christ, and did
ize that in both of his epistles, Peter very frequently portrays the Christ in coming into the world, to make atonement for sin, do
churches to which he is writing in terms of the rich imagery of this with the design or for the purpose of saving only the elect
the people of God in the Old Testament: see W. Grudem, The or all men? That is the question, and that only is the question”
First Epistle of Peter, p. 113. (Systematic Theology ; p. 394).
42 The Greek word despotes , “Master,” is elsewhere used of
CHAPTER 27 • THE ATONEMENT
ture as a whole teaches about the nature of the atonement and about the broader issues
of God’s providence, sovereignty, and the doctrine of election. Whatever decisions are
made on those larger topics will apply specifically to this point, and people will come to
their conclusions accordingly.
Rather than focusing on the purpose of the atonement, therefore, the question is
rightfully asked about the atonement itself: Did Christ pay for the sins of all unbelievers
who will be eternally condemned, and did he pay for their sins fully and completely on
the cross? It seems that we have to answer no to that question.
2. The statements “Christ died for his people only” and “Christ died for all people” are
both true in some senses, and too often the argument over this issue has been confused
because of various senses that can be given to the word “for” in these two statements.
The statement “Christ died for his people only” can be understood to mean that
“Christ died to actually pay the penalty for all the sins of his people only.” In that sense
it is true. But when non-Reformed people hear the sentence “Christ died for his people
only,” they often hear in it, “Christ died so that he could make the gospel available only
to a chosen few,” and they are troubled over what they see as a real threat to the free offer
of the gospel to every person. Reformed people who hold to particular redemption should
recognize the potential for misunderstanding that arises with the sentence “Christ died
for his people only,” and, out of concern for the truth and out of pastoral concern to
affirm the free offer of the gospel and to avoid misunderstanding in the body of Christ,
they should be more precise in saying exactly what they mean. The simple sentence,
“Christ died for his people only,” while true in the sense explained above, is seldom
understood in that way when people unfamiliar with Reformed doctrine hear it, and it
therefore is better not to use such an ambiguous sentence at all.
On the other hand, the sentence, “Christ died for all people,” is true if it means, “Christ
died to make salvation available to all people” or if it means, “Christ died to bring the
free offer of the gospel to all people.” In fact, this is the kind of language Scripture itself
uses in passages like John 6:51; 1 Timothy 2:6; and 1 John2:2. 44 It really seems to be only
nit-picking that creates controversies and useless disputes when Reformed people insist
on being such purists in their speech that they object any time someone says that “Christ
died for all people.” There are certainly acceptable ways of understanding that sentence
that are consistent with the speech of the scriptural authors themselves.
Similarly, I do not think we should rush to criticize an evangelist who tells an audi-
ence of unbelievers, “Christ died for your sins,” if it is made clear in the context that it is
necessary to trust in Christ before one can receive the benefits of the gospel offer. In that
sense the sentence is simply understood to mean “Christ died to offer you forgiveness for
your sins” or “Christ died to make available forgiveness for your sins.” The important
point here is that sinners realize that salvation is available for everyone and that payment
of sins is available for everyone.
At this point some Reformed theologians will object and will warn us that if we say
to unbelievers, “Christ died for your sins,” the unbelievers will draw the conclusion,
“Therefore I am saved no matter what I do.” But this does not seem to be a problem
44 Berkhof says that 1 Tim. 2:1 refers to “the revealed will of
God that both Jews and Gentiles should be saved” (ibid., p. 396).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
602
in actual fact, for whenever evangelicals (Reformed or non-Reformed) speak about the
gospel to unbelievers, they are always very clear on the fact that the death of Christ has
no benefit for a person unless that person believes in Christ. Therefore, the problem
seems to be more something that Reformed people think unbelievers should believe (if
they were consistent in reasoning back into the secret counsels of God and the relation-
ship between the Father and Son in the counsels of the Trinity at the point of Christs
propitiatory sacrifice on the cross). But unbelievers simply do not reason that way: they
know that they must exercise faith in Christ before they will experience any benefits from
his saving work. Moreover, it is far more likely that people will understand the sentence
“Christ died for your sins” in the doctrinally correct sense that “Christ died in order to
offer you forgiveness for your sins” rather than in the doctrinally incorrect sense, “Christ
died and completely paid the penalty already for all your sins.” 45
3. In terms of the practical, pastoral effects of our words, both those who hold to partic-
ular redemption and those who hold to general redemption agree at several key points:
a. Both sincerely want to avoid implying that people will be saved whether they believe
in Christ or not. Non-Reformed people sometimes accuse Reformed people of saying that
the elect will be saved irrespective of responding to the gospel, but this is clearly a mis-
representation of the Reformed position. On the other hand, Reformed people think that
those who hold to general redemption are in danger of implying that everybody will be
saved whether they believe in Christ or not. But this is not a position that non-Reformed
people actually hold, and it is always precarious to criticize people for a position that they
do not say they hold, just because you think that they should hold that position if they
were consistent with their other views.
b. Both sides want to avoid implying that there might be some people who come to
Christ for salvation but are turned away because Christ did not die for them. No one wants
to say or imply to an unbeliever, “Christ might have died for your sins (and then again
he might not have!).” Both sides want to clearly affirm that all who come to Christ for
salvation will in fact be saved. “Him who comes to me I will not cast out” (John 6:37).
c. Both sides want to avoid implying that God is hypocritical or insincere when he
makes the free offer of the gospel. It is a genuine offer, and it is always true that all who
wish to come to Christ for salvation and who do actually come to him will be saved.
d. Finally, we may ask why this matter is so important after all. Although Reformed
people have sometimes made belief in particular redemption a test of doctrinal ortho-
doxy, it would be healthy to realize that Scripture itself never singles this out as a doctrine
of major importance, nor does it once make it the subject of any explicit theological
discussion. Our knowledge of the issue comes only from incidental references to it in
passages whose concern is with other doctrinal or practical matters. In fact, this is really
a question that probes into the inner counsels of the Trinity and does so in an area in
which there is very little direct scriptural testimony— a fact that should cause us to be
cautious. A balanced pastoral perspective would seem to be to say that this teaching
of particular redemption seems to us to be true, that it gives logical consistency to our
5 I am not here arguing that we should be careless in our when other Christians unreflectively use ambiguous language
language; I am arguing that we should not rush to criticize without intending to contradict any teaching of Scripture.
CHAPTER 27 • THE ATONEMENT
theological system, and that it can be helpful in assuring people of Christ’s love for them
individually and of the completeness of his redemptive work for them; but that it also is
a subject that almost inevitably leads to some confusion, some misunderstanding, and
often some wrongful argumentativeness and divisiveness among Gods people — all of
which are negative pastoral considerations. Perhaps that is why the apostles such as John
and Peter and Paul, in their wisdom, placed almost no emphasis on this question at all.
And perhaps we would do well to ponder their example.
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. In what ways has this chapter enabled you to appreciate Christ’s death more than
you did before? Has it given you more or less confidence in the fact that your sins
have actually been paid for by Christ?
2. If the ultimate cause of the atonement is found in the love and justice of God, then
was there anything in you that required God to love you or to take steps to save
you (when he looked forward and thought of you as a sinner in rebellion against
him)? Does your answer to this question help you to appreciate the character of
God’s love for you as a person who did not at all deserve that love? How does that
realization make you feel in your relationship to God?
3. Do you think that Christs sufferings were enough to pay for your sins? Are you
willing to rely on his work to pay for all your sins? Do you think he is a sufficient
Savior, worthy of your trust? When he invites you, “Come to me . . . and I will give
you rest” (Matt. 11:28), do you now trust him? Will you now and always rely on
him with your whole heart for complete salvation?
4. If Christ bore all the guilt for our sins, all the wrath of God against sin, and all the
penalty of the death that we deserved, then will God ever turn his wrath against
you as a believer (see Rom. 8:31-39)? Can any of the hardships or sufferings that
you experience in life be due to the wrath of God against you? If not, then why do
we as Christians experience difficulties and sufferings in this life (see Rom. 8:28;
Heb. 12:3-11)?
5. Do you think Christ’s life was good enough to deserve God’s approval? Are you
willing to rely on it for your eternal destiny? Is Jesus Christ a reliable enough and
good enough Savior for you to trust him? Which would you rather trust in for your
eternal standing before God: your own life or Christ’s?
6. If Christ has indeed redeemed you from bondage to sin and to the kingdom of
Satan, are there areas of your life in which you could more fully realize this to be
true? Could this realization give you more encouragement in your Christian life?
7. Do you think it was fair for Christ to be your substitute and to pay your pen-
alty? When you think about him acting as your substitute and dying for you, what
attitude and emotion is called forth in your heart?
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
604
SPECIAL TERMS
active obedience
atonement
blood of Christ
consequent absolute necessity
example theory
general redemption
governmental theory
impute
limited atonement
moral influence theory
particular redemption
passive obedience
penal substitution
propitiation
ransom to Satan theory
reconciliation
redemption
sacrifice
unlimited atonement
vicarious atonement
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter 1,
pp. 38-39. Complete bibliographical data maybe found on pp. 1224-30.)
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1882-92 Litton, 221-36
1930 Thomas, 49 - 72, 414- 26
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1847 Finney, 258-82
1875-76 Pope, 2:141-88, 263-316
1892-94 Miley, 2:65-240
1940 Wiley, 2:217-300
1960 Purkiser, 243-68
1983 Carter, 1:483-505
1983- Cottrell, 3:401-60
1987-90 Oden, 2:317-450
3. Baptist
1767
1887
1907
1917
1983-85
1987-94
4. Dispensational
1947
1949
1986
Gill, 1:562-83:2:1-68
Boyce, 295-341
Strong, 701-6, 713-75
Mullins, 304-37
Erickson, 761-841
Lewis/Demarest, 2:371-436
Chafer, 3:35-164, 183-205; 5:177-230
Thiessen, 229-42
Ryrie, 275-309, 318-23
CHAPTER 27 * THE ATONEMENT
5. Lutheran
1917-24
Pieper, 2:280-330, 342-82
1934
Mueller, 287-95, 305-13
Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1559
Calvin, 1:503-34 (2.16-17)
1724-58
Edwards, 1:574- 80; 2:565-78
1861
Heppe, 448-87, 488-94
1871-73
Hodge, 2:480-591, 610-25
1878
Dabney, 485-553
1887-1921
Warfield, SSW, 1:167-77; SSW, 2:308-20; BD, 327 -438; PWC,
325 - 530; CC, 393-444
1889
Shedd, 2b:353-489; 3:401-70
1937-66
Murray, CW, 1:36-39, 59-85; 2:142-57;
RAA, 9-57
1938
Berkhof, 331-43, 361-99
1962
Buswell, 2:70- 133
7. Renewal (or charismatic/Pentecostal)
1988-92 Williams, 1:353-80
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
1. Roman Catholic: Traditional
1955 Ott, 175-79, 182-92,211-19
2. Roman Catholic: Post-Vatican II
1980 McBrien, 1:417-23; 2:865-901
Other Works
Bauckham, Richard J. “Descent into Hell” In NDT, pp. 194-95.
Berkouwer, G. C. The Work of Christ. Trans, by Cornelius Lambregtse. Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1965.
Brown, John. The Sufferings and Glories of the Messiah. Evanston, Ind.: Sovereign Grace
Publishers, 1959 (reprint of 1852 edition).
Campbell, John McLeod. The Nature of the Atonement. 6th ed. London and New York:
Macmillan, 1886 (first published in 1856).
Elwell, Walter. “Atonement, Extent of the ” In EDT, pp. 98-100.
Green, Michael. The Empty Cross of Jesus. The Jesus Library, ed. by Michael Green.
Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press, 1984.
Grensted, L. W. A Short History of the Doctrine of the Atonement. Manchester: University
Press, and London: Longmans, 1962.
Hodge, Archibald A. The Atonement. London: T. Nelson, 1868.
McDonald, H. D. The Atonement of the Death of Christ. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1985.
McGrath, Alister E. Luthers Theology of the Cross: Martin Luther's Theological Breakthrough.
Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985.
605
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
606
. The Mystery of the Cross. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1988.
. What Was God Doing on the Cross ? Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1993.
Martin, Hugh. The Atonement: In Its Relations to the Covenant , the Priesthood , the Interces-
sion of Our Lord. Philadelphia: Smith and English, 1871.
Morey, Robert A. Studies in the Atonement. Southbridge, Mass.: Crowne, 1989.
Morris, Leon. The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross. 3d ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965.
. “Atonement.” In EDT, p. 97.
. The Atonement: Its Meaning and Significance. Leicester and Downers Grove, 111:
InterVarsity Press, 1983.
. “Atonement, Theories of the.” In EDT, pp. 100-102.
. The Cross in the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965.
. The Cross of Jesus. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, and Exeter: Paternoster, 1988.
Murray, John. Redemption Accomplished and Applied . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1955,
pp. 9-78.
Owen, John. The Death of Death in the Death of Christ. Carlisle, Pa.: Banner of Truth, 1959
(includes excellent introductory essay by J. I. Packer).
Smeaton, George. The Doctrine of the Atonement as Taught by Christ Himself. Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 1953 (reprint of 1871 edition).
Smeaton, George. The Apostles' Doctrine of the Atonement. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1957
(reprint of 1870 edition).
Stott, John R. W. The Cross of Christ. Leicester and Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity
Press, 1986.
Turretin, Francis. The Atonement of Christ. Trans, by James R. Willson. Grand Rapids:
Baker, 1978 (reprint of 1859 edition; first published in Latin in 1674).
Wallace, Ronald S. The Atoning Death of Christ. Westchester, 111.: Crossway, 1981.
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
Romans 3:23-26: Since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they are justi-
fied by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God put
forward as an expiation [lit. ‘ propitiation '] by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to
show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins;
it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies him who
has faith in Jesus.
HYMN
“When I Survey the Wondrous Cross”
When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of Glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.
CHAPTER 27 • THE ATONEMENT
607
Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,
Save in the death of Christ my God:
All the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to his blood.
See, from his head, his hands, his feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down:
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?
His dying crimson, like a robe.
Spread o’er his body on the tree;
Then am I dead to all the globe,
And all the globe is dead to me.
Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.
AUTHOR: ISAAC WATTS, 1707
Chapter ^ ^
RESURRECTION AND
ASCENSION
What was Christ’s resurrection body like?
What is its significance for us? What happened
to Christ when he ascended into heaven?
What is meant by the states of Jesus Christ?
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
A. Resurrection
1. New Testament Evidence. The Gospels contain abundant testimony to the resurrec-
tion of Christ (see Matt. 28:1-20; Mark 16:1-8; Luke 24:1-53; John 20:1-21:25). In
addition to these detailed narratives in the four gospels, the book of Acts is a story of the
apostles’ proclamation of the resurrection of Christ and of continued prayer to Christ
and trust in him as the one who is alive and reigning in heaven. The Epistles depend
entirely on the assumption that Jesus is a living, reigning Savior who is now the exalted
head of the church, who is to be trusted, worshiped, and adored, and who will some day
return in power and great glory to reign as King over the earth. The book of Revelation
repeatedly shows the risen Christ reigning in heaven and predicts his return to conquer
his enemies and reign in glory. Thus the entire New Testament bears witness to the
resurrection of Christ. 1
The historical arguments for the resurrection of Christ are
substantial and have persuaded many skeptics who started to
examine the evidence for the purpose of disproving the resur-
rection. The best-known account of such a change from skepti-
cism to belief is Frank Morison, Who Moved the Stone? (London:
Faber and Faber, 1930; reprint, Grand Rapids: Zondervan,
1958). A widely used booklet summarizing the arguments is
J. N. D. Anderson, The Evidence for the Resurrection (London
and Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press, 1966). (Both Mori-
son and Anderson were trained as lawyers.) More recent and
detailed presentations are found in William Lane Craig, The
Son Rises: The Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus
(Chicago: Moody, 1981); Gary Habermas and Anthony Flew,
Did Jesus Rise From the Dead? The Resurrection Debate, ed. Terry
L. Miethe (New York: Harper and Row, 1987); Gary Habermas,
“Resurrection of Christ,” in EDT, pp. 938-41. An extensive
608
CHAPTER 28 • RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION
2. The Nature of Christ’s Resurrection. Christ’s resurrection was not simply a coming
back from the dead, as had been experienced by others before, such as Lazarus (John
11:1 -44), for then Jesus would have been subject to weakness and aging and eventually
would have died again just as all other human beings die. Rather, when he rose from the
dead Jesus was the “first fruits” 2 (1 Cor. 15:20, 23) of a new kind of human life, a life in
which his body was made perfect, no longer subject to weakness, aging, or death, but
able to live eternally.
It is true that two of Jesus’ disciples did not recognize him when they walked with
him on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-32), but Luke specifically tells us that this
was because “their eyes were kept from recognizing him” (Luke 24:16), and later “their
eyes were opened and they recognized him” (Luke 24:31). Mary Magdalene failed to
recognize Jesus only for a moment (John 20:14- 16), but it may have been still quite
dark and she was not at first looking at him — she had come the first time “while it was
still dark” (John 20:1), and she “turned” to speak to Jesus once she recognized him
(John 20:16).
On other occasions the disciples seemed to have recognized Jesus fairly quickly (Matt.
28:9, 17; John 20:19—20, 26—28; 21:7, 12). When Jesus appeared to the eleven disciples
in Jerusalem, they were initially startled and frightened (Luke 24:33, 37), yet when they
saw Jesus’ hands and his feet and watched him eat a piece of fish, they were convinced
that he had risen from the dead. These examples indicate that there was a considerable
degree of continuity between the physical appearance of Jesus before his death and after
his resurrection. Yet Jesus did not look exactly as he had before he died, for in addition
to the initial amazement of the disciples at what they apparently thought could not hap-
pen, there was probably sufficient difference in his physical appearance for Jesus not
to be immediately recognized. Perhaps that difference in appearance was simply the
difference between a man who had lived a life of suffering, hardship, and grief, and one
whose body was restored to its full youthful appearance of perfect health: though Jesus’
body was still a physical body, it was raised as a transformed body, never able again to
suffer, be weak or ill, or die; it had “put on immortality” (1 Cor. 15:53). Paul says the
resurrection body is raised “imperishable ... in glory ... in power ... a spiritual body”
(1 Cor. 15:42-44). 3
compilation of arguments and quotations from recognized
scholars affirming the overwhelming reliability of the evidence
for Christ’s resurrection is found in Josh McDowell, Evidence
that Demands a Verdict , rev. ed., vol. 1 (San Bernardino, Calif.:
Here’s Life Publishers, 1979), pp. 179-263.
2 See discussion of the term “first fruits” on p. 751, below.
3 By “spiritual body” Paul does not mean “immaterial,” but
rather “suited to and responsive to the guidance of the Spirit.”
In the Pauline epistles, the word “spiritual” (Gk. pneumatikos)
seldom means “nonphysical” but rather “consistent with the
character and activity of the Holy Spirit” (see, e.g., Rom. 1:11;
7:14; 1 Cor. 2:13, 15; 3:1; 14:37; Gal. 6:1 [“you who are spiri-
tual”]; Eph. 5:19). The RSV translation, “It is sown a physical
body, it is raised a spiritual body,” is very misleading, because
Paul does not use the word that was available to him if he had
meant to speak of a physical body (Gk. somatikos) y but rather
uses the word psychikos, which means, in this context, “natu-
ral” (so NIV, NASB), that is, a body that is living in its own
life and strength and in the characteristics of this present age
but is not fully subject to and conforming to the character and
will of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, a clearer paraphrase would
be, “It is sown a naturalbody subject to the characteristics and
desires of this age, and governed by its own sinful will, but
it is raised a spiritual body, completely subject to the will of
the Holy Spirit and responsive to the Holy Spirit’s guidance.”
Such a body is not at all “nonphysical,” but it is a physical body
raised to the degree of perfection for which God originally
intended it.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
610
The fact that Jesus had a physical body that could be touched and handled after the
resurrection is seen in that the disciples “took hold of his feet” (Matt. 28:9), that he
appeared to the disciples on the road to Emmaus to be just another traveler on the road
(Luke 24:15- 18, 28-29), that he took bread and broke it (Luke 24:30), that he ate a piece
of broiled fish to demonstrate clearly that he had a physical body and was not just a spirit,
that Mary thought him to be a gardener (John 20:15), that “he showed them his hands
and his side” (John 20:20), that he invited Thomas to touch his hands and his side (John
20:27), that he prepared breakfast for his disciples (John 21:12-13), and that he explicitly
told them, “See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle me, and see; for a spirit
has not flesh and bones as you see that I have ” (Luke 24:39). Peter said that the disciples
“ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead” (Acts 10:41).
It is true that Jesus apparently was able to appear and disappear out of sight quite
suddenly (Luke 24:31, 36; John 20:19, 26). Yet we should be careful not to draw too
many conclusions from this fact, for not all the passages affirm that Jesus could sud-
denly appear or disappear; some just say that Jesus came and stood among the disciples.
When Jesus suddenly vanished from the sight of the disciples in Emmaus, this may
have been a special miraculous occurrence, such as happened when “the Spirit of the
Lord caught up Philip; and the eunuch saw him no more” (Acts 8:39). Nor should we
make too much of the fact that Jesus came and stood among the disciples on two occa-
sions when the doors were “shut” 4 (John 20:19, 26), for no text says that Jesus “passed
through walls” or anything like that. Indeed, on another occasion in the New Testament
where someone needed to pass through a locked door, the door miraculously opened
(see Acts 12:10). 5
Murray Harris has recently proposed an alternative interpretation to the verses quoted
above, especially the verses showing Jesus appearing and disappearing at different times:
he says that these verses show that while Jesus could sometimes materialize into a physi-
cal body, his customary existence was in a nonphysical or nonfleshly form of his “spiri-
tual body.” Moreover, when he ascended into heaven after forty days, Jesus permanently
gave up any more materializing into a physical body. Professor Harris says:
The resurrection of Jesus was not his transformation into an immaterial body
but his acquisition of a “spiritual body” which could materialize or demateri-
alize at will. When, on occasion, Jesus chose to appear to various persons in
material form, this was just as really the “spiritual body” of Jesus as when he was
not visible or tangible After the forty days, when his appearances on earth
were ended, Jesus assumed the sole mode of being visible to the inhabitants
4 The Greek perfect participle kekleismenon may mean either “Some suggest that Jesus came right through the closed door,
that the doors were “shut” or that they were “locked.” or that the door opened of its own accord or the like. But Scrip -
5 I do not wish to argue that it is impossible that Jesus’ res- ture says nothing of the mode of Jesus’ entry into the room and
urrection body somehow passed through the door or the wall we do well not to attempt too exact a definition” (The Gospel
to enter the room, only that no verse in the Bible says that. It According to John , p. 844). The problem with an affirmation
is possible, but the possibility does not deserve the status of an that Jesus passed through walls is that it may cause people to
assured conclusion that it has reached in much popular preach- think of Jesus’ resurrection body as somehow nonmaterial, and
ing and much evangelical scholarship — it is just one possible this is contrary to the explicit affirmations of material charac-
inference from these verses, among several. Leon Morris says, teristics that we have in several New Testament texts.
CHAPTER 28 ■ RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION
of heaven but having a nonfleshly body. ... In his risen state he transcended
the normal laws of physical existence. He was no longer bound by material or
spatial limitations. 6
It is important to realize that Harris definitely affirms the physical, bodily resurrection
of Jesus from the dead. 7 He says that the same body that died was also raised, but then it
was transformed into a “spiritual body” with new properties. 8
In response, while I do not consider this a doctrinal question of major significance
(since it is simply a question about the nature of the resurrection body, about which
we now know very little), 9 I nevertheless think the New Testament provides some per-
suasive evidence that would lead us to differ with Harris’s view. Harris agrees that at
several times Jesus had a physical body that could eat food and be touched and that had
flesh and bones. He even agrees that at Jesus’ ascension into heaven, “It was a real Jesus
of ‘flesh and bones’ (Luke 24:39) who was taken up before the eyes of his disciples.” 10
The only question is whether this body of Jesus at other times existed in nonphysical,
nonfleshly form, as Harris claims. To answer that, we have to ask whether the New Testa-
ment texts about Jesus appearing and disappearing require this conclusion. It does not
seem that they do.
Luke 24:31, which says that after Jesus broke bread and gave it to the two disciples, “he
disappeared from their sight” (NIV), does not require this. The Greek expression used
here for “disappeared” ( aphantos egeneto) does not occur elsewhere in the New Testa-
ment, but when found in Diodorus Siculus (a historian who wrote from 60-30 B.C.), it
is used once of a man named Amphiaraus who, with his chariot, fell into a chasm and
“disappeared from sight,” and the same expression is used in another place to talk about
Atlas who was blown off a mountaintop by high winds and “disappeared.” 11 In neither
case does the expression mean that the person became immaterial or even invisible, but
only that he was moved to a place hidden from people’s sight. 12 So in Luke 24:31, all we
can conclude is that the disciples no longer saw Jesus — perhaps the Spirit of the Lord took
him away (as with Philip in Acts 8:39), or perhaps he was just hidden again from their
sight (as with Moses and Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration, Matt. 17:8, or as with the
6 Murray Harris, From Grave to Glory: Resurrection
in the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990),
pp. 142-43.
7 See Harris, ibid., pp. 351 and 353 (where he “unequivo-
cally” affirms “the literal, physical resurrection of Jesus from
the dead”) and p. 365 (“I am happy to affirm that our Lord
rose from the dead in the actual physical body he possessed
before his death”).
8 He understands “spiritual” not to mean “nonphysical”
but rather “animated and guided by the spirit” (or possibly
“Spirit”), p. 195.
9 See the lengthy report about Harris’s view and those who
have criticized it (and sometimes misrepresented it) in CT,
April 5, 1993, pp. 62-66. Norman Geisler and some others
have accused Harris of teaching serious heresy, but in this arti-
cle, J. I. Packer says that “both Harris and Geisler appear to be
orthodox, and both of them equally so” (pp. 64-65). A report
from three other evangelical theologians, Millard Erickson,
Bruce Demarest, and Roger Nicole, says that Harris’s views
are “somewhat novel” but “are compatible with the doctrinal
position [of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, where Harris
teaches, and] ... of the wider evangelical movement” (p. 63).
10 Harris, From Grave to Glory, p. 422.
H Diod. Sic. 4.65.9 (of Amphiaraus) and 3.60.3 (of Atlas).
I2 Another occurrence of the word aphantos has a similar
sense: Plutarch (ca. A.D. 50 -ca. 120) reports someone who
said that if there is a “mid-center” of the earth or ocean, “it
is known to the gods, but is hidden (aphantos) from mortals”
(Moralia 409F). The sense is not “immaterial” but “hidden
from sight, not visible.”
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
612
heavenly army around Elisha, 2 Kings 6:17, or [apparently] as with the disciples walking
past the prison guards in Acts 5:19-23; 12:6, 10). In neither case do we need to conclude
that Jesus 1 physical body became nonphysical, any more than we need to conclude that the
disciples 1 bodies became nonphysical when they walked past the guards (Acts 5:23; 12:10)
and escaped from prison. So Luke 24:31 does not say that any transformation happened
to Jesus 1 body; it merely says that the disciples could no longer see him. 13
As for the claim that Jesus passed through material substances, this is not substanti-
ated in the New Testament. As explained above, the fact that Jesus appeared in a room
when the doors had been shut or locked (John 20:19, 26) may or may not mean that he
passed through a door or wall. Especially relevant here is the first deliverance of the
apostles from prison: they did not walk through the doors, but “an angel of the Lord
opened the prison doors and brought them out 11 (Acts 5:19); yet the next morning the
prison officers reported, “We found the prison securely locked and the sentries standing
at the doors, but when we opened it we found no one inside 11 (Acts 5:23). The angel had
opened the doors, the apostles had passed through, and the angel had closed and locked
the doors again. Similarly, when Peter was rescued from prison, he did not dematerialize
in order to pass through the locked chains around him, but “the chains fell off his hands 11
(Acts 12:7). 14 In the same way, it is certainly possible that the door miraculously opened
for Jesus or even that he had entered the room with the disciples but was temporarily
hidden from their eyes.
With regard to the nature of Jesus 1 resurrection body, much more decisive than the
texts about Jesus 1 appearing and disappearing are the texts that show that Jesus clearly
had a physical body with “flesh and bones 11 (Luke 24:39), which could eat and drink,
break bread, prepare breakfast, and be touched. Unlike the texts on Jesus 1 appearing
and disappearing, these texts are not capable of an alternative explanation that denies
Jesus 1 physical body — Harris himself agrees that in these texts Jesus had a body of
flesh and bones. But what were these physical appearances intended to teach the dis-
ciples if not that Jesus 1 resurrection body was definitely a physical body? If Jesus rose
from the dead in the same physical body that had died, and if he repeatedly appeared
to the disciples in that physical body, eating and drinking with them (Acts 10:41) over
forty days, and if he ascended into heaven in that same physical body (Acts 1:9), and
if the angel immediately told the disciples that “this Jesus, who was taken up from
13 Compare Luke 24:16, where it says that Jesus drew near not require that Jesus* body passed through the linen cloths:
to the disciples on the Emmaus Road, but “their eyes were kept it could as readily mean that Jesus (or an angel) removed the
from recognizing him.” If God could cause the disciples* eyes cloths and placed them neatly in the tomb. Acts 10:40 says that
to be partially blinded so that they could see Jesus but not rec- Jesus was made “manifest** or visible to chosen witnesses (that
ognize him, then certainly a few minutes later he could cause is, they saw him), but again it says nothing about him materi-
their eyes to be more fully blinded so they could not see him at alizing or being immaterial. In all of these verses, Harris seems
all. The possibilities are too complex and our knowledge is too to me to be concluding too much from too little data,
limited for us to insist that these texts require that Jesus became Finally, even if Jesus did pass through the door or the wall
nonphysical. (as many Christians have concluded), this does not require us
14 Harris says that Jesus passed through a sealed tomb, to say that his body was customarily nonmaterial, but could
according to Matt. 28:2, 6, but the verses can just as easily well be explained as a special miracle or as a property of resur-
mean that the stone was first rolled away, and then Jesus came rection bodies that we do not now understand, but that does
out (cf. Luke 24:2). Similarly, John 20:4-7 only says that the not require that they be nonphysical or nonmaterial.
grave cloths were lying where Jesus* body had been but does
CHAPTER 28 * RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION
613
you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven” (Acts
1:11), then Jesus was clearly teaching them that his resurrection body was a physical
body. If the “customary form” of his resurrection body was nonphysical, then in these
repeated physical appearances Jesus would be guilty of misleading the disciples (and
all subsequent readers of the New Testament) into thinking that his resurrection body
remained physical when it did not. If he was customarily nonphysical and was going
to become nonphysical forever at the ascension, then it would be very misleading for
Jesus to say, “See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle me, and see; for
a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see that I have” (Luke 24:39). He did not say,
“. . . flesh and bones, as you see that I temporarily have”! It would have been wrong
to teach the disciples that he had a physical body when in his customary mode of
existence he really did not.
If Jesus had wanted to teach them that he could materialize and dematerialize at will
(as Harris argues), then he could easily have dematerialized before their eyes, so that they
could clearly record this event. Or he could easily have passed through a wall while they
watched, rather than just suddenly standing among them. In short, if Jesus and the New
Testament authors had wanted to teach us that the resurrection body was customarily
and essentially nonmaterial, they could have done so, but instead they gave many clear
indications that it was customarily physical and material, even though it was a body that
was perfected, made forever free from weakness, sickness, and death.
Finally, there is a larger doctrinal consideration. The physical resurrection of Jesus,
and his eternal possession of a physical resurrection body, give clear affirmation of the
goodness of the material creation that God originally made: “And God saw everything
that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (Gen. 1:31). We as resurrected men and
women will live forever in “new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells”
(2 Peter 3:13). We will live in a renewed earth that “will be set free from its bondage to
decay” (Rom. 8:21) and become like a new Garden of Eden. There will be a new Jerusa-
lem, and people “shall bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations” (Rev. 21:26),
and there will be “the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne
of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side
of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month”
(Rev. 22:1-2). In this very material, physical, renewed universe, it seems that we will
need to live as human beings with physical bodies, suitable for life in God’s renewed
physical creation. Specifically, Jesus’ physical resurrection body affirms the goodness
of God’s original creation of man not as a mere spirit like the angels, but as a creature
with a physical body that was “very good.” We must not fall into the error of thinking
that nonmaterial existence is somehow a better form of existence for creatures: 15 when
God made us as the pinnacle of his creation, he gave us physical bodies. In a perfected
physical body Jesus rose from the dead, now reigns in heaven, and will return to take us
to be with himself forever.
15 Professor Harris also wants to avoid this error, for he says, Yet I am concerned that his position may lead others to a depre-
“There can be no dualism between spirit and matter. No New ciation of the value of the material creation and of the goodness
Testament writer envisages the salvation of the soul or spirit of our physical bodies as created by God.
with the visible material world abandoned to oblivion” (p. 251 ).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
614
3. Both the Father and the Son Participated in the Resurrection. Some texts affirm that
God the Father specifically raised Christ from the dead (Acts 2:24; Rom. 6:4; 1 Cor. 6:14;
Gal. 1:1; Eph. 1:20), but other texts speak of Jesus as participating in his own resurrec-
tion. Jesus says: “The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life — only to take it
up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to
lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father”
(John 10:17-18 NIV; cf. 2:19-21). It is best to conclude that both the Father and the Son
were involved in the resurrection. 16 Indeed, Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the
life” (John 11:25; cf. Heb. 7: 16). 17
4. Doctrinal Significance of the Resurrection.
a. Christ’s Resurrection Ensures Our Regeneration: Peter says that “we have been
born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead”
(1 Peter 1:3). Here he explicitly connects Jesus’ resurrection with our regeneration or
new birth. When Jesus rose from the dead he had a new quality of life, a “resurrection
life” in a human body and human spirit that were perfectly suited for fellowship and
obedience to God forever. In his resurrection, Jesus earned for us a new life just like
his. We do not receive all of that new “resurrection life” when we become Christians,
for our bodies remain as they were, still subject to weakness, aging, and death. But in
our spirits we are made alive with new resurrection power. 18 Thus it is through his res-
urrection that Christ earned for us the new kind of life we receive when we are “born
again.” This is why Paul can say that God “made us alive together with Christ (by grace
you have been saved), and raised us up with him ” (Eph. 2:5-6; cf. Col. 3:1). When God
raised Christ from the dead he thought of us as somehow being raised “with Christ”
and therefore deserving of the merits of Christ’s resurrection. Paul says his goal in life
is “that I may know him and the power of his resurrection . . .” (Phil. 3:10). Paul knew
that even in this life the resurrection of Christ gave new power for Christian ministry
and obedience to God.
Paul connects the resurrection of Christ with the spiritual power at work within us
when he tells the Ephesians that he is praying that they would know “what is the immea-
surable greatness of his power in us who believe, according to the working of his great
might which he accomplished in Christ when he raised him from the dead and made
him sit at his right hand in the heavenly places” (Eph. 1:19-20). Here Paul says that the
power by which God raised Christ from the dead is the same power at work within us.
Paul further sees us as raised in Christ when he says, “We were buried therefore with
him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the
Father, we too might walk in newness of life. ... So you also must consider yourselves
dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 6:4, 11). This new resurrection power
16 See the discussion of the participation of the Father and
the Son in the resurrection in chapter 26, pp. 548-49.
17 Because the works of God are usually works of the entire
Trinity, it is probably true to say that the Holy Spirit also
was involved in raising Jesus from the dead, but no text of
Scripture affirms that explicitly (but see Rom. 8:11).
18 See chapter 34, pp. 699-708, for a discussion of regenera-
tion.
CHAPTER28 • RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION
615
in us includes power to gain more and more victory over remaining sin in our lives — “sin
will have no dominion over you” (Rom. 6:14; cf. 1 Cor. 15:17) — even though we will
never be perfect in this life. This resurrection power also includes power for ministry in
the work of the kingdom. It was after Jesus’ resurrection that he promised his disciples,
“You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be
my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth”
(Acts 1:8). This new, intensified power for proclaiming the gospel and working mira-
cles and triumphing over the opposition of the enemy was given to the disciples after
Christ’s resurrection from the dead and was part of the new resurrection power that
characterized their Christian lives.
b. Christ’s Resurrection Ensures Our Justification: In only one passage does Paul
explicitly connect Christ’s resurrection with our justification (or our receiving a decla-
ration that we are not guilty but righteous before God). 19 Paul says that Jesus “was put to
death for our trespasses and raised for our justification” (Rom. 4:25). When Christ was
raised from the dead, it was God’s declaration of approval of Christ’s work of redemp-
tion. Because Christ “humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on
a cross” (Phil. 2:8), “God has highly exalted him . . .” (Phil. 2:9). By raising Christ from
the dead, God the Father was in effect saying that he approved of Christ’s work of suffer-
ing and dying for our sins, that his work was completed, and that Christ no longer had
any need to remain dead. There was no penalty left to pay for sin, no more wrath of God
to bear, no more guilt or liability to punishment — all had been completely paid for, and
no guilt remained. In the resurrection, God was saying to Christ, “I approve of what you
have done, and you find favor in my sight.”
This explains how Paul can say that Christ was “raised for our justification” (Rom.
4:25). If God “raised us up with him” (Eph. 2:6), then, by virtue of our union with Christ,
God’s declaration of approval of Christ is also his declaration of approval of us. When
the Father in essence said to Christ, “All the penalty for sins has been paid and I find you
not guilty but righteous in my sight,” he was thereby making the declaration that would
also apply to us once we trusted in Christ for salvation. In this way Christ’s resurrection
also gave final proof that he had earned our justification.
c. Christ’s Resurrection Ensures That We Will Receive Perfect Resurrection Bodies
As Well: The New Testament several times connects Jesus’ resurrection with our final
bodily resurrection. “And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power”
(1 Cor. 6:14). Similarly, “he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and
bring us with you into his presence” (2 Cor. 4:14). But the most extensive discussion of
the connection between Christ’s resurrection and our own is found in 1 Corinthians
15:12-58. There Paul says that Christ is the “first fruits of those who have fallen asleep”
(1 Cor. 15:20). In calling Christ the “first fruits” (Gk. aparche)> Paul uses a metaphor
from agriculture to indicate that we will be like Christ. Just as the “first fruits” or the first
taste of the ripening crop show what the rest of the harvest will be like for that crop, so
l9 See chapter 36, pp. 722-35, on justification.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
616
Christ as the “first fruits” shows what our resurrection bodies will be like when, in God’s
final “harvest,” he raises us from the dead and brings us into his presence. 20
After Jesus’ resurrection, he still had the nail prints in his hands and feet and the
mark from the spear in his side (John 20:27). People sometimes wonder if that indicates
that the scars of serious injuries that we have received in this life will also remain on our
resurrection bodies. The answer is that we probably will not have any scars from injuries
or wounds received in this life, but our bodies will be made perfect, “incorruptible” and
raised “in glory.” The scars from Jesus’ crucifixion are unique because they are an eternal
reminder of his sufferings and death for us. 21 The fact that he retains those scars does
not necessarily mean that we shall retain ours. Rather, all will be healed, and all will be
made perfect and whole.
5. Ethical Significance of the Resurrection. Paul also sees that the resurrection has appli-
cation to our obedience to God in this life. After a long discussion of the resurrection,
Paul concludes by encouraging his readers, “ Therefore , my beloved brethren, be steadfast,
immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your
labor is not in vain” (1 Cor. 15:58). It is because Christ was raised from the dead, and we
too shall be raised from the dead, that we should continue steadfastly in the Lord’s work.
This is because everything that we do to bring people into the kingdom and build them
up will indeed have eternal significance, because we shall all be raised on the day when
Christ returns, and we shall live with him forever.
Second, Paul encourages us, when we think about the resurrection, to focus on our
future heavenly reward as our goal. He sees the resurrection as a time when all the strug-
gles of this life will be repaid. But if Christ has not been raised and if there is no resur-
rection, then “your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have
fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are
of all men most to be pitied” (1 Cor. 15:17-19; cf. v. 32). But because Christ has been
raised, and because we have been raised with him, we are to seek for a heavenly reward
and set our mind on things of heaven:
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above , where
Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are
above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hid
with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will
appear with him in glory. (Col. 3:1-4)
A third ethical application of the resurrection is the obligation to stop yielding to sin
in our lives. When Paul says we are to consider ourselves “dead to sin and alive to God in
Christ Jesus” by virtue of the resurrection of Christ and his resurrection power within us
(Rom. 6:11), he then goes on immediately to say,“Lef not sin therefore reign in your mortal
20 See chapter 42, pp. 831 -36, for a more detailed discussion ably all healed, and only the scars in his hands, feet, and side
of the nature of our resurrection bodies. remained as testimony to his death for us: Jesus was raised “in
21 In fact, the evidences of the severe beating and disfig- glory” (cf. 1 Cor. 15:43), not in horrible disfigurement just
urement that Jesus suffered before his crucifixion were prob- barely brought back to life.
CHAPTER 28 • RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION
bodies Do not yield your members to sin” (Rom. 6:12-13). The fact that we have this
new resurrection power over the domination of sin in our lives is used by Paul as a reason
to exhort us not to sin any more.
B. Ascension Into Heaven
1. Christ Ascended to a Place. After Jesus’ resurrection, he was on earth for forty days
(Acts 1:3), then he led them out to Bethany, just outside Jerusalem, and “lifting up his
hands, he blessed them. While he blessed them, he parted from them, and was carried
up into heaven” (Luke 24:50-51).
A similar account is given by Luke in the opening section of Acts:
And when he had said this, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a
cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he
went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, “Men of Gali-
lee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from
you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”
(Acts 1:9-11)
These narratives describe an event that is clearly designed to show the disciples that
Jesus went to a place. He did not suddenly disappear from them, never to be seen by them
again, but gradually ascended as they were watching, and then a cloud (apparently the
cloud of God’s glory) took him from their sight. But the angels immediately said that he
would come back in the same way in which he had gone into heaven. The fact that Jesus
had a resurrection body that was subject to spatial limitations (it could be at only one
place at one time) means that Jesus went somewhere when he ascended into heaven.
It is surprising that even some evangelical theologians hesitate to affirm that heaven is
a place or that Jesus ascended to a definite location somewhere in the space-time universe.
Admittedly we cannot now see where Jesus is, but that is not because he passed into some
ethereal “state of being” that has no location at all in the space-time universe, but rather
because our eyes are unable to see the unseen spiritual world that exists all around us.
There are angels around us, but we simply cannot see them because our eyes do not have
that capacity: Elisha was surrounded by an army of angels and chariots of fire protecting
him from the Syrians at Dothan, but Elisha’s servant was not able to see those angels until
God opened his eyes so that he could see things that existed in that spiritual dimension (2
Kings 6:17). Similarly, when Stephen was dying, God gave him a special ability to see the
world that is now hidden from our eyes, for he “gazed into heaven and saw the glory of
God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God; and he said, ‘Behold, I see the heavens
opened, and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God’ ” (Acts 7: 55 - 56) . And Jesus
himself said, “In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you
that I go to prepare a place for you? And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come
again and will take you to myself, that where I am you maybe also” (John 14:2-3).
Of course we cannot now say exactly where heaven is. Scripture often pictures people
as ascending up into heaven (as Jesus did, and Elijah) or coming down from heaven
(as the angels in Jacob’s dream, Gen. 28:12), so we are justified in thinking of heaven
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
618
as somewhere “above” the earth. Admittedly the earth is round and it rotates, so where
heaven is we are simply unable to say more precisely — Scripture does not tell us. But the
repeated emphasis on the fact that Jesus went somewhere (as did Elijah, 2 Kings 2:11),
and the fact that the New Jerusalem will come down out of heaven from God (Rev. 21:2),
all indicate that there is clearly a localization of heaven in the space-time universe. Those
who do not believe in Scripture may scoff at such an idea and wonder how it can be so,
just as the first Russian cosmonaut who came back from space and declared that he did
not see God or heaven anywhere, but that simply points to the blindness of their eyes
toward the unseen spiritual world; it does not indicate that heaven does not exist in a cer-
tain place. In fact, the ascension of Jesus into heaven is designed to teach us that heaven
does exist as a place in the space-time universe. (See chapter 57 for a further discussion
of the nature of heaven.)
2. Christ Received Glory and Honor That Had Not Been His Before As the God-Man.
When Jesus ascended into heaven he received glory, honor, and authority that had never
been his before as one who was both God and man. Before Jesus died, he prayed, “Father,
glorify me in your own presence with the glory which I had with you before the world
was made” (John 17:5). 22 In his sermon at Pentecost Peter said that Jesus was “exalted at
the right hand of God” (Acts 2:33), and Paul declared that “God has highly exalted him”
(Phil. 2:9), and that he was “taken up in glory” (1 Tim. 3:16; cf. Heb. 1:4). Christ is now
in heaven with the angelic choirs singing praise to him with the words, “Worthy is the
Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and
glory and blessing!” (Rev. 5:12). 23
3. Christ Was Seated at God’s Right Hand (Christ’s Session). One specific aspect of
Christ’s ascension into heaven and receiving of honor was the fact that he sat down at the
right hand of God. This is sometimes called his session at God’s right hand. 24
The Old Testament predicted that the Messiah would sit at the right hand of God:
“The Lord says to my lord: ‘Sit at my right hand, till I make your enemies your foot-
stool’” (Ps. 110:1). When Christ ascended back into heaven he received the fulfillment
of that promise: “When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand
of the Majesty on high” (Heb. 1:3). This welcoming into the presence of God and sit-
ting at God’s right hand is a dramatic indication of the completion of Christ’s work of
redemption. Just as a human being will sit down at the completion of a large task to enjoy
the satisfaction of having accomplished it, so Jesus sat at the right hand of God, visibly
demonstrating that his work of redemption was completed.
In addition to showing the completion of Christ’s work of redemption, the act of sit-
ting at God’s right hand is an indication that he received authority over the universe.
Paul says that God “raised him from the dead and made him sit at his right hand in the
22 This verse shows that the glory Jesus received had been his ubiquitous (everywhere present) : see the discussion in chapter
before as eternal Son of God, but it had not been his before in 26, p. 558, n. 38.
his incarnate form as God-man. 24 The word session formerly meant “the act of sitting
23 Some Lutheran theologians have also said that when down,” but it no longer has that meaning in ordinary English
Jesus ascended into heaven his human nature became usage today.
CHAPTER 28 • RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION
heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above
every name that is named” (Eph. 1:20-21). Similarly, Peter says that Jesus “has gone
into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers subject
to him (1 Peter 3:22). Paul also alludes to Psalm 110:1 when he says that Christ “must
reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet” (1 Cor. 15:25).
One additional aspect of the authority that Christ received from the Father when he
sat at his right hand was the authority to pour out the Holy Spirit on the church. Peter
says on the Day of Pentecost, “Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and hav-
ing received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this which
you see and hear” (Acts 2:33).
The fact that Jesus now sits at the right hand of God in heaven does not mean that
he is perpetually “fixed” there or that he is inactive. He is also seen as standing at God’s
right hand (Acts 7:56) and as walking among the seven golden lampstands in heaven
(Rev. 2:1). Just as a human king sits on his royal throne at his accession to the kingship,
but then engages in many other activities throughout each day, so Christ sat at the right
hand of God as a dramatic evidence of the completion of his redemptive work and his
reception of authority over the universe, but he is certainly engaged in other activities
in heaven as well.
4. Christ s Ascension Has Doctrinal Significance for Our Lives. Just as the resurrection
has profound implications for our lives, so Christ’s ascension has significant implications
for us. First, since we are united with Christ in every aspect of his work of redemption, 25
Christ’s going up into heaven foreshadows our future ascension into heaven with him. “We
who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet
the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord” (1 Thess. 4:17). The author of
Hebrews wants us to run the race of life with the knowledge that we are following in Jesus’
steps and will eventually arrive at the blessings of life in heaven that he is now enjoying:
“Let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer
and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross,
despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 12:1-2).
And Jesus himself says that he will one day take us to be with himself (John 14:3).
Second, Jesus’ ascension gives us assurance that our final home will be in heaven with
him. In my Father s house are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that
I go to prepare a place for you? And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come
again and will take you to myself, that where I am you maybe also” (John 14:2-3). Jesus
was a man like us in every way yet without sin, and he has gone before us so that eventu-
ally we might follow him there and live with him forever. The fact that Jesus has already
ascended into heaven and achieved the goal set before him gives great assurance to us
that we will eventually go there also.
Third, because of our union with Christ in his ascension, we are able to share now
(in part) in Christ’s authority over the universe, and we will later share in it more fully.
This is what Paul points to when he says that God “raised us up with him, and made us
25 See the discussion of union with Christ in chapter 43,
pp. 840-50.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
620
sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:6). We are not physically pres-
ent in heaven, of course, for we remain here on earth at the present time. But if Christ’s
session at God’s right hand refers to his reception of authority, then the fact that God
has made us sit with Christ means that we share in some measure in the authority that
Christ has, authority to contend against “the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly
places” (Eph. 6:12; cf. w. 10-18) and to do battle with weapons that “have divine power
to destroy strongholds” (2 Cor. 10:4). This sharing in Christ’s authority over the universe
will be made more fully our possession in the age to come: “Do you not know that we
are to judge angels?” (1 Cor. 6:3). Moreover, we will share with Christ in his authority
over the creation that God has made (Heb. 2:5-8). 26 Jesus promises, “He who conquers
and who keeps my works until the end, I will give him power over the nations, and he
shall rule them with a rod of iron, as when earthen pots are broken in pieces, even as
I myself have received power from my Father” (Rev. 2:26-27). He also promises, “He
who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I myself conquered and
sat down with my Father on his throne” (Rev. 3:21). These are amazing promises of our
future sharing in Christ’s sitting at the right hand of God, promises that we will not fully
understand until the age to come.
C. States of Jesus Christ
In talking about the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, theologians have some-
times talked about the “states of Jesus Christ.” By this they mean the different relation-
ships Jesus had to God’s law for mankind, to the possession of authority, and to receiving
honor for himself. Generally two states (humiliation and exaltation) are distinguished.
Thus, the doctrine of “the twofold state of Christ” is the teaching that Christ experienced
first the state of humiliation, then the state of exaltation.
Within the humiliation of Christ are included his incarnation, suffering, death, and
burial. Sometimes a fifth aspect (descent into hell) is included, but as explained above,
the position taken in this book is that that concept is not supported in Scripture.
In the exaltation of Christ, there are also four aspects: his resurrection, ascension into
heaven, session at the right hand of God, and return in glory and power. Many systematic
theologies use the state of humiliation and the state of exaltation as broad categories to
organize their discussion of Jesus’ work. 27
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. As you read this chapter, what aspects of the Bible’s teaching about a resurrection
body were new to your understanding? Can you think of some characteristics of
the resurrection body that you especially look forward to? How does the thought
of having such a body make you feel?
26 See discussion of Heb. 2:5-8 in chapter 26, p. 541; see also discussions of these two states have been covered in this and
pp. 272-73. other chapters of this book. For more detailed discussion, see
27 Although this is a useful method of organization, I have W. Grudem, “States of Jesus Christ,” EDT, pp. 1052-54.
not used it in this book. However, all of the topics included in
CHAPTER 28 • RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION
621
2. What things would you like to do now but find yourself unable to do because of the
weakness or limitations of your own physical body? Do you think these activities
would be appropriate to your life in heaven? Will you be able to do them then?
3. When you were born again, you received new spiritual life within. If you think of
this new spiritual life as part of the resurrection power of Christ working within
you, how does that give you encouragement in living the Christian life and in
ministering to people’s needs?
4. The Bible says that you are now seated with Christ in the heavenly places (Eph. 2:6).
As you meditate on this fact, how will it affect your prayer life and your engaging
in spiritual warfare against demonic forces?
5. When you think of Christ now in heaven, does it cause you to focus more attention
on things that will have eternal significance? Does it increase your assurance that
you will someday be with him in heaven? How do you feel about the prospect of
reigning with Christ over the nations and over angels as well?
SPECIAL TERMS
ascension
exaltation of Christ
humiliation of Christ
incorruptible
raised in glory
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter 1,
pp. 38-39. Complete bibliographical data maybe found on pp. 1224-30.)
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1882 - 92 Litton, 195-96
1930 Thomas, 73-87
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1875- 76 Pope, 3:401-6
1987-90 Oden, 451-526
3. Baptist
1767 Gill, 1:583 -602
1907 Strong, 706-10, 1015 -23
1917 Mullins, 44-46, 158-64, 472-78
1983 -85 Erickson, 769- 79
1987-94 Lewis/Demarest, 2 :437 - 96
raised in power
resurrection
session
spiritual body
states of Jesus Christ
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
622
4. Dispensational
1947 Chafer, 5:231-79
1949 Thiessen, 243 - 50
1986 Ryrie, 267-74
5. Lutheran
1917-24 Pieper, 2:324-30
1934 Mueller, 295-300
6. Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1861 Heppe, 488-509
1871-73 Hodge, 2:626-38
1887-1921 Warfield, SSW, 1:178-202; PWC, 535-48
1937-66 Murray, CW y 1:40-43; CW, 4:82-91
1938 Berkhof, 344-55
1962 Buswell, 2:32-40
7. Renewal (or charismatic/Pentecostal)
1988-92 Williams, 1:381-413
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
1. Roman Catholic: Traditional
1955 Ott, 192-96
2. Roman Catholic: Post-Vatican II
1980 McBrien, 1:405-17
Other Works
Bray, G. L. “Ascension and Heavenly Session of Christ” In NDT y pp. 46-47.
Craig, William Lane. The Son Rises: The Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus.
Chicago: Moody, 1981.
Fuller, Daniel P. Easter Faith and History. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965.
Gaffin, Richard B., Jr. Resurrection and Redemption: A Study in Paul's Soteriology : Formerly,
The Centrality of the Resurrection: A Study in Paul's Soteriology : Phillipsburg, N.J.:
Presbyterian and Reformed, 1978.
Habermas, G. R. “Resurrection of Christ” In EDT y pp. 938-41.
, and Anthony Flew. Did Jesus Rise From the Dead? The Resurrection Debate. Edited
by Terry L. Miethe. New York: Harper and Row, 1987.
Harris, Murray J. From Grave to Glory: Resurrection in the New Testament , Including a
Response to Norman L. Geisler. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990.
. “Resurrection, General.” In NDT y pp. 581-82.
Ladd, George E. I Believe in the Resurrection of Jesus. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975.
Macleod, D. “Resurrection of Christ.” In NDT y pp. 582-85.
Morison, Frank. Who Moved the Stone? London: Faber and Faber, 1930; reprint, Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 1958.
O’Donovan, Oliver. Resurrection and Moral Order. Leicester: Inter- Varsity Press, 1986.
CHAPTER 28 • RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION
623
Ross, A. “Ascension of Christ.” In EDT, pp. 86-87.
Swete, Henry Barclay. The Ascended Christ: A Study in the Earliest Christian Teaching.
London: Macmillan, 1910.
Tenney, Merrill C. The Reality of the Resurrection. New York: Harper and Row, 1963.
Toon, Peter. The Ascension of Our Lord. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1984.
Wenham, John. The Easter Enigma. London: Paternoster, 1984.
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
1 Corinthians 15:20—23: But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead , the first fruits of
those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resur-
rection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each
in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.
HYMN
“Christ the Lord Is Risen Today”
“Christ the Lord is risen today,” al-le-lu-ia!
Sons of men and angels say; al-le-lu-ia!
Raise your joys and triumphs high; al-le-lu-ia!
Sing, ye heav’ns, and earth reply; al-le-lu-ia!
Vain the stone, the watch, the seal; al-le-lu-ia!
Christ has burst the gates of hell: al-le-lu-ia!
Death in vain forbids him rise; al-le-lu-ia!
Christ hath opened paradise. Al-le-lu-ia!
Lives again our glorious King; al-le-lu-ia!
Where, O death, is now thy sting? Al-le-lu-ia!
Once he died, our souls to save; al-le-lu-ia!
Where thy victory, O grave? Al-le-lu-ia!
Soar we now where Christ has led, al-le-lu-ia!
Following our exalted Head; al-le-lu-ia!
Made like him, like him we rise; al-le-lu-ia!
Ours the cross, the grave, the skies. Al-le-lu-ia!
Hail, the Lord of earth and heav’n! Al-le-lu-ia!
Praise to thee by both be giv’n; al-le-lu-ia!
Thee we greet triumphant now; al-le-lu-ia!
Hail, the resurrection thou! Al-le-lu-ia!
AUTHOR: CHARLES WESLEY, 1739
Chapter 29
THE OFFICES OF CHRIST
How is Christ prophet, priest, and king ?
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
There were three major offices among the people of Israel in the Old Testament:
the prophet (such as Nathan, 2 Sam. 7:2), the priest (such as Abiathar, 1 Sam. 30:7),
and the king (such as King David, 2 Sam. 5:3). These three offices were distinct. The
prophet spoke God’s words to the people; the priest offered sacrifices, prayers, and
praises to God on behalf of the people; and the king ruled over the people as God’s
representative. These three offices foreshadowed Christ’s own work in different ways.
Therefore we can look again at Christ’s work, now thinking about the perspective of
these three offices or categories. 1 Christ fulfills these three offices in the following
ways: as prophet he reveals God to us and speaks God’s words to us; as priest he both
offers a sacrifice to God on our behalf and is himself the sacrifice that is offered; and
as king he rules over the church and over the universe as well. We now turn to discuss
each of these offices in more detail.
A. Christ as Prophet
The Old Testament prophets spoke God’s words to the people. Moses was the first
major prophet, and he wrote the first five books of the Bible, the Pentateuch. After
Moses there was a succession of other prophets who spoke and wrote God’s words. 2
But Moses predicted that sometime another prophet like himself would come.
The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you,
from your brethren — him you shall heed — just as you desired of the Lord
^ohn Calvin (1509-64) was the first major theologian
to apply these three categories to the work of Christ (see his
Institutes of the Christian Religion , Book 2, Chapter 15). The
categories have been adapted by many subsequent theologians
as a helpful way of understanding various aspects of Christ’s
work.
2 See the discussion of the writing of the books in the Old
Testament canon in chapter 3, pp. 54-60.
624
CHAPTER 29 • THE OFFICES OF CHRIST
your God. . . . And the Lord said to me ... “I will raise up for them a prophet
like you from among their brethren; and I will put my words in his mouth,
and he shall speak to them all that I command him.” (Deut. 18:15-18)
However, when we look at the gospels we see that Jesus is not primarily viewed as
a prophet or as the prophet like Moses, though there are occasional references to this
effect. Often those who call Jesus a “prophet” know very little about him. For instance,
various opinions of Jesus were circulating: “Some say John the Baptist, others say Eli-
jah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets” (Matt. 16:14; cf. Luke 9:8). When Jesus
raised the son of the widow of Nain from the dead, the people were afraid and said, “A
great prophet has arisen among us!” (Luke 7:16). When Jesus told the Samaritan woman
at the well something of her past life, she immediately responded, “Sir, I perceive that
you are a prophet” (John 4:19). But she did not then know very much at all about him.
The reaction of the man born blind who was healed in the temple was similar: “He is a
prophet” (John 9:17; note that his belief in Jesus’ messiahship and deity did not come
until v. 37, after a subsequent conversation with Jesus). 3 Therefore, “prophet” is not a
primary designation of Jesus or one used frequently by him or about him.
Nevertheless, there was still an expectation that the prophet like Moses would come
(Deut. 18:15, 18). For instance, after Jesus had multiplied the loaves and fish, some
people exclaimed, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world!” (John
6:14; cf. 7:40). Peter also identified Christ as the prophet predicted by Moses (see Acts
3:22—24, quoting Deut. 18:15). So Jesus is indeed the prophet predicted by Moses.
Nevertheless, it is significant that in the Epistles Jesus is never called a prophet or the
prophet. This is especially significant in the opening chapters of Hebrews, because there
was a clear opportunity to identify Jesus as a prophet if the author had wished to do so.
He begins by saying, “In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the
prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son” (Heb. 1:1-2). Then after
discussing the greatness of the Son, in chapters 1-2, the author concludes this section
not by saying, “Therefore, consider Jesus, the greatest prophet of all,” or something like
that, but rather by saying, “Therefore, holy brethren, who share in a heavenly call, con-
sider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession” (Heb. 3:1).
Why did the New Testament epistles avoid calling Jesus a prophet? Apparently
because, although Jesus is the prophet whom Moses predicted, yet he is also far greater
than any of the Old Testament prophets, in two ways:
1. He is the one about whom the prophecies in the Old Testament were made. When Jesus
spoke with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, he took them through the entire Old
Testament, showing how the prophecies pointed to him: “And beginning with Moses and
all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself”
(Luke 24:27). He told these disciples that they were “slow of heart to believe all that the
prophets had spoken, showing that it was “necessary that the Christ should suffer these
things and enter into his glory” (Luke 24:25-26; cf. 1 Peter 1:11, which says that the
In Luke 24: 19 the two travelers on the road to Emmaus also of the stranger whom they presumed to have little knowledge of
refer to Jesus as a prophet, thus putting him in a general cat- the events surrounding Jesus’ life,
egory of religious leaders sent from God, perhaps for the benefit
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
626
Old Testament prophets were “predicting the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent
glory”). Thus, the Old Testament prophets looked forward to Christ in what they wrote,
and the New Testament apostles looked back to Christ and interpreted his life for the
benefit of the church.
2. Jesus was not merely a messenger of revelation from God (like all the other
prophets), but was himself the source of revelation from God. Rather than saying, as
all the Old Testament prophets did, “Thus says the Lord,” Jesus could begin divinely
authoritative teaching with the amazing statement, “But I say unto you” (Matt. 5:22,
et al.). The word of the Lord came to the Old Testament prophets, but Jesus spoke on
his own authority as the eternal Word of God (John 1:1) who perfectly revealed the
Father to us (John 14:9; Heb. 1:1-2).
In the broader sense of prophet, simply meaning one who reveals God to us and
speaks to us the words of God, Christ is of course truly and fully a prophet. In fact,
he is the one whom all the Old Testament prophets prefigured in their speech and in
their actions.
B. Christ as Priest
In the Old Testament, the priests were appointed by God to offer sacrifices. They
also offered prayers and praise to God on behalf of the people. In so doing they “sanc-
tified” the people or made them acceptable to come into God’s presence, albeit in a
limited way during the Old Testament period. In the New Testament Jesus becomes
our great high priest. This theme is developed extensively in the letter to the Hebrews,
where we find that Jesus functions as priest in two ways.
1. Jesus Offered a Perfect Sacrifice for Sin. The sacrifice which Jesus offered for sins
was not the blood of animals such as bulls or goats: “For it is impossible that the blood
of bulls and goats should take away sins” (Heb. 10:4). Instead, Jesus offered himself as
a perfect sacrifice: “But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the age to put
away sin by the sacrifice of himself 1 (Heb. 9:26). This was a completed and final sacrifice,
never to be repeated, a theme frequently emphasized in the book of Hebrews (see 7:27;
9:12, 24-28; 10:1-2, 10, 12, 14; 13:12). Therefore Jesus fulfilled all the expectations that
were prefigured, not only in the Old Testament sacrifices, but also in the lives and actions
of the priests who offered them: he was both the sacrifice and the priest who offered the
sacrifice. Jesus is now the “great high priest who has passed through the heavens” (Heb.
4:14) and who has appeared “in the presence of God on our behalf” (Heb. 9:24), since he
has offered a sacrifice that ended for all time the need for any further sacrifices.
2. Jesus Continually Brings Us Near to God. The Old Testament priests not only offered
sacrifices, but also in a representative way they came into the presence of God from time
to time on behalf of the people. But Jesus does much more than that. As our perfect high
priest, he continually leads us into God’s presence so that we no longer have need of a
Jerusalem temple, or of a special priesthood to stand between us and God. And Jesus does
not come into the inner part (the holy of holies) of the earthly temple in Jerusalem, but
he has gone into the heavenly equivalent to the holy of holies, the very presence of God
CHAPTER29 • THE OFFICES OF CHRIST
himself in heaven (Heb. 9:24). Therefore we have a hope that follows him there: “We
have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner shrine
behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become
a high priest for ever (Heb. 6:19—20). This means that we have a far greater privilege
than those people who lived at the time of the Old Testament temple. They could not even
enter into the first room of the temple, the holy place, for only the priests could go there.
Then into the inner room of the temple, the holy of holies, only the high priest could go,
and he could only enter there once a year (Heb 9:1—7). But when Jesus offered a perfect
sacrifice for sins, the curtain or veil of the temple that closed off the holy of holies was
torn in two from top to bottom (Luke 23:45), thus indicating in a symbolic way on earth
that the way of access to God in heaven was opened by Jesus’ death. Therefore the author
of Hebrews can make this amazing exhortation to all believers:
Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary [lit. ‘the
holy places,’ meaning both the ‘holy place’ and the ‘holy of holies’ itself] by
the blood of Jesus . . . and since we have a great priest over the house of God,
let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith. (Heb. 10:19-22)
Jesus has opened for us the way of access to God so that we can continually “draw
near” into God’s very presence without fear but with “confidence” and in “full assur-
ance of faith.”
3. Jesus as Priest Continually Prays for Us. One other priestly function in the Old
Testament was to pray on behalf of the people. The author of Hebrews tells us that
Jesus also fulfills this function: “He is able for all time to save those who draw near
to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them” (Heb. 7:25).
Paul affirms the same point when he says Christ Jesus is the one “who indeed inter-
cedes for us” (Rom. 8:34).
Some have argued that this work of high priestly intercession is only the act of
remaining in the Father’s presence as a continual reminder that he himself has paid
the penalty for all our sins. According to this view, Jesus does not actually make spe-
cific prayers to God the Father about individual needs in our lives, but “intercedes”
only in the sense of remaining in God’s presence as our high priestly representative.
However, this view does not seem to fit the actual language used in Romans 8:34
and Hebrews 7:25. In both cases, the word intercede translates the Greek term entygch-
ano. This word does not mean merely “to stand as someone’s representative before
another person,” but clearly has the sense of making specific requests or petitions
before someone. For example, Festus uses this word to say to King Agrippa, “You see
this man about whom the whole Jewish people petitioned me” (Acts 25:24). Paul also
uses it of Elijah when he “pleads with God against Israel” (Rom. 11:2). In both cases
the requests are very specific, not just general representations. 4
4 Literature outside the New Testament provides further
examples of entygchand used to mean “to bring requests or
petitions” See, e.g., Wisd. 8:21 (“I asked the Lord, and made
petition to him”); 1 Macc. 8:32; 3 Macc. 6:37 (“They requested
the King, that he send them back to their home”); 1 Clem. 56:1;
Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians 4:3; Josephus, Antiqui-
ties 12:18; 16:170 (the Jews in Cyrene petition Marcus Agrippa
concerning people in their land who are falsely collecting taxes) .
More examples could be found as well (cf. also Rom. 8:27, and,
using a cognate word, v. 26).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
628
We may conclude, then, that both Paul and the author of Hebrews are saying that
Jesus continually lives in the presence of God to make specific requests and to bring
specific petitions before God on our behalf. This is a role that Jesus, as God-man, is
uniquely qualified to fulfill. Although God could care for all our needs in response to
direct observation (Matt. 6:8), yet it has pleased God, in his relationship to the human
race, to decide to act instead in response to prayer, apparently so that the faith shown
through prayer might glorify him. It is especially the prayers of men and women created
in his image that are pleasing in God’s sight. In Christ, we have a true man, a perfect
man, praying and thereby continually glorifying God through prayer. Thus, human
manhood is raised to a highly exalted position: “There is one God, and there is one
mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5).
Yet in his human nature alone Jesus could not of course be such a great high priest
for all his people all over the world. He could not hear the prayers of persons far away,
nor could he hear prayers that were only spoken in a person’s mind. He could not hear
all requests simultaneously (for in the world at any one moment there are millions of
people praying to him). Therefore, in order to be the perfect high priest who intercedes
for us, he must be God as well as man. He must be one who in his divine nature can both
know all things and bring them into the presence of the Father. Yet because he became
and continues to be man he has the right to represent us before God and he can express
his petitions from the viewpoint of a sympathetic high priest, one who understands by
experience what we go through.
Therefore, Jesus is the only person in the whole universe for all eternity who can be
such a heavenly high priest, one who is truly God and truly man, exalted forever above
the heavens.
The thought that Jesus is continually praying for us should give us great encourage-
ment. He always prays for us according to the Father’s will, so we can know that his
requests will be granted. Berkhof says:
It is a consoling thought that Christ is praying for us, even when we are negli-
gent in our prayer life; that He is presenting to the Father those spiritual needs
which were not present to our minds and which we often neglect to include in
our prayers; and that He prays for our protection against the dangers of which
we are not even conscious, and against the enemies which threaten us, though
we do not notice it. He is praying that our faith may not cease, and that we may
come out victoriously in the end. 5
C. Christ as King
In the Old Testament the king has authority to rule over the nation of Israel. In the
New Testament, Jesus was born to be King of the Jews (Matt. 2:2), but he refused any
attempt by people to try to make him an earthly king with earthly military and political
power (John 6:15). He told Pilate, “My kingship is not of this world; if my kingship were
of this world, my servants would fight, that I might not be handed over to the Jews; but
5 Berkhof, Systematic Theology ; p. 403.
CHAPTER 29 • THE OFFICES OF CHRIST
my kingship is not from the world” (John 18:36). Nonetheless, Jesus did have a kingdom
whose arrival he announced in his preaching (Matt. 4:17, 23; 12:28, et al.). He is in fact
the true king of the new people of God. Thus, Jesus refused to rebuke his disciples who
cried out at his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, “Blessed is the King who comes in the
name of the Lord!” (Luke 19:38; cf. w. 39-40; also Matt. 21:5; John 1:49; Acts 17:7).
After his resurrection, Jesus was given by God the Father far greater authority over
the church and over the universe. God raised him up and “made him sit at his right hand
in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and
above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come;
and he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the
church” (Eph. 1:20—22; Matt. 28:18; 1 Cor. 15:25). That authority over the church and
over the universe will be more fully recognized by people when Jesus returns to earth
in power and great glory to reign (Matt. 26:64; 2 Thes. 1:7-10; Rev. 19:11 - 16). On that
day he will be acknowledged as “ King of kings and Lord of lords” (Rev. 19:16) and every
knee shall bow to him (Phil. 2:10).
D. Our Roles as Prophets, Priests, and Kings
If we look back at the situation of Adam before the fall and forward to our future
status with Christ in heaven for eternity, we can see that these roles of prophet, priest,
and king had parallels in the experience that God originally intended for man, and will
be fulfilled in our lives in heaven.
In the Garden of Eden, Adam was a “prophet” in that he had true knowledge of God
and always spoke truthfully about God and about his creation. He was a “priest” in that
he was able freely and openly to offer prayer and praise to God. There was no need of
a sacrifice to pay for sins, but in another sense of sacrifice Adam and Eve’s work would
have been offered to God in gratitude and thanksgiving, and so would have been a
“sacrifice” of another sort (cf. Heb. 13:15). Adam and Eve were also “kings” (or king
and queen) in the sense of having been given dominion and rule over the creation (Gen.
1:26-28).
After sin entered into the world, fallen human beings no longer functioned as proph-
ets, for they believed false information about God and spoke falsely about him to others.
They no longer had priestly access to God because sin cut them off from his presence.
Instead of ruling over the creation as kings, they were subject to the harshness of the
creation and tyrannized by flood, drought, and unproductive land, as well as by tyran-
nical human rulers. The nobility of man as God had created him — to be a true prophet,
priest, and king — was lost through sin.
There was a partial recovery of the purity of these three roles in the establishment of
the three offices of prophet, priest, and king in the kingdom of Israel. From time to time
godly men occupied these offices. But there were also false prophets, dishonest priests,
and ungodly kings, and the original purity and holiness with which God intended man
to fulfill these offices were never fully realized.
When Christ came, we saw for the first time the fulfillment of these three roles,
since he was the perfect prophet, who most fully declared God’s words to us, the
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
630
perfect high priest, who offered the supreme sacrifice for sins and who brought his
people near to God, and the true and rightful king of the universe, who will reign for-
ever with a scepter of righteousness over the new heavens and new earth.
But amazingly we as Christians even now begin to imitate Christ in each of these
roles, though in a subordinate way. We have a “prophetic” role as we proclaim the gospel
to the world and thereby bring Gods saving Word to people. In fact, whenever we speak
truthfully about God to believers or to unbelievers we are fulfilling a “prophetic” func-
tion (using the word prophetic in a very broad sense).
We are also priests, because Peter calls us “a royal priesthood” (1 Peter 2:9). He
invites us to be built into a spiritual temple and “to be a holy priesthood” as well as
“to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:5). The
author of Hebrews also views us as priests who are able to enter into the holy of holies
(Heb. 10:19, 22) and able to “continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is,
the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name” (Heb. 13:15). He also tells us that our good
works are sacrifices pleasing to God: “Do not neglect to do good and to share what you
have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God” (Heb. 13:16). Paul also has a priestly role in
mind for us when he writes, “I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God,
to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your
spiritual worship” (Rom. 12:1).
We also share in part now in the kingly reign of Christ, since we have been raised to
sit with him in the heavenly places (Eph. 2:6), thus sharing to some degree in his author-
ity over evil spiritual forces that may be arrayed against us (Eph. 6:10- 18; James 4:7; 1
Peter 5:9; 1 John 4:4). God has even now committed to us authority over various areas
in this world or in the church, giving to some authority over much and to some author-
ity over little. But when the Lord returns those who have been faithful over little will be
given authority over much (Matt. 25:14-30).
When Christ returns and rules over the new heavens and new earth, we will once
again be true “prophets” because our knowledge will then be perfect and we shall
know as we are known (1 Cor. 13:12). Then we will speak only truth about God and
about his world, and in us the original prophetic purpose which God had for Adam
will be fulfilled. We will be priests forever, for we will eternally worship and offer
prayer to God as we behold his face and dwell in his presence (Rev. 22:3-4). We
will continually offer ourselves and all that we do or have as sacrifices to our most
worthy king.
Yet we shall also, in subjection to God, share in ruling over the universe, for with him
we shall “reign forever and ever” (Rev. 22:5). Jesus says, “He who conquers, I will grant
him to sit with me on my throne, as I myself conquered and sat down with my Father
on his throne” (Rev. 3:21). In fact, Paul tells the Corinthians, “Do you not know that
the saints will judge the world? ... Do you not know that we are to judge angels ?” (1 Cor.
6:2-3). Therefore for all eternity, we shall forever function as subordinate prophets,
priests, and kings, yet always subject to the Lord Jesus, the supreme prophet, priest,
and king.
CHAPTER 29 • THE OFFICES OF CHRIST
631
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. Can you see some ways in which an understanding of Christ’s role as prophet,
priest, and king will help you understand more fully the functions of prophets,
priests, and kings in the Old Testament? Read the description of Solomon’s
kingdom in 1 Kings 4:20—34 and 1 Kings 10:14—29. Do you see in Solomon’s
kingdom any foreshadowing of the three offices of Christ? Any foreshadowing
of Christ’s eternal kingdom? Do you think that you have greater or lesser privi-
leges living now as a member of the church in the new covenant age?
2. Can you see any fulfillment of the role of prophet in your life now? Of the role of
priest? Of the role of king? How could each of these functions be developed in
your life?
SPECIAL TERMS
intercession
king
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter 1,
pp. 38-39. Complete bibliographical data maybe found on pp. 1224-30.)
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1882-92 Litton, 219-38
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1875-76
Pope, 2:197-262
1940
Wiley, 2:187-216
1983
Carter, 1:363-64
3. Baptist
1767
Gill, 1:602-44
1887
Boyce, 291-95
1907
Strong, 710-76
1917
Mullins, 303-4
1983-85
Erickson, 762 -63
4. Dispensational
1947
Chafer, 3:17-30
1986
Ryrie, 254-59
priest
prophet
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
632
5. Lutheran
1917-24 Pieper, 2:330-96
1934 Mueller, 301 -18
6. Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1559 Calvin, 1:494-503 (2.15)
1871-73 Hodge, 2:455-90, 592-609
1878 Dabney, 475-77, 483-87
1937-66 Murray, CW, 1:44-58
1938 Berkhof, 356-66, 406- 12
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
1. Roman Catholic: Traditional
1955 Ott, 179-91
2. Roman Catholic: Post-Vatican II
1980 McBrien (no explicit treatment)
Other Works
Baker, J. P. “Offices of Christ.” In NDT, pp. 476-77.
Clowney, Edmund P. The Unfolding Mystery: Discovering Christ in the Old Testament.
Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1988.
Letham, Robert. The Work of Christ. Downers Grove, III.: InterVarsity Press, 1993.
Reymond, R. L. “Offices of Christ.” In EDI] p. 793.
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
1 Peter 2:9- 10: But you are a chosen race , a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own
people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into
his marvelous light Once you were no people but now you are God's people; once you had
not received mercy but now you have received mercy .
HYMN
"Rejoice the Lord Is King”
This powerful hymn encourages us to rejoice at Christ’s present and future kingship.
(An excellent hymn about Christ’s role as priest is “Arise, My Soul, Arise,” also by Charles
Wesley, and this may be used as an alternative hymn. Another alternative is “How Sweet
the Name of Jesus Sounds,” by John Newton, esp. v. 4.)
Rejoice, the Lord is King: your Lord and King adore;
Rejoice, give thanks and sing, and triumph evermore:
CHAPTER 29 • THE OFFICES OF CHRIST
633
Lift up your heart, lift up your voice;
Rejoice, again I say, rejoice.
Jesus, the Savior, reigns, the God of truth and love;
When he had purged our stains, he took his seat above:
Lift up your heart, lift up your voice;
Rejoice, again I say, rejoice.
His kingdom cannot fail, he rules o’er earth and heav’n;
The keys of death and hell are to our Jesus giv’n:
Lift up your heart, lift up your voice;
Rejoice, again I say, rejoice.
He sits at God’s right hand till all his foes submit,
And bow to his command, and fall beneath his feet:
Lift up your heart, lift up your voice;
Rejoice, again I say, rejoice.
AUTHOR: CHARLES WESLEY, 1746
Chapter
THE WORK OF THE
HOLY SPIRIT
What are the distinctive activities of the
Holy Spirit throughout the history of the Bible ?
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
In the previous chapters we have discussed at some length the person and work of
God the Father, and, more recently, the person and work of God the Son, Jesus Christ.
We have also examined the biblical evidence for the deity and distinct personality of the
Holy Spirit (in connection with the doctrine of the Trinity). It is appropriate now in this
chapter that we focus on the distinctive work of the Holy Spirit. Among the different
activities of the members of the Trinity, what activities are said to be especially the work
of God the Holy Spirit?
We should realize at the outset that other chapters in this book deal more or less
directly with certain aspects of the Holy Spirit’s work. The chapters on baptism in and
filling with the Holy Spirit (39) and the gifts of the Holy Spirit (52-53) deal almost
entirely with specific works of the Holy Spirit. Moreover, the chapters on the authority
of Scripture (4), prayer (18), the gospel call (33), regeneration (34), sanctification (38),
perseverance (40), glorification (42), church discipline (46), the means of grace within
the church (48), and worship (51) all treat various aspects of the Holy Spirit’s work in
the world, and especially in the lives of believers. Nonetheless, in this chapter we shall
attempt to gain an overview of the teaching of all of Scripture on the work of the Holy
Spirit in order to understand more fully what kinds of activities have been especially
delegated to the Holy Spirit by God the Father and God the Son.
We may define the work of the Holy Spirit as follows: The work of the Holy Spirit is to
manifest the active presence of God in the world, and especially in the church. This defini-
tion indicates that the Holy Spirit is the member of the Trinity whom the Scripture most
often represents as being present to do God’s work in the world. Although this is true to
some extent throughout the Bible, it is particularly true in the new covenant age. In the
634
CHAPTER 30 • THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
635
Old Testament, the presence of God was many times manifested in the glory of God and
in theophanies, and in the gospels Jesus himself manifested the presence of God among
men. But after Jesus ascended into heaven, and continuing through the entire church age,
the Holy Spirit is now the primary manifestation of the presence of the Trinity among us.
He is the one who is most prominently present with us now. 1
From the very beginning of creation we have an indication that the Holy Spirit’s work
is to complete and sustain what God the Father has planned and what God the Son has
begun, for in Genesis 1:2, “the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters.” And
at Pentecost, with the beginning of the new creation in Christ, it is the Holy Spirit who
comes to grant power to the church (Acts 10:38; 2:4, 17-18). Because the Holy Spirit is
the person of the Trinity through whom God particularly manifests his presence in the
new covenant age, it is appropriate that Paul should call the Holy Spirit the “first fruits”
(Rom. 8:23) and the “guarantee” (or “down payment,” 2 Cor. 1:22; 5:5) ofthe full mani-
festation of God’s presence that we will know in the new heavens and new earth (cf. Rev.
21:3-4).
Even in the Old Testament, it was predicted that the presence of the Holy Spirit would
bring abundant blessings from God: Isaiah predicted a time when the Spirit would bring
great renewal.
For the palace will be forsaken, the populous city deserted . . . until the Spirit is
poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the
fruitful field is deemed a forest. Then justice will dwell in the wilderness, and
righteousness abide in the fruitful field. And the effect of righteousness will be
peace, and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust for ever. My people
will abide in a peaceful habitation, in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting
places. (Isa. 32:14-18)
Similarly, God prophesied through Isaiah to Jacob, “For I will pour water on the thirsty
land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon your descendants, and my
blessing on your offspring” (Isa. 44:3).
By contrast, the departure of the Holy Spirit removed the blessing of God from a
people: “But they rebelled and grieved his holy Spirit; therefore he turned to be their
enemy, and himself fought against them” (Isa. 63:10). Nonetheless, several prophecies in
the Old Testament predicted a time when the Holy Spirit would come in greater fullness,
a time when God would make a new covenant with his people (Ezek. 36:26-27; 37:14;
39:29; Joel 2:28-29).
In what specific ways does the Holy Spirit bring God’s blessing? We may distinguish
four aspects of the work of the Holy Spirit to bring evidence of God’s presence and to
bless: (1) the Holy Spirit empowers; (2) the Holy Spirit purifies; (3) the Holy Spirit reveals;
(4) the Holy Spirit unifies. We will examine each of these four activities below. Finally,
we must recognize that these activities of the Holy Spirit are not to be taken for granted,
and they do not just happen automatically among God’s people. Rather, the Holy Spirit
'In this discussion, when I use the word “present” I mean ofthe Holy Spirit is always present everywhere (he is omnipres-
present to bless,” as discussed in the section on God’s omnipo- ent), but he does not always show his presence in activities that
tence in chapter 11. Of course, since he is fully God, the being bring blessing (see chapter 11, pp. 173-77).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
636
reflects the pleasure or displeasure of God with the faith and obedience — or unbelief
and disobedience — of God’s people. Because of this, we need to look at a fifth aspect
of the Holy Spirit’s activity: (5) the Holy Spirit gives stronger or weaker evidence of the
presence and blessing of God, according to our response to him.
A. The Holy Spirit Empowers
1. He Gives Life. In the realm of nature it is the role of the Holy Spirit to give life to all
animate creatures, whether on the ground or in the sky and sea, for “When you send
forth your Spirit, they are created” (Ps. 104:30). Conversely, if God “should take back his
spirit to himself, and gather to himself his breath, all flesh would perish together, and
man would return to dust” (Job 34:14- 15). Here we see the role of the Spirit in the giving
and sustaining of human and animal life.
Parallel with this is the role of the Holy Spirit to give us new life in regeneration. 2
Jesus told Nicodemus, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born
of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born anew’ ” (John
3:6-7; cf. vv. 5, 8; 6:63; 2 Cor. 3:6). He also said, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh
profits nothing” (John 6:63 NASB; cf. 2 Cor. 3:6; Acts 10:44-47; Titus 3:5). 3 Con-
sistent with this life-giving function of the Holy Spirit is the fact that it was the Holy
Spirit who conceived Jesus in the womb of Mary his mother (Matt. 1:18, 20; Luke 1:35).
And on the day when Christ returns, it is the same Holy Spirit who will complete this
life-giving work by giving new resurrection life to our mortal bodies: “If the Spirit of
him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the
dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit which dwells in you”
(Rom. 8:11).
2. He Gives Power for Service.
a. Old Testament: In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit frequently empowered people
for special service. He empowered Joshua with leadership skills and wisdom (Num.
27:18; Deut. 34:9), and empowered the judges to deliver Israel from their oppressors
(note how “the Spirit of the Lord came upon” Othniel in Judg. 3:10, Gideon in 6:34,
Jephthah in 11:29, and Samson in 13:25; 14:6, 19; 15:14). The Holy Spirit came might-
ily upon Saul to arouse him to battle against the enemies of Israel (1 Sam. 11:6), and
when David was anointed as king, “the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David
from that day forward” (1 Sam. 16:13), equipping David to fulfill the task of kingship to
which God had called him. 4 In a slightly different kind of empowering, the Holy Spirit
2 See the discussion of regeneration in chapter 34, pp.
699-708. Moreover, as we argue in chapter 39, the phrase
“baptism in the Holy Spirit” is used by the New Testament (for
example, in 1 Cor. 12:13) to speak ofthe Holy Spirit’s work at the
time we become Christians (though many evangelicals today,
especially in charismatic and Pentecostal groups, would under-
stand “baptism in the Holy Spirit” to refer to something the
Holy Spirit does after conversion).
3 Related to the life-giving work of the Holy Spirit is the fact
that he also seals his work to us so that he keeps true believers
from falling away from God and losing their salvation (Eph.
1:13).
4 It is apparently in the sense of equipping for kingship that
David asks that the Holy Spirit not be withdrawn from him
CHAPTER 30 • THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
endowed Bezalel with artistic skills for the construction of the tabernacle and its equip-
ment (Ex. 31:3; 35:31), and with the ability to teach these skills to others (Ex. 35:34). 5
The Holy Spirit also protected God’s people and enabled them to overcome their ene-
mies. For example, God put his Spirit in the midst of them at the time of the exodus (Isa.
63:11-12) and later, after their return from exile, put his Spirit in the midst of them to
protect them and keep them from fear (Hag. 2:5). When Saul was attempting to capture
David by force, the Holy Spirit came upon Saul’s messengers (1 Sam. 19:20) and eventu-
ally upon Saul himself (v. 23), causing them involuntarily to fall to the ground and to
prophesy for hours, thus defeating Saul’s purpose and humiliating him in response to
his malicious show of force against David and Samuel. In a similar way, while Ezekiel
was prophesying judgment by the power of the Holy Spirit against some of the leaders of
Israel (Ezek. 11:5), one of the leaders named Pelatiah actually died (Ezek. 11:13). In this
way the Holy Spirit brought immediate judgment on him.
Finally, the Old Testament predicted a time when the Holy Spirit would anoint a
Servant-Messiah in great fullness and power:
And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and under-
standing, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of
the Lord. And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. (Isa. 11:2-3)
Isaiah prophesied that God would say of this coming Servant, “I have put my Spirit upon
him” (Isa. 42:1), and he himself would say, “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me” (Isa. 61:1; cf. Luke 4:18).
Before leaving this discussion of the empowering of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testa-
ment, we should note that it sometimes is said that there was no work of the Holy Spirit
within people in the Old Testament. This idea has mainly been inferred from Jesus’ words
to the disciples in John 14:17, “He dwells with you, and will be in you.” But we should not
conclude from this verse that there was no work of the Holy Spirit within people before
Pentecost. Although the Old Testament does not frequently speak of people who had the
Holy Spirit in them or who were filled with the Holy Spirit, there are a few examples:
Joshua is said to have the Holy Spirit within him (Num. 27:18; Deut. 34:9), as are Ezekiel
(Ezek. 2:2; 3:24), Daniel (Dan. 4:8-9, 18; 5:11), and Micah (Mic. 3:8). 6 This means that
when Jesus says to his disciples that the Holy Spirit “dwells with you and will be in you”
(John 14:17), he cannot mean that there was an absolute “within/without” difference
between the old and new covenant work of the Holy Spirit. Nor can John 7:39 (“as yet the
Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified”) mean that there was no
activity of the Holy Spirit in people’s lives before Pentecost. Both of these passages must
be different ways of saying that the more powerful, fuller work of the Holy Spirit that is
when he prays, “Cast me not away from your presence, and take
not your holy Spirit from me” (Ps. 51:11). Just as the Holy Spirit
in his role of anointing Saul for kingship had departed from
Saul at the same time as he came upon David (cf. 1 Sam. 16:13
with v. 14), so David, after his sin with Bathsheba (see Ps. 51,
title), prayed that the Holy Spirit would not similarly be taken
from him.
5 The Holy Spirit also empowered the Old Testament
prophets by giving them revelations to speak, but I have
included that function under Section C below (“The Holy
Spirit Reveals”).
6 Before Pentecost in the New Testament we also find
that John the Baptist (Luke 1:15), Elizabeth (Luke 1:41), and
Zechariah (Luke 1:67) were all said to be filled with the Holy
Spirit.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
638
characteristic of life after Pentecost had not yet begun in the lives of the disciples. The
Holy Spirit had not come within them in the way in which God had promised to put the
Holy Spirit within his people when the new covenant would come (see Ezek. 36:26, 27;
37:14), nor had the Holy Spirit been poured out in the great abundance and fullness that
would characterize the new covenant age (Joel 2:28-29). In this powerful new covenant
sense, the Holy Spirit was not yet at work within the disciples. 7
b. New Testament: The empowering work of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament is
seen first and most fully in his anointing and empowering of Jesus as the Messiah. The
Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus at his baptism (Matt. 3:16; Mark 1:11; Luke 3:22).
John the Baptist said, “I saw the Spirit descend as a dove from heaven, and it remained
on him” (John 1:32). Therefore Jesus entered into the temptation in the wilderness “full
of the Holy Spirit” (Luke 4:1), and after his temptation, at the beginning of his ministry,
“Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee” (Luke 4:14). When Jesus came to
preach in the synagogue at Nazareth, he declared that Isaiahs prophecy was fulfilled in
himself: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good
news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of
sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable
year of the Lord” (Luke 4:18-19). The power of the Holy Spirit in Jesus’ life was then
seen in his subsequent miracles, as he cast out demons with a word and healed all who
came to him (Luke 4:36, 40-41). The Holy Spirit was pleased to dwell in Jesus and
empower him, for he fully delighted in the absolute moral purity of Jesus’ life. In the con-
text of talking about Jesus’ ministry, and the Father’s blessing on that ministry, John says,
“It is not by measure that he gives the Spirit; the Father loves the Son, and has given all
things into his hand” (John 3:34-35). Jesus had an anointing of the Holy Spirit without
measure, and this anointing “remained on him” (John 1:32; cf. Acts 10:38).
The Holy Spirit also empowered Jesus’ disciples for various kinds of ministry. Jesus
had promised them, “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you;
and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the
end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). 8 There are several specific examples of the Holy Spirit’s
empowering the early Christians to work miracles as they proclaimed the gospel (note
Stephen in Acts 6:5, 8; and Paul in Rom. 15:19; 1 Cor. 2:4). But the Holy Spirit also
7 See chapter 39, pp. 770-73, for a fuller discussion of the
differences between the work of the Holy Spirit in the old cov-
enant and in the new covenant.
8 The word here translated “power” (dynamis) occurs nine
other times in Acts. In one case (4:33), it is unclear whether
this “power” refers to powerful preaching that convicted the
hearers or to miraculous signs that accompanied the preach-
ing. But in the other eight examples (2:22; 3:12; 4:7; 6:8; 8:10
[in this verse referring to pagan miracle-working power], 13;
10:38; 19:11) it refers to power to work miracles. This meaning
of the term dynamis is further confirmed by its frequent use
in Luke’s gospel to refer to miracle-working power. Therefore
when Jesus promised the disciples in Acts 1:8 that they would
receive “power” when the Holy Spirit came upon them, it seems
likely that they would have understood him to mean at least the
power of the Holy Spirit to work miracles that would attest to
the truthfulness of the gospel. Because the immediate context
of the sentence talks about being witnesses for Jesus, they may
also have understood him to mean that they would receive the
power of the Holy Spirit to work through their preaching and
bring conviction of sins and awaken faith in people’s hearts.
This power in their preaching was evident in subsequent events,
as when Peter’s hearers “were cut to the heart” (Acts 2:37), or
when “many of those who heard the word believed; and the
number of the men came to about five thousand” (Acts 4:4).
CHAPTER 30 • THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
gave great power to the preaching of the early church so that when the disciples were
filled with the Holy Spirit they proclaimed the Word boldly and with great power (Acts
4:8, 31; 6:10; 1 Thess. 1:5; 1 Peter 1:12). In general, we can say that the Holy Spirit
speaks through the gospel message as it is effectively proclaimed to people's hearts. The
New Testament ends with an invitation from both the Holy Spirit and the church, who
together call people to salvation: “The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come.' And let him
who hears say, ‘Come'” (Rev. 22:17). In fact, not only in the preaching of the gospel
message, but also in the reading and teaching of Scripture, the Holy Spirit continues
to speak to people's hearts each day (see Heb. 3:7 and 10:15, where the author quotes
an Old Testament passage and says that the Holy Spirit is now speaking that passage to
his readers).
Another aspect of empowering Christians for service is the Holy Spirit's activity of
giving spiritual gifts to equip Christians for ministry. After listing a variety of spiritual
gifts, Paul says, “But one and the same Spirit works all these things y distributing to each
one individually just as He wills” (1 Cor. 12:11 NASB). Since the Holy Spirit is the one
who shows or manifests God’s presence in the world, it is not surprising that Paul can call
spiritual gifts “manifestations” of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12:7). 9 When spiritual gifts are
active, it is another indication of the presence of God the Holy Spirit in the church. 10
In the prayer lives of individual believers, we find that the Holy Spirit empowers
prayer and makes it effective. “We do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit
himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words” (Rom. 8:26). n And Paul says that
we have access in one Spirit to the Father” (Eph. 2:18). One specific kind of prayer that
the New Testament says is empowered by the Holy Spirit is the gift of prayer in tongues
(1 Cor. 12:10-11; 14:2, 14- 17). 12
Yet another aspect of the Holy Spirit’s work in empowering Christians for service is
empowering people to overcome spiritual opposition to the preaching of the gospel and
to God's work in people’s lives. This power in spiritual warfare was first seen in the life
of Jesus, who said, “If it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom
of God has come upon you” (Matt. 12:28). When Paul came to Cyprus he encountered
opposition from Elymas the magician, but he, “filled with the Holy Spirit , looked intently
at him and said, ‘You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit
and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord? And now,
behold, the hand of the Lord is upon you, and you shall be blind and unable to see the
sun for a time.' Immediately mist and darkness fell upon him and he went about seeking
people to lead him by the hand” (Acts 13:9-11). The gift of “distinguishing between
spirits” (1 Cor. 12:10), given by the Holy Spirit, is also to be a tool in this warfare against
the forces of darkness, as is the Word of God, which functions as the “sword of the Spirit”
(Eph. 6:17) in spiritual conflict.
9 The Greek word translated “manifestation” is phanerdsis,
which means something that discloses, something that makes
publicly evident or clear. The related adjective phaneros means
“visible, dear, plainly to be seen, open, plain, evident, known”
(BAGD, p. 852).
10 The Holy Spirit also empowers obedience to God during
the Christian life (see discussion below on the Holy Spirit’s
work of purification).
n See discussion of Rom. 8:26 in chapter 18, pp. 381-82,
and chapter 53, pp. 1078-79.
12 See discussion of speaking in tongues in chapter 53,
pp. 1069-79.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
640
B. The Holy Spirit Purifies
Since this member of the Trinity is called the Holy Spirit, it is not surprising to find
that one of his primary activities is to cleanse us from sin and to “sanctify us” or make
us more holy in actual conduct of life. Even in the lives of unbelievers there is some
restraining influence of the Holy Spirit as he convicts the world of sin (John 16:8-11;
Acts 7:51). But when people become Christians the Holy Spirit does an initial cleansing
work in them, making a decisive break with the patterns of sin that were in their lives
before. 13 Paul says of the Corinthians, “You were washed, you were sanctified , you were
justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:11; see
also Titus 3:5). This cleansing and purifying work of the Holy Spirit is apparently what
is symbolized by the metaphor of fire when John the Baptist says that Jesus will baptize
people “with the Holy Spirit and with fire” (Matt. 3:11; Luke 3:16).
After the initial break with sin that the Holy Spirit brings about in our lives at conver-
sion, he also produces in us growth in holiness of life. He brings forth the “fruit of the
Spirit” within us (“love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentle-
ness, self-control,” Gal. 5:22-23), those qualities that reflect the character of God. As we
continually “are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another,”
we should be reminded that “this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:18).
Sanctification comes by the power of the Holy Spirit (2 Thess. 2:13; 1 Peter 1:2; cf. Rom.
8:4, 15-16), so that it is “by the Spirit” that we are able to “put to death the deeds of the
body” and grow in personal holiness (Rom. 8:13; see 7:6; Phil. 1:19). 14
Some people today say a purifying (or healing) work of the Holy Spirit occurs when
they are “slain in the Spirit,” an experience in which they suddenly fall to the ground
in a semi-conscious state and remain there for minutes or hours. Although the phrase
“slaying in the Spirit” is nowhere in Scripture, there are instances when people fell to the
ground, or fell into a trance, in the presence of God. 15 Contemporary experiences should
be evaluated according to what lasting results (“fruit”) they bear in people’s lives (see
Matt. 7:15-20; 1 Cor. 14:12, 26c).
C. The Holy Spirit Reveals
1. Revelation to Prophets and Apostles. In chapter 4 we discussed in great detail the
work of the Holy Spirit in revealing God’s words to the Old Testament prophets and New
Testament apostles, in many cases so that these words could be put into Scripture (see,
for example, Num. 24:2; Ezek. 11:5; Zech. 7:12, et al.). The whole of the Old Testament
Scriptures came about because “men spoke from God as they were carried along by the
Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21 NIV). Several other passages mention this work of the Holy
Spirit in Old Testament prophets (see Matt. 22:43; Acts 1:16; 4:25; 28:25; 1 Peter 1:11).
The New Testament apostles and others who wrote words of New Testament Scripture
13 See discussion of this in John Murray, “Definitive Sancti- 15 See Gen. 15:12; Exod. 40:35; 1 Sam. 19:24; 1 Kings 8:11;
fication in Collected Writings of John Murray (Edinburgh and Ezek. 1:28; 3:23; Dan. 8:27; John 18:6; Acts 9:4; 10:10; Rev.
Carlisle, Pa.: Banner of Truth, 1977), pp. 277-84. 1:17; 4:10 (compare angelic encounters in Dan. 8:17-18;
14 See chapter 38, pp. 746-62, for a more extensive discus- 10:7-17).
sion of sanctification.
CHAPTER 30 • THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
641
were also guided “into all the truth” by the Holy Spirit (John 16:13), who also spoke to
the apostles what he heard from the Father and the Son, and declared to them “the things
that are to come” (John 16:3; cf. Eph. 3:5). Others who were filled with the Holy Spirit
also spoke or sang words that became part of Scripture, such as Elizabeth (Luke 1:41),
Zechariah (Luke 1:67), and Simeon (Luke 2:25).
2. He Gives Evidence of God’s Presence. Sometimes it has been said that the work of the
Holy Spirit is not to call attention to himself but rather to give glory to Jesus and to God
the Father. But this seems to be a false dichotomy, not supported by Scripture. Of course
the Holy Spirit does glorify Jesus (John 16:14) and bear witness to him (John 15:26; Acts
5:32; 1 Corinthians 12:3; 1 John 4:2). But this does not mean that he does not make his
own actions and words known! The Bible has hundreds of verses talking about the work
of the Holy Spirit, making his work known, and the Bible is itself spoken or inspired by
the Holy Spirit!
Moreover, the Holy Spirit frequently made himself known by phenomena that indicated
his activity, both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament periods. This was true
when the Holy Spirit came upon the seventy elders with Moses and they prophesied
(Num. 11:25-26), and when the Holy Spirit came upon the judges to enable them to do
great works of power (Judg. 14:6, 19; 15:14, et al.). In these instances people could see
the effect of the Holy Spirit coming on the Lord’s servants. This was also true when the
Holy Spirit came mightily upon Saul and he prophesied with a band of prophets (1 Sam.
10:6, 10), and it was frequently true when he empowered the Old Testament prophets to
give public prophecies.
The Holy Spirit also made his presence evident in a visible way when he descended as a
dove on Jesus (John 1:32), or came as a sound of a rushing wind and with visible tongues
of fire on the disciples at Pentecost (Acts 2:2-3). In addition, when people had the Holy
Spirit poured out on them and began to speak in tongues or praise God in a remarkable
and spontaneous way (see Acts 2:4; 10:44-46; 19:6), the Holy Spirit certainly made his
presence known as well. And Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit within us would be so
powerful he would be like a river of living water flowing out from our inmost beings (see
John 7:39) — a simile that suggests that people would be aware of a presence that would
somehow be perceptible.
In the lives of individual believers, the Holy Spirit does not entirely conceal his work,
but makes himself known in various ways. He bears witness with our spirit that we are
children of God (Rom. 8:16), and cries, “Abba! Father!” (Gal. 4:6). He provides a guar-
antee or a down payment of our future fellowship with him in heaven (2 Cor. 1:22; 5:5),
and reveals his desires to us so that we can be led by those desires and follow them (Rom.
8:4-16; Gal. 5:16-25). He gives gifts that manifest his presence (1 Cor. 12:7-11). And
from time to time he works miraculous signs and wonders that strongly attest to the
presence of God in the preaching of the gospel (Heb. 2:4; cf. 1 Cor. 2:4; Rom. 15:19).
It seems more accurate, therefore, to say that although the Holy Spirit does glorify
Jesus, he also frequently calls attention to his work and gives recognizable evidences that
make his presence known . Indeed, it seems that one of his primary purposes in the new
covenant age is to manifest the presence of God, to give indications that make the presence
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
642
of God known. And when the Holy Spirit works in various ways that can be perceived by
believers and unbelievers, this encourages people’s faith that God is near and that he is
working to fulfill his purposes in the church and to bring blessing to his people.
3. He Guides and Directs God’s People. Scripture gives many examples of direct guid-
ance from the Holy Spirit to various people. In fact, in the Old Testament, God said that
it was sin for the people to enter into agreements with others when those agreements were
“not of my Spirit” (Isa. 30:1). Apparently the people had been deciding on the basis of
their own wisdom and common sense rather than seeking the guidance of God’s Holy
Spirit before they entered into such agreements. In the New Testament, the Holy Spirit
led Jesus into the wilderness for his period of temptation (Matt. 4:1; Luke 4:1); in fact, so
strong was this leading of the Holy Spirit that Mark can say that “The Spirit immediately
drove him out into the wilderness” (Mark 1:12). 16
In other contexts the Holy Spirit gave direct words of guidance to people, saying to
Philip, for example, “Go up and join this chariot” (Acts 8:29), or telling Peter to go
with three men who came to him from Cornelius’ household (Acts 10:19-20; 11:12), or
directing the Christians at Antioch, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to
which I have called them” (Acts 13:2).
Also in the category of “giving guidance,” but of a much more direct and compelling
kind, are several examples where the Holy Spirit actually transported a person from
one place to another. This was so when “the Spirit of the Lord caught up Philip; and the
eunuch saw him no more But Philip was found at Azotus” (Acts 8:39-40) — the
guidance in this case could hardly have been more clear! But similar things happened
to some Old Testament prophets, for those who knew Elijah seemed to expect that the
Spirit of God would snatch him up and transport him somewhere (1 Kings 18 : 12 ; 2 Kings
2:16: “It may be that the Spirit of the Lord has caught him up and cast him upon some
mountain or into some valley”). The Spirit of the Lord several times, Ezekiel says, “lifted
me up” and brought him to one place or another (Ezek. 11:1; 37:1; 43:5), an experience
that was also part of John’s later visions in Revelation (Rev. 17:3; 21:10). 17
But in the vast majority of cases the leading and guiding by the Holy Spirit is not
nearly as dramatic as this. Scripture talks rather about a day-to-day guidance by the Holy
Spirit — being “led” by the Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:14; Gal. 5:18), and walking according to
the Spirit (Rom. 8:4; Gal. 5:16). Now it is possible to understand Paul here to be referring
only to obedience to the moral commands of Scripture, but this interpretation seems
quite unlikely, especially since the entire context is dealing with emotions and desires
which we perceive in a more subjective way, and because Paul here contrasts being led by
the Spirit with following the desires of the flesh or the sinful nature:
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the
desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against
16 The verb here translated “drove out” is a strong term, portation in a vision (as in Ezek. 8:3 and 11:24) rather than
ekballo, which means “drive out, expel,” and more literally can literal physical travel. Paul allows for both possibilities in 2
mean “throw out.” Cor. 12:2-3.
17 It is possible that Ezekiel and John are speaking of trans-
CHAPTER 30 * THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
643
the flesh. . . . Now the works of the flesh are plain: fornication, impurity, licen-
tiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger. . . . But the fruit of
the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentle-
ness, self-control. ... If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Let
us have no self-conceit, no provoking of one another, no envy of one another.
(Gal. 5:16-26)
The contrast between “desires of the flesh” and “desires of the Spirit” implies that our
lives should be responding moment by moment to the desires of the Holy Spirit, not to
the desires of the flesh. Now it maybe that a large part of responding to those desires is
the intellectual process of understanding what love, joy, peace (and so forth) are, and
then acting in a loving or a joyful or peaceful way. But this can hardly constitute the
whole of such guidance by the Spirit because these emotions are not simply things we
think about; they are things we also feel and sense at a deeper level. In fact, the word
translated “desires” (Gk. epithymia) is a word that refers to strong human desires, not
simply to intellectual decisions. Paul implies that we are to follow these desires as they
are produced by the Holy Spirit in us. Moreover, the idea of being “led” by the Holy
Spirit (Gal. 5:18) implies an active personal participation by the Holy Spirit in guid-
ing us. This is something more than our reflecting on biblical moral standards, and
includes an involvement by the Holy Spirit in relating to us as persons and leading and
directing us.
There are specific examples of the Holy Spirit guiding people directly in the book
of Acts. After the decision of the Jerusalem council, the leaders wrote in their letter to
the churches, “It has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater
burden than these necessary things” (Acts 15:28). This verse suggests that the council
must have had a sense of the good pleasure of the Holy Spirit in these areas: they knew
what “seemed good to the Holy Spirit.” On Paul’s second missionary journey, Luke
writes that they were “forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia” and then
that “they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them”
(Acts 16:6-7). Of course, no written principle from the Old Testament Scriptures would
have led them to conclude that they could not preach in Asia or Bithynia. The Holy
Spirit must rather have communicated his direct guidance to them in some specific
way, whether through words heard audibly or in the mind, or through strong subjec-
tive impressions of a lack of the Holy Spirit’s presence and blessing as they attempted to
travel to these different areas. Later, when Paul is on his way to Jerusalem, he says, “I am
going to Jerusalem, bound in the Spirit , not knowing what shall befall me there; except
that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await
me” (Acts 20:22-23). Paul did not think he had another choice — so clearly did the
Holy Spirit manifest his presence and desires to him, that Paul could speak of having
been “bound” in the Spirit. 18
18 The word translated “bound” is a perfect passive participle
of ded, and signifies an earlier completed event (perhaps a strong
conviction from the Holy Spirit that settled Pauls mind on the
trip to Jerusalem once for all), but an event that also has con-
tinuing results in the present, so that Paul remained “bound”
when he spoke (the event still influenced Paul so strongly
that he had no other choice but to continue forward toward
Jerusalem).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
644
In other cases the Holy Spirit gave guidance to establish people in various ministries
or church offices. So the Holy Spirit said to some in the church at Antioch, “Set apart for
me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them” (Acts 13:2). And Paul
could say that the Holy Spirit had established the elders of the Ephesian church in their
office because he said, “Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy
Spirit has made you overseers” (Acts 20:28). Finally, the Holy Spirit did provide some
guidance through the means of spiritual gifts such as prophecy (1 Cor. 14:29-33). 19
4. He Provides a Godlike Atmosphere When He Manifests His Presence. Because the
Holy Spirit is fully God, and shares all the attributes of God, his influence will be to
bring a Godlike character or atmosphere to the situations in which he is active. Because
he is the Holy Spirit he will at times bring about a conviction of sin, righteousness, and
judgment (John 16:8-11). Because God is love, the Holy Spirit pours God’s love into
our hearts (Rom. 5:5; 15:30; Col. 1:8) and often the strongly manifested presence of the
Holy Spirit will create an atmosphere of love. Because God is “not a God of confusion
but of peace” (1 Cor. 14:33), the Holy Spirit brings an atmosphere of peace into situa-
tions: “The kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy
in the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 14:17; cf. Gal. 5:22). This last verse also teaches that the Holy
Spirit imparts an atmosphere of joy (see also Acts 13:52; 1 Thess. 1:6). Although the
list is not exhaustive, Paul summarized many of these Godlike qualities that the Holy
Spirit produces when he listed the various elements of the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians
5:22-23.
Other elements of the atmosphere that the Holy Spirit can impart are truth (John
14:17; 15:26; 16:13; 1 John 5:7), wisdom (Deut. 34:9; Isa. 11:2), comfort (Acts 9:31),
freedom (2 Cor. 3:17), righteousness (Rom. 14:17), hope (Rom. 15:13; cf. Gal. 5:5), an
awareness of sonship or adoption (Rom. 8:15-16; Gal. 4:5-6), and even glory (2 Cor.
3:8). The Holy Spirit also brings unity (Eph. 4:3), and power (Acts 10:38; 1 Cor. 2:4; 2
Tim. 1:7; cf. Acts 1:8). All of these elements of the Holy Spirit’s activity indicate the vari-
ous aspects of an atmosphere in which he makes his own presence — and thereby his own
character — known to the people.
5. He Gives Us Assurance. The Holy Spirit bears witness “with our spirits that we are
children of God” (Rom. 8:16), and gives evidence of the work of God within us: “And
by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit which he has given us” (1 John 3:24).
“By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his own
Spirit ” (1 John 4:13). The Holy Spirit not only witnesses to us that we are God’s children,
but also witnesses that God abides in us and that we are abiding in him. Once again more
than our intellect is involved: the Spirit works to give us assurance at the subjective level
of spiritual and emotional perception as well.
19 However, it is always dangerous to follow spontaneous can be no guidance that comes through prophecy. See further
prophecies alone for guidance in this church age, since we are discussion about subjective guidance in general and the gift of
never to think of any prophecies as inerrant or 100 percent prophecy in particular in chapter 8, pp. 128-29, and chapter
accurate today. Mistakes can especially come in the area of per- 53, pp. 1049-61.
sonal guidance. But all that does not allow us to say that there
CHAPTER 30 • THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
645
6. He Teaches and Illumines. Another aspect of the Holy Spirit’s revealing work is teach-
ing certain things to God’s people and illumining them so that they can understand
things. Jesus promised this teaching function especially to his disciples when he said
that the Holy Spirit “will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that
I have said to you” (John 14:26), and said, “he will guide you into all the truth” (John
16:13). Moreover, he promised that when his disciples were put on trial because of per-
secution, the Holy Spirit would teach them at that time what to say (Luke 12:12; cf.
Matt. 10:20; Mark 13:11). At other times the Holy Spirit revealed specific information to
people — showing Simeon that he would not die until he saw the Messiah, for example
(Luke 2:26), or revealing to Agabus that a famine would occur (Acts 11:28) or that Paul
would be taken captive in Jerusalem (Acts 21:11). In other cases the Holy Spirit revealed
to Paul that he would suffer in Jerusalem (Acts 20:23; 21:4) and expressly said to Paul
things that would happen in the latter days (1 Tim. 4:1), and revealed to him what God
has prepared for those who love him (1 Cor. 2:10).
The illuminating work of the Holy Spirit is seen in the fact that he enables us to
understand: “We have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from
God, that we might understand the gifts bestowed on us by God” (1 Cor. 2:12). There-
fore, “The unspiritual man does not receive the gifts (literally, things) of the Spirit
of God” but “The spiritual man judges all things” (1 Cor. 2:14- 15). We should pray
that the Holy Spirit would give us his illumination and thereby help us to understand
rightly when we study Scripture or when we ponder situations in our lives. Although
he did not mention the Holy Spirit specifically, the psalmist prayed for such illumi-
nation when he asked God, “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out
of your law” (Ps. 119:18). Similarly, Paul prayed for the Christians in and around
Ephesus,
. . . that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a
spirit [or: “the Spirit,” NIV] of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of
him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the
hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance
in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power in us who
believe, according to the working of his great might. (Eph. 1:17-19)
D. The Holy Spirit Unifies
When the Holy Spirit was poured out on the church at Pentecost, Peter proclaimed
that the prophecy of Joel 2:28-32 was fulfilled:
But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:
“And in the last days it shall be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams;
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
646
yes, and on my menservants and my maidservants in those days
I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.” (Acts 2:16-18)
There is an emphasis on the Holy Spirit coming on a community of believers — not just
a leader like Moses or Joshua, but sons and daughters, old men and young men, men-
servants and maidservants — all will receive the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in this
time. 20
In the event of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit created a new community which was the
church. The community was marked by unprecedented unity, as Luke reminds us:
And all who believed were together and had all things in common; and they sold
their possessions and goods and distributed them to all, as any had need. And
day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes,
they partook of food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having
favor with all the people. (Acts 2:44-47)
Paul blesses the Corinthian church with a blessing that seeks the unifying fellowship
of the Holy Spirit for all of them when he says, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and
the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit 21 be with you all” (2 Cor. 13:14). It is
significant that in this trinitarian verse he especially attributes the deepening of fellow-
ship among believers not to the Father or the Son but to the Holy Spirit, a statement
consistent with the overall unifying work of the Spirit in the church.
This unifying function of the Holy Spirit is also evident when Paul tells the Philip-
pians, “If therefore there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation
of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit . . . make my joy complete by being of the
same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose” (Phil.
2:1-2 NASB). 22 In a similar way, when he emphasizes the new unity between Jews and
Gentiles in the church, he says that “through him we both have access in one Spirit
to the Father” (Eph. 2:18), and says that in the Lord they are built into the one new
house of God “in the Spirit” (Eph. 2:22). When he wants to remind them of the unity
they should have as Christians he exhorts them to be “eager to maintain the unity of the
Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:3).
Paul’s discussion of spiritual gifts also repeats this theme of the unifying work of
the Holy Spirit. Whereas we might think that people who have differing gifts would not
readily get along well with each other, Paul’s conclusion is just the opposite: differing
gifts draw us together, because we are forced to depend on each other. “The eye cannot
say to the hand, T have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of
you’ ” (1 Cor. 12:21). These differing gifts, Paul tells us, are empowered by “one and the
20 This was also a fulfillment of Moses’ wish that the Lord ers (participation in the Holy Spirit). It is better to translate
would put his Spirit on all his people (Num. 11:29), and of the the verse, “fellowship of the Holy Spirit,” thus emphasizing a
vision of the valley of dry bones revived by the Spirit in Ezek. 37. blessing from the Holy Spirit that Paul hoped would increase
See also Donald Guthrie, New Testament Theology, pp. 512-13, in the Corinthian church.
540, 562. 22 The Greek word koinonia is also best translated “fellow-
21 The word koinonia , “fellowship,” could also mean “par- ship” here because Paul’s purpose in Phil. 2:1 - 11 is to encour-
ticipation in the Holy Spirit,” but it would make little sense for age unity in the Philippian church. (See the preceding footnote
Paul to wish for them something they already had as believ- also.)
CHAPTER 30 ■ THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
647
same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills” (1 Cor. 12:11), so that
in the church, “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good”
(1 Cor. 12:7). In fact, “in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body — Jews or
Greeks, slaves or free — and all were made to drink of one Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:13, authors
translation). 23
The idea that the Holy Spirit unifies the church is also evident in the fact that “strife . . .
disputes, dissensions, factions” (Gal. 5:20 NASB) are desires of the flesh that are opposed
to being “led by the Spirit” (Gal. 5:18; cf. v. 25). The Holy Spirit is the one who produces
love in our hearts (Rom. 5:5; Gal. 5:22; Col. 1:8), and this love “binds everything together
in perfect harmony” (Col. 3:14). Therefore when the Holy Spirit is working strongly in
a church to manifest Gods presence, one evidence will be a beautiful harmony in the
church community and overflowing love for one another.
E. The Holy Spirit Gives Stronger or Weaker Evidence of the Presence and
Blessing of God According to Our Response to Him
Many examples in both the Old and New Testament indicate that the Holy Spirit will
bestow or withdraw blessing according to whether or not he is pleased by the situation he
sees. It is noteworthy that Jesus was completely without sin and the Holy Spirit “remained
on him” (John 1:32) and was given to him without measure (John 3:34). In the Old
Testament the Holy Spirit came mightily upon Samson several times (Judg. 13:25; 14:6,
19; 15:14), but ultimately left him when he persisted in sin (Judg. 16:20). Similarly, when
Saul persisted in disobedience the Holy Spirit departed from him (1 Sam. 16:14). And
when the people of Israel rebelled and grieved the Holy Spirit he turned against them
(Isa. 63:10).
Also in the New Testament the Holy Spirit can be grieved and cease to bring blessing
in a situation. Stephen rebuked the Jewish leaders, saying, “You always resist the Holy
Spirit ” (Acts 7:51). Paul warns the Ephesian Christians, “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit
of God, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption” (Eph. 4:30), and exhorts
the Thessalonian church, “Do not quench the Spirit ” (1 Thess. 5:19; cf. the metaphor of
delaying to open the door and thereby disappointing ones lover in Song of Sol. 5:3, 6).
In a similar vein, Paul gives a serious warning to Christians not to defile their bodies by
joining them to a prostitute because the Holy Spirit lives within their bodies: “Do you
not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from
God? You are not your own; you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body”
(1 Cor. 6:19-20).
Even more serious than grieving or quenching the Holy Spirit is a deeper, more hard-
ened disobedience to him that brings strong judgment. When Peter rebuked Ananias,
“Why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back part of the pro-
ceeds of the land?” (Acts 5:3), he fell down dead. Similarly, when Peter said to Ananias’s
wife Sapphira, “How is it that you have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord?”
(Acts 5:9), she immediately fell down dead as well. The book of Hebrews warns those
23 See the extended discussion of this verse in chapter 39,
pp. 766-70.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
648
who are in danger of falling away that severe punishment is deserved by the man “who
has spurned the Son of God, and profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was
sanctified, and outraged the Spirit of grace” (Heb. 10:29). For such a person there only
remains “a fearful prospect of judgment” (Heb. 10:27). 24
Finally, there remains one more level of offense against the Holy Spirit. This kind of
offense is even more serious than grieving him or acting with the hardened disobedience
to him that brings discipline or judgment. It is possible so to offend the Holy Spirit that
his convicting work will not be brought to bear again in a person’s life.
Every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit
will not be forgiven. And whoever says a word against the Son of man will be for-
given; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in
this age or in the age to come. (Matt. 12:31-32; cf. Mark 3:29; Luke 12:10)
These statements are made in a context in which the Pharisees willfully and maliciously
attribute to Satan the powerful work of the Holy Spirit that was evident in the ministry
of Jesus. Since the Holy Spirit so clearly manifested the presence of God, those who will-
fully and maliciously spoke against him and attributed his activity instead to the power
of Satan were guilty, Jesus said, “of an eternal sin” (Mark 3:29). 25
All of these passages indicate that we must be very careful not to grieve or offend the
Holy Spirit. He will not force himself on us against our wills (see 1 Cor. 14:32), but if we
resist and quench and oppose him, then his empowering will depart and he will remove
much of the blessing of God from our lives.
On the other hand, in the life of Christians whose conduct is pleasing to God, the Holy
Spirit will be present to bring great blessing. The Holy Spirit was “poured out” in full-
ness at Pentecost (see Acts 2:17- 18) and he now dwells within all true believers, making
them temples of the living God (1 Cor. 3:16; 6:19-20). We can know close fellowship
and partnership with the Holy Spirit in our lives (2 Cor. 3:14; Phil. 2:1). He entrusts gifts
(1 Cor. 12:11) and truth (2 Tim. 1:14) and ministries (Acts 20:28) to us. In fact, so full
and abundant will be his presence that Jesus could promise that he will flow out of our
inmost being like “rivers of living water” (John 7:38-39). Peter promises that his pres-
ence especially rests on those who suffer for the sake of Christ: “If you are reproached
for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the spirit of glory and of God rests upon
you” (1 Peter 4:14).
Therefore it is important that all our ministry be done in the Holy Spirit, that is, that
we consciously dwell in the Godlike atmosphere created by the Holy Spirit — the atmo-
sphere of power, love, joy, truth, holiness, righteousness, and peace. But greater than
these characteristics of the atmosphere created by the Holy Spirit is the sense of the pres-
ence of the Holy Spirit himself — to be in the Holy Spirit is really to be in an atmosphere
of God’s manifested presence. This is why people in the New Testament can walk in the
comfort of the Holy Spirit (Acts 9:31), and why it is possible just to be “in the Spirit” as
John was on the Lord’s day (Rev. 1:10; cf. 4:2).
24 This passage could also be put in the next category, dis- 25 See chapter 24, pp. 507-9, for a fuller discussion of the
cussed in the following paragraph. unpardonable sin.
CHAPTER 30 ■ THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
649
It is surprising how many particular activities are said in the New Testament to be
done “in” the Holy Spirit: it is possible to rejoice in the Holy Spirit (Luke 10:21), to resolve
or decide something in the Holy Spirit (Acts 19:21), to have one’s conscience bear witness
in the Holy Spirit (Rom. 9:1), to have access to God in the Holy Spirit (Eph. 2:18), to pray
in the Holy Spirit (Eph. 6:18; Jude 20), and to love in the Holy Spirit (Col. 1:8). In the
light of these texts, we might ask ourselves, for how many of these activities during each
day are we consciously aware of the Holy Spirit’s presence and blessing?
It is also possible to be filled with the Holy Spirit (Eph. 5:18; cf. Luke 1:15, 41, 67; 4:1;
Acts 2:4; 4:8; 6:3, 5; 7:55; 9:17; 11:24; 13:9). To be filled with the Holy Spirit is to be filled
with the immediate presence of God himself, and it therefore will result in feeling what
God feels, desiring what God desires, doing what God wants, speaking by God’s power,
praying and ministering in God’s strength, and knowing with the knowledge which God
himself gives. 26 In times when the church experiences revival the Holy Spirit produces
these results in people’s lives in especially powerful ways.
Therefore in our Christian lives it is important that we depend on the Holy Spirit’s
power, recognizing that any significant work is done “Not by might, nor by power, but by
my Spirit , says the Lord of hosts” (Zech. 4:6). Paul is emphatic in telling the Galatians
that the Holy Spirit was received by faith in the beginning of their Christian life (Gal. 3:2)
and would continue to work according to their faith in their lives subsequent to conver-
sion: “Having begun with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh? . . . Does he who
supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by
hearing with faith?” (Gal. 3:3, 5).
Therefore we are to walk according to the guidance of the Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:12-16;
Gal. 5:16-26) and set our minds on the things of the Spirit (Rom. 8:4-6). All our
ministry, whatever form it may take, is to be done in the power of the Holy Spirit.
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. In the past, has it been hard for you to think of the Holy Spirit as a person rather
than simply as a presence or force? What items (if any) in this chapter have
helped you think more readily of the Holy Spirit as a person? Do you think that
you have a consciousness of relating to the Holy Spirit as a person who is distinct
from God the Father and God the Son? What might help you be more aware of
this distinction among the members of the Trinity as they relate to you?
2. Do you perceive any difference in the way the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit relate to
you in your Christian life? If so, can you explain what that difference is or how you
are aware of it?
3. Have you ever been especially aware of the Holy Spirit’s empowering in a specific
situation of ministry? (This could have been while doing evangelism or counseling,
26 See chapter 39, pp. 781-84, for more extensive discussion
of being filled with the Holy Spirit.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
650
Bible teaching or preaching, prayer or worship, or in some other ministry situa-
tion.) How did you perceive the presence of the Holy Spirit at that time, or what
made you aware of his presence?
4. In your own experience, in what ways does the guidance of the Holy Spirit come
to you? Is it primarily (or exclusively) through the words of Scripture? If so, are
there times when certain Scripture passages seem to come alive or speak with great
relevance and forcefulness to you at the moment? How do you know when this is
happening? If the Holy Spirit’s guidance has come to you in other ways in addition
to speaking through the words of Scripture, what have those other ways been?
5. Do you have a sense from time to time of the pleasure or displeasure of the Holy
Spirit at some course of action that you are taking? Is there anything in your life
right now that is grieving the Holy Spirit? What do you plan to do about it?
6. Did the Holy Spirit immediately leave Samson when he began to sin (see
Judg. 13:25; 14:6, 19; 15:14)? Why or why not? Is the presence of spiritual power
in someone’s ministry a guarantee that the Holy Spirit is pleased with all of that
person’s life?
SPECIAL TERMS
blasphemy against the Holy Spirit in the Holy Spirit
filled with the Holy Spirit manifestation of God’s active
Holy Spirit presence
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter 1,
pp. 38-39. Complete bibliographical data maybe found on pp. 1224—30.)
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1882 - 92 Litton, 242 - 47
1930 Thomas, 90-99
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1875-76 Pope, 2:321-36
1940 Wiley, 2:303-33
1960 Purkiser, 183-203
1983 Carter, 1:415-72
3. Baptist
1917 Mullins, 359 - 65
1976-83 Henry, 4:476-93; 6:370-401
1983-85 Erickson, 845-83
CHAPTER 30 ■ THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
651
4. Dispensational
1947 Chafer, 1:397-414; 6:26-298
1949 Thiessen, 251-56
1986 Ryrie, 341-90
5. Lutheran
1917-24 Pieper (no extensive treatment, but see extensive index entries:
4:391-99)
1934 Mueller, 443
6. Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1559 Calvin, 2:537-42 (3.1)
1887-1921 Warfield, SSW, 1:203-22; BD, 101-32
1937-66 Murray, CW y 1:138-42, 186-92; CW, 3:210-14
1938 Berkhof, 423-31
7. Renewal (or charismatic/Pentecostal)
1988-92 Williams, 2:137-207, 237-70
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
1. Roman Catholic: Traditional
1955 Ott (no explicit treatment)
2. Roman Catholic: Post-Vatican II
1980 McBrien (no explicit treatment)
Other Works
Bruner, Frederick Dale. A Theology of the Holy Spirit. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970.
Carson, D. A. Showing the Spirit: A Theological Exposition of 1 Corinthians 12-14. Grand
Rapids: Baker, 1987.
Carter, Charles. The Person and Ministry of the Holy Spirit. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1974.
Caulley, T. S. “Holy Spirit.” In EDT y pp. 521-27.
Gaffin, Richard B., Jr. “The Holy Spirit.” WTJ 43:1 (Fall 1980), pp. 58-78.
Green, Michael. I Believe in the Holy Spirit. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975.
Hawthorne, Gerald. The Presence and the Power: The Significance of the Holy Spirit in the
Life and Ministry of Jesus. Dallas: Word, 1991.
Hoekema, Anthony A. “The Role of the Holy Spirit.” In Saved By Grace . Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, and Exeter: Paternoster, 1989, pp. 28-53.
Horton, S. M. What the Bible Says About the Holy Spirit. Springfield, Mo.: Gospel Publish-
ing House, 1976.
Ladd, George E. The Presence of the Future: The Eschatology of Biblical Realism . Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974.
Moule, C. F. D. The Holy Spirit. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978.
Pache, Rene. The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit. Chicago: Moody, 1954.
Packer, J. I. “Holy Spirit.” In NDT y pp. 316- 19.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
652
. Keep in Step with the Spirit. Old Tappan, N.J.: Revell, 1984.
Palmer, Edwin H. The Person and Ministry of the Holy Spirit. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1958.
Ryrie, C. C. The Holy Spirit. Chicago: Moody, 1965.
Smeaton, G. The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit. 2d ed. Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1889.
Sproul, R. C. The Mystery of the Holy Spirit. Wheaton, 111.: Tyndale, 1990.
Stott, John R. W. Baptism and Fullness: The Work of the Holy Spirit Today. Downers Grove,
ILL: InterVarsity Press, 1964.
Swete, Henry B. The Holy Spirit in the New Testament. 2d ed. London: Macmillan, 1910.
White, John. When the Spirit Comes with Power. Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press,
1988.
Wood, Leon J. The Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1976.
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
Romans 8:12-14: So then, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the
flesh — for if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death
the deeds of the body you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.
HYMN
“Come, O Creator Spirit”
This is one of the oldest hymns in any hymnal, written by an anonymous author in
the tenth century or earlier. It directly addresses the Holy Spirit and asks him to come
and bring blessing in our hearts, filling us with joy and love and praise, and giving us
protection from the enemy and peace in our lives.
Come, O Creator Spirit blest,
And in our hearts take up thy rest;
Spirit of grace, with heav’nly aid
Come to the souls whom thou hast made.
Thou art the Comforter, we cry,
Sent to the earth from God Most High,
Fountain of life and fire of love,
And our anointing from above.
Bringing from heavn our sevn-fold dow’r,
Sign of our God’s right hand of pow’r,
O blessed Spirit, promised long,
Thy coming wakes the heart to song.
Make our dull minds with rapture glow,
Let human hearts with love o’erflow;
And, when our feeble flesh would fail,
May thine immortal strength prevail.
CHAPTER 30 « THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
653
Far from our souls the foe repel,
Grant us in peace henceforth to dwell;
111 shall not come, nor harm betide,
If only thou wilt be our guide.
Show us the Father, Holy One,
Help us to know tlT eternal Son;
Spirit divine, for evermore
Thee will we trust and thee adore.
ANON., TENTH CENTURY
Alternative hymn:
“Spirit of Goa, Descend Upon My Heart”
Spirit of God, descend upon my heart;
Wean it from earth, through all its pulses move;
Stoop to my weakness, mighty as thou art,
And make me love thee as I ought to love.
Hast thou not bid us love thee, God and King?
All, all thine own, soul, heart, and strength and mind.
I see thy cross - there teach my heart to cling:
O let me seek thee, and O let me find.
Teach me to feel that thou art always nigh;
Teach me the struggles of the soul to bear,
To check the rising doubt, the rebel sigh;
Teach me the patience of unanswered prayer.
Teach me to love thee as thine angels love,
One holy passion filling all my frame;
The baptism of the heav’n descended Dove,
My heart an altar, and thy love the flame.
AUTHOR: GEORGE CROLY, 1854
Part
THE DOCTRINE
OF THE
APPLICATION OF
REDEMPTION
Chapter
COMMON GRACE
What are the undeserved blessings that God gives to
all people, both believers and unbelievers ?
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
A. Introduction and Definition
When Adam and Eve sinned, they became worthy of eternal punishment and separa-
tion from God (Gen. 2:17). In the same way, when human beings sin today they become
liable to the wrath of God and to eternal punishment: “The wages of sin is death” (Rom.
6:23) . This means that once people sin, God’s justice would require only one thing — that
they be eternally separated from God, cut off from experiencing any good from him,
and that they live forever in hell, receiving only his wrath eternally. In fact, this was what
happened to angels who sinned, and it could justly have happened to us as well: “ God did
not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits
of nether gloom to be kept until the judgment” (2 Peter 2:4).
But in fact Adam and Eve did not die at once (though the sentence of death began to
be worked out in their lives on the day they sinned). The full execution of the sentence
of death was delayed for many years. Moreover, millions of their descendants even to
this day do not die and go to hell as soon as they sin, but continue to live for many years,
enjoying countless blessings in this world. How can this be? How can God continue to
give blessings to sinners who deserve only death— not only to those who will ultimately be
saved, but also to millions who will never be saved, whose sins will never be forgiven?
The answer to these questions is that God bestows common grace. We may define com-
mon grace as follows: Common grace is the grace of God by which he gives people innumer-
able blessings that are not part of salvation. The word common here means something that
is common to all people and is not restricted to believers or to the elect only.
In distinction from common grace, the grace of God that brings people to salvation is
often called “saving grace.” Of course, when we talk about “common grace” and “saving
grace” we are not implying that there are two different kinds of grace in God himself,
657
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
658
but only that Gods grace manifests itself in the world in two different ways. Common
grace is different from saving grace in its results (it does not bring about salvation), in
its recipients (it is given to believers and unbelievers alike), and in its source (it does not
directly flow from Christ’s atoning work, since Christ’s death did not earn any measure
of forgiveness for unbelievers, and therefore did not merit the blessings of common grace
for them either). However, on this last point it should be said that common grace does
flow indirectly from Christ’s redemptive work, because the fact that God did not judge
the world at once when sin entered it was primarily or perhaps exclusively due to the fact
that he planned eventually to save some sinners through the death of his Son. 1
B. Examples of Common Grace
If we look at the world around us and contrast it with the fires of hell that the world
deserves, we can immediately see abundant evidence of God’s common grace in thou-
sands of examples in everyday life. We can distinguish several specific categories in which
this common grace is seen.
1. The Physical Realm. Unbelievers continue to live in this world solely because of God’s
common grace — every breath that people take is of grace, for the wages of sin is death,
not life. Moreover, the earth does not produce only thorns and thistles (Gen. 3:18), or
remain a parched desert, but by God’s common grace it produces food and materials
for clothing and shelter, often in great abundance and diversity. Jesus said, “Love your
enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father
who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the
just and on the unjust” (Matt. 5:44-45). Here Jesus appeals to God’s abundant common
grace as an encouragement to his disciples that they too should bestow love and prayer
for blessing on unbelievers (cf. Luke 6:35-36). Similarly, Paul told the people of Lystra,
“In past generations he allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways; yet he did not
leave himself without witness, for he did good and gave you from heaven rains and fruitful
seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness” (Acts 14:16- 17).
The Old Testament also speaks of the common grace of God that comes to unbelievers
as well as to believers. One specific example is Potiphar, the Egyptian captain of the guard
who purchased Joseph as a slave: “The Lord blessed the Egyptians house for Joseph’s sake;
the blessing of the Lord was upon all that he had, in house and field” (Gen. 39:5). David
speaks in a much more general way about all the creatures God has made: “The Lord is
good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made. . . . The eyes of all look to
you, and you give them their food in due season. You open your hand, you satisfy the
desire of every living thing” (Ps. 145:9, 15-16).
These verses are another reminder that the goodness that is found in the whole
creation is due to God’s goodness and compassion.
l lt should be noted that I have put this chapter on common Christ’s redemptive work (it does not), but because it has a role
grace in part 5 of this book, “The Doctrine of the Application of of preparing for and assisting in God’s work of the application
Redemption,” not because common grace flows directly from of redemption to believers.
CHAPTER 31 * COMMON GRACE
We even see evidence of God’s common grace in the beauty of the natural world.
Though nature itself is in “bondage to decay” and has been “subjected to futility” (Rom.
8:21, 20) because of the curse of the fall (Gen. 3:17-19), much beauty still remains in
the natural world. The beauty of multicolored flowers, of grass and woodlands, of riv-
ers and lakes and mountains and ocean shores, still remains as a daily testimony to the
continuing common grace of God. Unbelievers deserve to enjoy none of this beauty, but
by Gods grace they can enjoy much of it for their whole lives.
2. The Intellectual Realm. Satan is “a liar and the father of lies” and “there is no truth
in him” (John 8:44), because he is fully given over to evil and to the irrationality and
commitment to falsehood that accompanies radical evil. But human beings in the world
today, even unbelievers, are not totally given over to lying, irrationality, and ignorance.
All people are able to have some grasp of truth; indeed, some have great intelligence and
understanding. This also must be seen as a result of Gods grace. John speaks of Jesus
as “the true light that enlightens every man ’ (John 1:9), for in his role as creator and
sustainer of the universe (not particularly in his role as redeemer) the Son of God allows
enlightenment and understanding to come to all people in the world. 2
Gods common grace in the intellectual realm is seen in the fact that all people have
a knowledge of God: “Although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give
thanks to him” (Rom. 1:21). This means that there is a sense of Gods existence and often
a hunger to know God that he allows to remain in people’s hearts, even though it often
results in many differing man-made religions. Therefore, even when speaking to people
who held to false religions, Paul could find a point of contact regarding knowledge of
Gods existence, as he did when speaking to the Athenian philosophers: “Men of Athens,
I perceive that in every way you are very religious What therefore you worship as
unknown, this I proclaim to you” (Acts 17:22-23).
The common grace of God in the intellectual realm also results in an ability to
grasp truth and distinguish it from error, and to experience growth in knowledge
that can be used in the investigation of the universe and in the task of subduing the
earth. This means that all science and technology carried out by non- Christians is a
result of common grace, allowing them to make incredible discoveries and inventions,
to develop the earth’s resources into many material goods, to produce and distribute
those resources, and to have skill in their productive work. In a practical sense this
2 Since the context of John 1 is talking about Christ com-
ing into the world, it is better to take the phrase “was coming
into the world” to modify the true light, Christ (so RSV, NASB,
NIV), rather than every man (so KJV, NASB mg., NIV mg.),
though both are grammatically possible. In either case, the
verse still says that Christ enlightens every man. Though some
have argued that this enlightening is just the shining of the light
of Christ’s incarnate presence in the world (so D. A. Carson,
The Gospel According to John, pp. 123-24), it is more likely
that this enlightening is the light of general revelation that all
people receive, the ability to observe and understand many true
facts about God and the universe (so Leon Morris, The Gospel
According to John, pp. 94-95). This is because (1) when John
specifies that Christ “enlightens every man ” (rather than “all
men” or “the world”) he suggests to us that this enlightening
takes place for every individual, which would be true of general
knowledge, but not of knowledge of Christ. (2) This sense allows
the word “enlightens” to speak of an actual enlightening, not
just a potential one: Christ here is said to enlighten, not just to
offer enlightenment. (3) This sense heightens the ironic con-
trast in vv. 9-10: though Christ gives knowledge to all men,
and though he created all men, yet they did not know him or
receive him.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
660
means that every time we walk into a grocery store or ride in an automobile or enter a
house we should remember that we are experiencing the results of the abundant common
grace of God poured out so richly on all mankind.
3. The Moral Realm. God also by common grace restrains people from being as evil as
they could be. Once again the demonic realm, totally devoted to evil and destruction,
provides a clear contrast with human society in which evil is clearly restrained. If people
persist hard-heartedly and repeatedly in following sin over a course of time, God will
eventually “give them up” to greater and greater sin (cf. Ps. 81:12; Rom. 1:24, 26, 28), but
in the case of most human beings they do not fall to the depths to which their sin would
otherwise take them, because God intervenes and puts restraints on their conduct. One
very effective restraint is the force of conscience: Paul says, “When Gentiles who have
not the law do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though
they do not have the law. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts ,
while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or perhaps
excuse them” (Rom. 2:14-15).
This inward sense of right and wrong that God gives to all people means that they
will frequently approve of moral standards that reflect many of the moral standards
in Scripture. Even those who are given up to the most base sin, Paul says, “Know
Gods decree that those who do such things deserve to die” (Rom. 1:32). And in many
other cases this inward sense of conscience leads people to establish laws and customs
in society that are, in terms of the outward behavior they approve or prohibit, quite
like the moral laws of Scripture: people often establish laws or have customs that
respect the sanctity of marriage and the family, protect human life, and prohibit theft
and falsehood in speech. 3 Because of this, people will frequently live in ways that are
morally upright and outwardly conform to the moral standards found in Scripture.
Though their moral behavior cannot earn merit with God (since Scripture clearly
says that “no man is justified before God by the law,” Gal. 3:11, and “All have turned
aside, together they have gone wrong; no one does good, not even one,” Rom. 3:12),
nevertheless in some sense less than earning God’s eternal approval or merit, unbe-
lievers do “do good.” Jesus implies this when he says, “If you do good to those who
do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same ” (Luke 6:33;
cf. 2 Kings 12:2 and 2 Chron. 24:2, where Joash is said to have done good during his
reign as king, with 2 Chron. 24:17-25, where he did such evil as to make it apparent
that there was not saving faith in his life). Of course, in areas where the gospel has
had great influence and the church is strong, it will have a stronger moral influence
on society than in places where the gospel has never reached, or where it has little
restraining influence (for example, in cannibalistic societies — or even in modern
Western society where belief in the gospel and moral absolutes have both been aban-
doned by the dominant culture).
3 Of course, the operation of conscience is never perfect aspects of God’s moral laws. Nevertheless, significant resem-
in sinful people in this life (as Paul realizes in Rom. 2:15), so blance to the moral laws of Scripture is found in the laws and
societies will vary in the degree to which they approve differing customs of every human society.
CHAPTER 31 • COMMON GRACE
God also demonstrates his common grace by giving warnings of final judgment in
the operation of the natural world. God has so ordered the world that living according
to his moral standards very often brings rewards in the natural realm, and violating
God’s standards often brings destruction to people, in both cases indicating the eventual
direction of the final judgment: Honesty, hard work, showing love and kindness to oth-
ers, and faithfulness in marriage and family will (except in the most corrupt societies)
bring much more material and emotional reward in this life than dishonesty, laziness,
cruelty, marital infidelity, and other wrongs such as drunkenness, drug abuse, theft, and
so forth. These normal consequences of sin or righteousness should serve as a warning of
judgment to come, and, in this way, they are also examples of God’s common grace.
4. The Creative Realm. God has allowed significant measures of skill in artistic and
musical areas, as well as in other spheres in which creativity and skill can be expressed,
such as athletics, cooking, writing, and so forth. Moreover, God gives to us an ability to
appreciate beauty in many areas of life. And in this area as well as in the physical and
intellectual realm, the blessings of common grace are sometimes poured out on unbe-
lievers even more abundantly than on believers. Yet in all cases it is a result of the grace
of God.
5. The Societal Realm. God’s grace is also evident in the existence of various organiza-
tions and structures in human society. We see this first in the human family, evidenced
in the fact that Adam and Eve remained husband and wife after the fall and then had
children, both sons and daughters (Gen. 5:4). Adam and Eve’s children married and
formed families for themselves (Gen. 4:17, 19, 26). The human family persists today, not
simply as an institution for believers, but for all people.
Human government is also a result of common grace. It was instituted in principle
by God after the flood (see Gen. 9:6), and is clearly stated to be given by God in Romans
13:1: “There is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted
by God.” It is clear that government is a gift from God for mankind generally, for Paul
says the ruler is “God’s servant for your good” and that he is “the servant of God to
execute his wrath on the wrongdoer” (Rom. 13:4). One of the primary means God uses
to restrain evil in the world is human government. Human laws and police forces and
judicial systems provide a powerful deterrent to evil actions, and these are necessary,
for there is much evil in the world that is irrational and that can only be restrained by
force, because it will not be deterred by reason or education. Of course, the sinfulness of
man can also affect governments themselves, so that they become corrupt and actually
encourage evil rather than encourage good. This is just to say that human government,
like all the other blessings of common grace that God gives, can be used either for good
or for evil purposes.
Other organizations in human society include educational institutions, businesses
and corporations, voluntary associations (such as many charitable and public service
groups), and countless examples of ordinary human friendship. All of these function to
bring some measure of good to human beings, and all are expressions of the common
grace of God.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
662
6. The Religious Realm. Even in the realm of human religion, Gods common grace
brings some blessings to unbelieving people. Jesus tells us, “Love your enemies and pray
for those who persecute you” (Matt. 5:44), and since there is no restriction in the context
simply to pray for their salvation, and since the command to pray for our persecutors is
coupled with a command to love them, it seems reasonable to conclude that God intends
to answer our prayers even for our persecutors with regard to many areas of life. In fact,
Paul specifically commands that we pray “for kings and all who are in high positions”
(1 Tim. 2:1 —2) . When we seek good for unbelievers it is consistent with God’s own prac-
tice of granting sunshine and rain “on the just and on the unjust” (Matt. 5:45) and also
consistent with the practice of Jesus during his earthly ministry when he healed every
person who was brought to him (Luke 4:40). There is no indication that he required all
of them to believe in him or to agree that he was the Messiah before he granted physical
healing to them.
Does God answer the prayers of unbelievers? Although God has not promised to
answer the prayers of unbelievers as he has promised to answer the prayers of those
who come in Jesus’ name, and although he has no obligation to answer the prayers of
unbelievers, nonetheless, God may out of his common grace still hear and grant the
prayers of unbelievers, thus demonstrating his mercy and goodness in yet another way
(cf. Ps. 145:9, 15; Matt. 7:22; Luke 6:35-36). This is apparently the sense of 1 Timothy
4:10, which says that God is “the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe.” Here
“Savior” cannot be restricted in meaning to “one who forgives sins and gives eternal
life,” because these things are not given to those who do not believe; “Savior” must have
a more general sense here, namely, “one who rescues from distress, one who delivers.”
In cases of trouble or distress God often does hear the prayers of unbelievers, and gra-
ciously delivers them from their trouble. Moreover, even unbelievers often have a sense
of gratitude toward God for the goodness of creation, for deliverance from danger, and
for the blessings of family, home, friendships, and country. In addition, unbelievers who
come in close contact with the church and perhaps associate with it for a time can have
some religious experiences that seem very close to the experience of those who are saved
(see Heb. 6:4-6; Matt. 7:22-23). 4
Finally, even the proclamation of the gospel to those who do not ultimately accept it
is a clear declaration of the mercy and grace of God, which gives clear witness to the fact
that God does not delight in the death or condemnation of any of his creatures (cf. Ezek.
33:11; 1 Tim. 2:4).
7. Common Grace and Special Grace Influence Each Other. Common grace, of course,
influences and enriches the church, since apart from God’s common grace given to car-
penters and other kinds of craftsmen, there would be no church buildings; apart from
common grace given to printers and typesetters and bookbinders (and even to those who
work in paper mills or cut trees from forests to make paper), there would be no Bibles. In
countless ways in everyday activities the church benefits from common grace.
4 See the extended discussion of Heb. 6:4-6 in chapter 40,
pp. 796-80.
CHAPTER 31 • COMMON GRACE
663
On the other hand, the special grace that God gives to those who are saved brings
more of the blessings of common grace to unbelievers living in the realm of the church’s
influence. Unbelievers benefit from the example of Christian lives that they see in society,
from the prayers and the acts of mercy that Christians do for the community, from the
knowledge of the teachings of Scripture and its wisdom in which they find some intellec-
tual and moral benefit, and from the influence on laws, customs, and beliefs of a society
that comes through the social and political activities of Christians. Historically it has
often been the powerful presence of those whose lives were changed by the gospel that
has resulted in freedom for slaves (in the British colonies and the United States), rights
for women, widespread public education, technological and scientific progress, increased
productivity in the economy, a high value placed on work and thrift and honesty, and
so forth.
8. Common Grace Does Not Save People. In spite of all of this, we must realize that com-
mon grace is different from saving grace. Common grace does not change the human
heart or bring people to genuine repentance and faith — it cannot and does not save
people (though in the intellectual and moral sphere it can give some preparation to make
people more disposed toward accepting the gospel). Common grace restrains sin but
does not change anyone’s foundational disposition to sin, nor does it in any significant
measure purify fallen human nature. 5
We must also recognize that the actions of unbelievers performed by virtue of com-
mon grace do not in themselves merit God’s approval or favor. These actions do not
spring from faith (“Whatever does not proceed from faith is sin,” Rom. 14:23), nor are
they motivated by a love for God (Matt. 22:37), but rather love of self in some form
or another. Therefore, although we may readily say that the works of unbelievers that
externally conform to the laws of God are “good” in some sense, they nonetheless are
not good in terms of meriting God’s approval nor of making God obligated to the sinner
in any way.
Finally, we should recognize that unbelievers often receive more common grace than
believers — they may be more skillful, harder working, more intelligent, more creative, or
have more of the material benefits of this life to enjoy. This in no way indicates that they
are more favored by God in an absolute sense or that they will gain any share in eternal sal-
vation, but only that God distributes the blessings of common grace in various ways, often
granting very significant blessings to unbelievers. In all of this, they should, of course,
acknowledge God’s goodness (Acts 14:17), and should recognize that God’s revealed will
is that “God’s kindness” should eventually lead them “to repentance” (Rom. 2:4).
5 The viewpoint on common grace presented in this chap-
ter is consistent with the Reformed or Calvinistic perspective
of the book as a whole, a perspective that has been argued for
more specifically in discussing God’s sovereignty (chapter 13,
pp. 211-18), God’s providence (chapter 16), sin (chapter 24),
and election, the gospel call, and regeneration (chapters 32-34).
We should note, however, that an Arminian understanding of
common grace would be different at this point; it would say
that common grace gives to every person the ability to turn to
God in faith and repentance, and in fact influences the sinner to
do this unless he or she specifically resists it. Therefore, on an
Arminian understanding, common grace has a function that
much more clearly relates to saving grace — in fact, common
grace is simply an early expression of the totality of saving grace.
This position (that the ability to repent and believe is given to
all people) is discussed in chapter 32 on election and chapters
33 and 34 on the gospel call and regeneration.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
C. Reasons for Common Grace
Why does God bestow common grace on undeserving sinners who will never come to
salvation? We can suggest at least four reasons.
1. To Redeem Those Who Will Be Saved. Peter says that the day of judgment and final
execution of punishment is being delayed because there are yet more people who will be
saved: “The Lord is not slow about his promise as some count slowness, but is forbearing
toward you, not wishing that any should perish , but that all should reach repentance. But the
day of the Lord will come like a thief” (2 Peter 3:9- 10). In fact, this reason was true from
the beginning of human history, for if God wanted to save any people out of the whole mass
of sinful humanity, he could not have destroyed all sinners immediately (for then there
would be no human race left). He chose rather to allow sinful humans to live for some time,
so that they might have an opportunity to repent, and also so that they would bear children
and enable subsequent generations to live and then hear the gospel and repent.
2. To Demonstrate God’s Goodness and Mercy. God’s goodness and mercy are not only
seen in the salvation of believers, but also in the blessings he gives to undeserving sin-
ners. When God “is kind to the ungrateful and the selfish” (Luke 6:35), his kindness is
revealed in the universe, to his glory. David says, “The Lord is good to all, and his com-
passion is over all that he has made” (Ps. 145:9). In the story of Jesus talking with the rich
young ruler, we read, “And Jesus looking upon him loved him ” (Mark 10:21), even though
the man was an unbeliever and would in a moment turn away from Jesus because of his
great possessions. Berkhof says that God “showers untold blessings upon all men and also
clearly indicates that these are the expressions of a favorable disposition in God, which
falls short however of the positive volition to pardon their sin, to lift their sentence, and
to grant them salvation.” 3 * * 6
It is not unjust for God to delay the execution of punishment upon sin and to give
temporary blessings to human beings, because the punishment is not forgotten, but just
delayed. In delaying punishment, God shows clearly that he has no pleasure in executing
final judgment, but rather delights in the salvation of men and women. “As I live, says
the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn
back from his way and live” (Ezek. 33:11). God “desires all men to be saved and to come
to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:4). In all of this the delay of punishment gives
clear evidence of God’s mercy and goodness and love.
3. To Demonstrate God’s Justice. When God repeatedly invites sinners to come to faith
and when they repeatedly refuse his invitations, the justice of God in condemning them
is seen much more clearly. Paul warns that those who persist in unbelief are simply stor-
ing up more wrath for themselves: “By your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up
wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed”
(Rom. 2:5). On the day of judgment “every mouth” will be “stopped” (Rom. 3:19) and
no one will be able to object that God has been unjust.
6 Berkhof, Systematic Theology ; p. 445.
CHAPTER 31 * COMMON GRACE
665
4. To Demonstrate God’s Glory. Finally, God’s glory is shown in many ways by the
activities of human beings in all the areas in which common grace is operative. In
developing and exercising dominion over the earth, men and women demonstrate and
reflect the wisdom of their Creator, demonstrate God-like qualities of skill and moral
virtue and authority over the universe, and so forth. Though all of these activities are
tainted by sinful motives, they nonetheless reflect the excellence of our Creator and
therefore bring glory to God, not fully or perfectly, but nonetheless significantly.
D. Our Response to the Doctrine of Common Grace
In thinking about the varying kinds of goodness seen in the lives of unbelievers
because of God’s abundant common grace, we should keep three points in mind:
1. Common Grace Does Not Mean That Those Who Receive It Will Be Saved. Even
exceptionally large amounts of common grace do not imply that those who receive it
will be saved. Even the most skilled, most intelligent, most wealthy and powerful people
in the world still need the gospel of Jesus Christ or they will be condemned for eternity!
Even the most moral and kind of our neighbors still need the gospel of Jesus Christ or
they will be condemned for eternity! They may appear outwardly to have no needs, but
Scripture still says that unbelievers are “enemies” of God (Rom. 5:10; cf. Col. 1:21; James
4:4) and are “against” Christ (Matt. 12:30). They “live as enemies of the cross of Christ”
and have their “minds set on earthly things” (Phil. 3:18-19) and are “by nature children
of wrath, like the rest of mankind” (Eph. 2:3).
2. We Must Be Careful Not to Reject the Good Things That Unbelievers Do as Totally
Evil. By common grace, unbelievers do some good, and we should see God’s hand in it
and be thankful for common grace as it operates in every friendship, every act of kind-
ness, every way in which it brings blessing to others. All of this — though the unbe-
liever does not know it — is ultimately from God and he deserves the glory for it.
3. The Doctrine of Common Grace Should Stir Our Hearts to Much Greater Thankful-
ness to God. When we walk down a street and see houses and gardens and families dwell-
ing in security, or when we do business in the marketplace and see the abundant results
of technological progress, or when we walk through the woods and see the beauty of
nature, or when we are protected by government, 7 or when we are educated from the vast
storehouse of human knowledge, we should realize not only that God in his sovereignty
is ultimately responsible for all of these blessings, but also that God has granted them all
to sinners who are totally undeserving of any of them! These blessings in the world are
not only evidence of God’s power and wisdom, they are also continually a manifestation
of his abundant grace. The realization of this fact should cause our hearts to swell with
thanksgiving to God in every activity of life.
7 Paul explicitly directs us to offer to God “thanksgivings”
for “kings and all who are in high positions” (1 Tim. 2:1-2).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
666
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. Before you read this chapter, did you have a different viewpoint on whether unbe-
lievers deserved the ordinary benefits of the world around them? How has your
perspective changed, if at all?
2. Do you know of examples where God has answered the prayers of unbelievers
who were in difficulty, or answered your prayers for the needs of an unbeliev-
ing friend? Has it provided an opening for sharing the gospel? Did the unbe-
liever eventually come to salvation in Christ? Do you think that God often
uses the blessings of common grace as a means to prepare people to receive the
gospel?
3. In what ways will this doctrine change the way you relate to an unbelieving neigh-
bor or friend? Will it tend to make you thankful for the good that you see in their
lives? How do you think this might affect your relationship with that person in a
more general sense?
4. As you look around the place where you are at this moment, can you name at least
twenty different examples of common grace that you can see? How does that make
you feel?
5. Has this chapter changed the way you view creative activities such as music, art,
architecture, or poetry, or (something that is very similar) the creativity expressed
in athletic activities?
6. If you are kind to an unbeliever and he or she never comes to accept Christ, has
it done any good in God’s sight (see Matt. 5:44-45; Luke 6:32-36)? What good
has it done? Why do you think that God is good even to those who will never be
saved — in what way does it further his purposes for the universe? Do you think
we have any obligation to give more effort to showing good to believers than to
unbelievers? Can you name any passages of Scripture that help in answering this
question?
SPECIAL TERMS
common grace
special grace
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter
1, pp. 38-39. Complete bibliographical data may be found on pp. 1224-30.) Note: This
CHAPTER 31 • COMMON GRACE
667
subject is not often treated in a separate section in systematic theologies, but see the few
sections listed below in the following works:
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1930 Thomas, 210-14
5. Lutheran
1934 Mueller, 242-54
6. Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1871-73 Hodge, 2:654-74
1937-66 Murray, CW, 2:93-119
1938 Berkhof, 432-46
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
1. Roman Catholic: Traditional
1955 Ott, 238-42
Other Works
Hoekema, Anthony A. “The Restraint of Sin.” In Created In God's Image. Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, and Exeter: Paternoster, 1986, pp. 187-202.
Hughes, P. E. “Grace” In EDT, pp. 479-82.
Kearsley, R. “Grace.” In NDT, pp. 280-81.
Van Til, Cornelius. Common Grace and the Gospel. Nutley, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed,
1972.
Van Til, Cornelius. In Defense of the Faith , vol. 5: An Introduction to Systematic Theology.
n.p.: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1976, pp. 75-99, 253-62.
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
Luke 6:35-36: But love your enemies , and do good , and lend , expecting nothing in return;
and your reward will be great , and you will be sons of the Most High; for he is kind to the
ungrateful and the selfish. Be merciful , even as your Father is merciful.
HYMN
“All People That on Earth Do Dwell”
This very old setting of Psalm 100 is a call to all people on earth to praise God because
of his abundant goodness.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
668
All people that on earth do dwell,
Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice;
Him serve with fear, his praise forthtell,
Come ye before him and rejoice.
The Lord ye know is God indeed;
Without our aid he did us make;
We are his folk, he doth us feed,
And for his sheep he doth us take.
O enter then his gates with praise,
Approach with joy his courts unto;
Praise, laud, and bless his name always,
For it is seemly so to do.
For why? The Lord our God is good,
His mercy is forever sure;
His truth at all times firmly stood.
And shall from age to age endure.
AUTHOR: WILLIAM KETHE, 1561
Chapter
ELECTION AND REPROBATION
When and why did God choose us?
Are some not chosen?
In the earlier chapters we talked about the fact that we all have sinned and deserve
eternal punishment from God, and the fact that Christ died and earned salvation for us.
But now in this unit (chapters 32-43) we will look at the way God applies that salvation
to our lives. We begin in this chapter with God’s work of election, that is, his decision
to choose us to be saved before the foundation of the world. This act of election is, of
course, not (strictly speaking) part of the application of salvation to us, since it came
before Christ earned our salvation when he died on the cross. But we treat election at this
point because it is chronologically the beginning of God’s dealing with us in a gracious
way. Therefore, it is rightly thought of as the first step in the process of God’s bringing
salvation to us individually. 1
Other steps in God’s work of applying salvation to our lives include our hearing the
gospel call, our being regenerated by the Holy Spirit, our responding in faith and repen-
tance, and God forgiving us and giving us membership in his family, as well as granting
us growth in the Christian life and keeping us faithful to himself throughout life. At the
end of our life we die and go into his presence, then when Christ returns we receive resur-
rection bodies, and the process of acquiring salvation is complete.
Various theologians have given specific terms to a number of these events, and
have often listed them in a specific order in which they believe that they occur in our
lives. Such a list of the events in which God applies salvation to us is called the order
of salvation, and is sometimes referred to by a Latin phrase, ordo salutis, which simply
means “order of salvation.” Before discussing any of these elements in the application of
This chapter could be placed elsewhere in the sequence
of topics treated. It could be placed immediately after chapter
16, on God’s providence, for example, since election is just one
aspect of God’s providential control of the world. Or it could be
placed in chapter 25, as part of the treatment of the covenant of
grace between God and man. Or it could be placed in chapter
40, as part of the discussion of perseverance, especially related
to the question of assurance of salvation, since God’s choice of
us to be saved gives great assurance that he will fulfill his pur-
poses. But I have chosen to place it here at the beginning of the
chapters that discuss God’s personal dealing with us in grace.
(Note the similar ordering of topics by Paul in Rom. 8:29-30.)
669
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
670
salvation to our lives, we can give a complete list here of the elements that will be treated
in the following chapters:
“The Order of Salvation”
1. Election (God’s choice of people to be saved)
2. The gospel call (proclaiming the message of the gospel)
3. Regeneration (being born again)
4. Conversion (faith and repentance)
5. Justification (right legal standing)
6. Adoption (membership in Gods family)
7. Sanctification (right conduct of life)
8. Perseverance (remaining a Christian)
9. Death (going to be with the Lord)
10. Glorification (receiving a resurrection body)
We should note here that items 2-6 and part of 7 are all involved in “becoming a Chris-
tian.” Numbers 7 and 8 work themselves out in this life, number 9 occurs at the end of
this life, and number 10 occurs when Christ returns. 2
We begin our discussion of the order of salvation with the first element, election. In
connection with this we will also discuss at the end of this chapter the question of “rep-
robation,” the decision of God to pass over those who will not be saved, and to punish
them for their sins. As will be explained below, election and reprobation are different
in several important respects, and it is important to distinguish these so that we do not
think wrongly about God or his activity.
The term predestination is also frequently used in this discussion. In this textbook,
and in Reformed theology generally, predestination is a broader term and includes the
two aspects of election (for believers) and reprobation (for unbelievers). However, the
term double predestination is not a helpful term because it gives the impression that both
election and reprobation are carried out in the same way by God and have no essential
differences between them, which is certainly not true. Therefore, the term double predes-
tination is not generally used by Reformed theologians, though it is sometimes used to
refer to Reformed teaching by those who criticize it. The term double predestination will
not be used in this book to refer to election and reprobation, since it blurs the distinctions
between them and does not give an accurate indication of what is actually being taught.
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
We may define election as follows: Election is an act of God before creation in which
he chooses some people to be saved , not on account of any foreseen merit in them , but only
because of his sovereign good pleasure.
2 For a discussion of the order of events in this list, see John
Murray, Redemption Accomplished and Applied (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1955), pp. 79-87. New approaches to a synthesis
of Pauline themes in the order of salvation are found in Vern
Poythress, “Using Multiple Thematic Centers in Theological
Synthesis: Holiness as a Test Case in Developing a Pauline The-
ology” (unpublished manuscript available from the Campus
Bookstore, Westminster Theological Seminary, P.O. Box 27009,
Philadelphia, PA, 19118).
CHAPTER 32 • ELECTION AND REPROBATION
There has been much controversy in the church and much misunderstanding over
this doctrine. Many of the controversial questions regarding man’s will and respon-
sibility and regarding the justice of God with respect to human choices have been
discussed at some length in connection with Gods providence (chapter 16). We will
focus here only on those additional questions that apply specifically to the question
of election.
Our approach in this chapter will be first simply to cite a number of passages from
the New Testament that discuss election. Then we will attempt to understand the pur-
pose of God that the New Testament authors see in the doctrine of election. Finally, we
will attempt to clarify our understanding of this doctrine and answer some objections,
and also to consider the doctrine of reprobation.
A. Does the New Testament Teach Predestination?
Several passages in the New Testament seem to affirm quite clearly that God ordained
beforehand those who would be saved. For example, when Paul and Barnabas began to
preach to the Gentiles in Antioch in Pisidia, Luke writes, “And when the Gentiles heard
this, they were glad and glorified the word of God; and as many as were ordained to eternal
life believed ” (Acts 13:48). It is significant that Luke mentions the fact of election almost
in passing. It is as if this were the normal occurrence when the gospel was preached. How
many believed? “As many as were ordained to eternal life believed.”
In Romans 8:28-30, we read:
We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him,
who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also
predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son , in order that he might be the
first-born among many brethren. And those whom he predestined he also called;
and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also
glorified . 3
In the following chapter, when talking about God’s choosing Jacob and not Esau, Paul
says it was not because of anything that Jacob or Esau had done, but simply in order that
God’s purpose of election might continue.
Though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad, in
order that God’s purpose of election might continue , not because of works but
because of his call, she was told, “The elder will serve the younger.” As it is
written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” (Rom. 9:11 - 13)
Regarding the fact that some of the people of Israel were saved, but others were not,
Paul says: “Israel failed to obtain what it sought. The elect obtained it, but the rest were
3 Clark Pinnock says that this text does not speak of pre-
destination to salvation, but rather to a certain privilege,
that of being conformed to Jesus Christ: “There is no pre-
destination to salvation or damnation in the Bible. There is
only a predestination for those who are already children of
God with respect to certain privileges out ahead of them”
(p. 18). But such a view does not do justice to Rom. 8:29-30,
because those who are said to be predestined in this verse are
not yet children of God, because Paul here speaks of predes-
tination before calling or justification. Moreover, the privilege
of being conformed to the image of Christ is not just for some
Christians, but for all.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
672
hardened” (Rom. 11:7). Here again Paul indicates two distinct groups within the people
of Israel. Those who were “the elect” obtained the salvation that they sought, while those
who were not the elect simply “were hardened.”
Paul talks explicitly about God’s choice of believers before the foundation of the world
in the beginning of Ephesians.
“He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy
and blameless before him. He destined us in love to be his sons through Jesus
Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace.”
(Eph. 1:4-6)
Here Paul is writing to believers and he specifically says that God “chose us” in Christ,
referring to believers generally. In a similar way, several verses later he says, “We who
first hoped in Christ have been destined and appointed to live for the praise of his glory”
(Eph. 1:12).
He writes to the Thessalonians, “For we know, brethren beloved by God, that he has
chosen you; for our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the
Holy Spirit and with full conviction” (1 Thess. 1:4-5).
Paul says that the fact that the Thessalonians believed the gospel when he preached
it (“for our gospel came to you ... in power . . . and with full conviction”) is the reason
he knows that God chose them. As soon as they came to faith Paul concluded that long
ago God had chosen them, and therefore they had believed when he preached. He later
writes to the same church, “We are bound to give thanks to God always for you, breth-
ren beloved by the Lord, because God chose you from the beginning to be saved, through
sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth” (2 Thess. 2:13).
Although the next text does not specifically mention the election of human beings,
it is interesting at this point also to notice what Paul says about angels. When he gives
a solemn command to Timothy, he writes, “In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus
and of the elect angels I charge you to keep these rules without favor” (1 Tim. 5:21). Paul
is aware that there are good angels witnessing his command and witnessing Timothy’s
response to it, and he is so sure that it is God’s act of election that has affected every one
of those good angels that he can call them “ elect angels .”
When Paul talks about the reason why God saved us and called us to himself, he
explicitly denies that it was because of our works, but points rather to God’s own purpose
and his unmerited grace in eternity past. He says God is the one “who saved us and called
us with a holy calling, not in virtue of our works but in virtue of his own purpose and the
grace which he gave us in Christ Jesus ages ago ” (2 Tim. 1:9).
When Peter writes an epistle to hundreds of Christians in many churches in Asia
Minor, he writes, “To God’s elect . . . scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia,
Asia and Bithynia” (1 Peter 1:1 NIV). He later calls them “a chosen race” (1 Peter 2:9).
In John’s vision in Revelation, those who do not give in to persecution and begin to
worship the beast are persons whose names have been written in the book of life before
the foundation of the world: “And authority was given it over every tribe and people and
tongue and nation, and all who dwell on earth will worship it, every one whose name has
not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb that was
CHAPTER 32 • ELECTION AND REPROBATION
slain” (Rev. 13:7-8) 2 * 4 In a similar way, we read of the beast from the bottomless pit in
Revelation 17: “The dwellers on earth whose names have not been written in the book of
life from the foundation of the world, will marvel to behold the beast, because it was and
is not and is to come” (Rev. 17:8).
B. How Does the New Testament Present the Teaching of Election?
After reading this list of verses on election, it is important to view this doctrine in the
way the New Testament itself views it.
1. As a Comfort. The New Testament authors often present the doctrine of election as a
comfort to believers. When Paul assures the Romans that “in everything God works for
good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28),
he gives God’s work of predestination as a reason why we can be assured of this truth.
He explains in the next verse, “ For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be
conformed to the image of his Son . . . And those whom he predestined he also called . . .
justified . . . glorified” (Rom. 8:29-30). Paul’s point is to say that God has always acted
for the good of those whom he called to himself. If Paul looks into the distant past before
the creation of the world, he sees that God foreknew and predestined his people to be
conformed to the image of Christ. 5 If he looks at the recent past he finds that God called
and justified his people whom he had predestined. And if he then looks toward the future
when Christ returns, he sees that God has determined to give perfect, glorified bodies to
those who believe in Christ. From eternity to eternity God has acted with the good of his
people in mind. But if God has always acted for our good and will in the future act for
our good, Paul reasons, then will he not also in our present circumstances work every cir-
cumstance together for our good as well? In this way predestination is seen as a comfort
for believers in the everyday events of life.
2. As a Reason to Praise God. Paul says, “He destined us in love to be his sons through
Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace ”
(Eph. 1:5-6). Similarly, he says, “We who first hoped in Christ have been destined and
appointed to live /or the praise of his glory” (Eph. 1:12).
Paul tells the Christians at Thessalonica, “We give thanks to God always for you all
For we know, brethren beloved by God, that he has chosen you” (1 Thess. 1:2, 4). The
Grammatically the phrase “before the foundation of the
world” could modify either “whose name has not been writ-
ten” (as here, in the RSV; also in the NASB and NIV mg.),
or “the lamb that was slain” (so KJV, NIV). But the parallel
expression in Rev. 17:8, “whose names have not been written
in the book of life from the foundation of the world,” seems deci-
sive, and there only one sense is possible (the parallel wording
is striking in the Greek text, since the two verses share eleven
identical words in talking about people whose names are
written in the book of life). Moreover, the RSV/NASB reading
makes much better sense in light of the rest of Scripture: the
Bible often talks about God choosing us before the foundation
of the world, but nowhere else does Scripture say that Christ was
slain from the foundation of the world — a statement that sim-
ply is not true in any literal sense, because Christ was not slain
until he died on the cross. Therefore, on the NIV/KJV reading,
the verse must be interpreted to mean something like, “God
planned from the foundation of the world that Christ would
be slain” — but that is not what the text actually says, on either
reading.
5 See the discussion below (pp. 676-79) on the meaning of
“foreknow” here.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
reason Paul can give thanks to God for the Thessalonian Christians is that he knows
God is ultimately responsible for their salvation and has in fact chosen them to be saved.
This is made even clearer in 2 Thessalonians 2:13: “But we are bound to give thanks to God
always for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God chose you from the beginning
to be saved.” Paul was obligated to give thanks to God for the Christians at Thessalonica
because he knew that their salvation was ultimately due to God’s choice of them. There-
fore it is appropriate for Paul to thank God for them rather than praising them for their
own saving faith.
Understood in this way, the doctrine of election does increase praise given to God for
our salvation and seriously diminishes any pride that we might feel if we thought that
our salvation was due to something good in us or something for which we should receive
credit.
3. As an Encouragement to Evangelism. Paul says, “I endure everything for the sake
of the elect, that they also may obtain salvation in Christ Jesus with its eternal glory”
(2 Tim. 2:10). He knows that God has chosen some people to be saved, and he sees this as
an encouragement to preach the gospel, even if it means enduring great suffering. Elec-
tion is Pauls guarantee that there will be some success for his evangelism, for he knows
that some of the people he speaks to will be the elect, and they will believe the gospel and
be saved. It is as if someone invited us to come fishing and said, “I guarantee that you will
catch some fish — they are hungry and waiting.”
C. Correcting Misunderstandings of the Doctrine of Election
1. Election Is Not Fatalistic or Mechanistic. Sometimes those who object to the doc-
trine of election say that it is “fatalism” or that it presents a “mechanistic system” for the
universe. Two somewhat different objections are involved here. By “fatalism” is meant a
system in which human choices and human decisions really do not make any difference.
In fatalism, no matter what we do, things are going to turn out as they have been previ-
ously ordained. Therefore, it is futile to attempt to influence the outcome of events or
the outcome of our lives by putting forth any effort or making any significant choices,
because these will not make any difference any way. In a true fatalistic system, of course,
our humanity is destroyed for our choices really mean nothing, and the motivation for
moral accountability is removed.
In a mechanistic system the picture is one of an impersonal universe in which all
things that happen have been inflexibly determined by an impersonal force long ago, and
the universe functions in a mechanical way so that human beings are more like machines
or robots than genuine persons. Here also genuine human personality would be reduced
to the level of a machine that simply functions in accordance with predetermined plans
and in response to predetermined causes and influences.
By contrast to the mechanistic picture, the New Testament presents the entire out-
working of our salvation as something brought about by a personal God in relationship
with personal creatures. God “destined us in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ”
(Eph. 1:5). Gods act of election was neither impersonal nor mechanistic, but was
CHAPTER 32 * ELECTION AND REPROBATION
permeated with personal love for those whom he chose. Moreover, the personal care
of God for his creatures, even those who rebel against him, is seen clearly in God’s plea
through Ezekiel, “As I live, says the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the
wicked , but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil
ways; for why will you die, O house of Israel?” (Ezek. 33:11).
When talking about our response to the gospel offer, Scripture continually views us
not as mechanistic creatures or robots, but as genuine persons , personal creatures who
make willing choices to accept or reject the gospel. 6 Jesus invites everyone, “ Come to
me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28). And we
read the invitation at the end of Revelation: “The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come.’ And
let him who hears say, ‘Come/ And let him who is thirsty come, let him who desires take
the water of life without price” (Rev. 22:17). This invitation and many others like it are
addressed to genuine persons who are capable of hearing the invitation and responding
to it by a decision of their wills. Regarding those who will not accept him, Jesus clearly
emphasizes their hardness of heart and their stubborn refusal to come to him: “Yet you
refuse to come to me that you may have life” (John 5:40). And Jesus cries out in sorrow to
the city that had rejected him, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning
those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children together as a
hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!” (Matt. 23:37).
In contrast to the charge of fatalism, we also see a much different picture in the New
Testament. Not only do we make willing choices as real persons, but these choices are
also real choices because they do affect the course of events in the world. They affect our
own lives and they affect the lives and destinies of others. So, “He who believes in him
is not condemned; he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not
believed in the name of the only Son of God” (John 3:18). Our personal decisions to
believe or not believe in Christ have eternal consequences in our lives, and Scripture is
quite willing to talk about our decision to believe or not believe as the factor that decides
our eternal destiny.
The implication of this is that we certainly must preach the gospel, and people’s eter-
nal destiny hinges on whether we proclaim the gospel or not. Therefore when the Lord
one night told Paul, “Do not be afraid, but speak and do not be silent; for I am with
you, and no man shall attack you to harm you; for I have many people in this city ” (Acts
18:9-10), Paul did not simply conclude that the “many people” who belong to God would
be saved whether he stayed there preaching the gospel or not. Rather, “he stayed a year
and six months , teaching the word of God among them” (Acts 18:11) — this was longer
than Paul stayed in any other city except Ephesus during his three missionary journeys.
When Paul was told that God had many elect people in Corinth, he stayed a long time
and preached, in order that those elect people might be saved! Paul is quite clear about
the fact that unless people preach the gospel others will not be saved:
But how are men to call upon him in whom they have not believed? And how are
they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear
6 See chapter 16, pp. 320-22, 334, 340-47, for a more and make real choices when God has beforehand ordained
extensive discussion of how we can be genuine persons what we do.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
676
without a preacher ? ... So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard
comes by the preaching of Christ. (Rom. 10:14, 17)
Did Paul know before he went to a city who was elected by God for salvation and who
was not? No, he did not. That is something that God does not show to us ahead of time.
But once people come to faith in Christ then we can be confident that God had earlier
chosen them for salvation. This is exactly Paul’s conclusion regarding the Thessalonians;
he says that he knows that God chose them because when he preached to them, the gospel
came in power and with full conviction: “For we know, brethren beloved by God, that
he has chosen you; for our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in
the Holy Spirit and with full conviction ’ (1 Thess. 1:4-5). Far from saying that whatever
he did made no difference, and that God’s elect would be saved whether he preached or
not, Paul endured a life of incredible hardship in order to bring the gospel to those whom
God had chosen. At the end of a life filled with suffering he said, “Therefore I endure
everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain salvation in Christ Jesus with
its eternal glory” (2 Tim. 2:10).
2. Election Is Not Based on God’s Foreknowledge of Our Faith. Quite commonly people
will agree that God predestines some to be saved, but they will say that he does this by
looking into the future and seeing who will believe in Christ and who will not. If he sees
that a person is going to come to saving faith, then he will predestine that person to be
L saved, based on foreknowledge of that person's faith. If he sees that a person will not come to
saving faith, then he does not predestine that person to be saved. In this way, it is thought,
r the ultimate reason why some are saved and some are not lies within the people themselves,
not within God. All that God does in his predestining work is to give confirmation to
the decision he knows people will make on their own. The verse commonly used to sup-
port this view is Romans 8:29: “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be
conformed to the image of his Son.” 7
a. Foreknowledge of Persons, Not Facts: But this verse can hardly be used to demon-
strate that God based his predestination on foreknowledge of the fact that a person would
believe. The passage speaks rather of the fact that God knew persons (“ those whom he
foreknew”), not that he knew some fact about them, such as the fact that they would
believe. It is a personal, relational knowledge that is spoken of here: God, looking into
the future, thought of certain people in saving relationship to him, and in that sense he
“knew them” long ago. This is the sense in which Paul can talk about God’s “knowing”
someone, for example, in 1 Corinthians 8:3: “But if one loves God, one is known by him."
Similarly, he says, “but now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by
God . . .” (Gal. 4:9). When people know God in Scripture, or when God knows them, it is
personal knowledge that involves a saving relationship. Therefore in Romans 8:29, “those
7 The idea that predestination is based on God’s foreknowl- upon Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, and become united with
edge of those who would believe is argued in Jack W. Cottrell, him in Christian baptism; then even before the creation of the
“Conditional Election,” in Grace Unlimited , pp. 51-73. Cottrell world he predestines these believers to share the glory of the
says, “Through his foreknowledge God sees who will believe risen Christ” (p. 62).
CHAPTER 32 • ELECTION AND REPROBATION
677
whom he foreknew ” is best understood to mean, “those whom he long ago thought of in
a saving relationship to himself ” The text actually says nothing about God foreknowing
or foreseeing that certain people would believe, nor is that idea mentioned in any other
text of Scripture. 8
Sometimes people say that God elected groups of people, but not individuals to salva-
tion. In some Arminian views, God just elected the church as a group, while the Swiss
theologian Karl Barth (1886- 1968) said that God elected Christ, and all people in Christ.
But Romans 8:29 talks about certain people whom God foreknew (“those whom he fore-
knew”), not just undefined or unfilled groups. And in Ephesians Paul talks about certain
people whom God chose, including himself: “He chose us in him before the foundation
of the world” (Eph. 1:4). To talk about God choosing a group with no people in it is not
biblical election at all. But to talk about God choosing a group of people means that he
chose specific individuals who constituted that group. 9
b. Scripture Never Speaks of Our Faith As the Reason God Chose Us: In addition, when
we look beyond these specific passages that speak of foreknowledge and look at verses
that talk about the reason God chose us, we find that Scripture never speaks of our faith
or the fact that we would come to believe in Christ as the reason God chose us. In fact,
Paul seems explicitly to exclude the consideration of what people would do in life from
his understanding of God’s choice of Jacob rather than Esau: he says, “Though they were
not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad, in order that God's purpose of elec-
tion might continue , not because of works but because of his call, she was told, ‘The elder
will serve the younger.’ As it is written, ‘Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated’ ” (Rom. 9:11 - 13).
Nothing that Jacob or Esau would do in life influenced God’s decision; it was simply in
order that his purpose of election might continue.
When discussing the Jewish people who have come to faith in Christ, Paul says, “So too
at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace . But if it is by grace, it is no longer
on the basis of works” (Rom. 11:5-6). Here again Paul emphasizes God’s grace and the
complete absence of human merit in the process of election. Someone might object that
faith is not viewed as a “work” in Scripture and therefore faith should be excluded from
the quotation above (“It is no longer on the basis of works”). Based on this objection, Paul
could actually mean, “But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, but rather
on the basis of whether someone would believe.” However, this is unlikely in this context:
Paul is not contrasting human faith and human works; he is contrasting God’s sovereign
choosing of people with any human activity, and he points to God’s sovereign will as the
ultimate basis for God’s choice of the Jews who have come to Christ.
Similarly, when Paul talks about election in Ephesians, there is no mention of any fore-
knowledge of the fact that we would believe, or any idea that there was anything worthy
or meritorious in us (such as a tendency to believe) that was the basis for God’s choosing
us. Rather, Paul says, “He destined us in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ, according
8 Rom. 11:2 similarly speaks of God’s foreknowing persons , see the discussion below on reprobation (the fact that some
not facts about people or the fact that they would believe: “God are not chosen), and chapter 7, pp. 1 16 - 18, and chapter 56,
has not rejected his people whom he foreknew” pp. 1149-53, on the fact that those who do not believe in
9 In answer to Barth’s view that all are chosen in Christ, Christ will not be saved.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
678
to the purpose of his will , to the praise of his glorious grace which he freely bestowed on us
in the Beloved” (Eph. 1:5-6). Now if Gods grace is to be praised for election, and not
human ability to believe or decision to believe, then once again it is consistent for Paul
to mention nothing of human faith but only to mention Gods predestining activity, his
purpose and will, and his freely given grace.
Again in 2 Timothy, Paul says that God “saved us and called us with a holy calling, not in
virtue of our works but in virtue of his own purpose and the grace which he gave us in Christ
lesus ages ago” (2 Tim. 1:9). Once again God’s sovereign purpose is seen as the ultimate rea-
son for our salvation, and Paul connects this with the fact that God gave us grace in Christ
Jesus ages ago — another way of speaking of the truth that God freely gave favor to us when
he chose us without reference to any foreseen merit or worthiness on our part.
c. Election Based on Something Good in Us (Our Faith) Would Be the Beginning of Sal-
vation by Merit: Yet another kind of objection can be brought against the idea that God
chose us because he foreknew that we would come to faith. If the ultimate determining
factor in whether we will be saved or not is our own decision to accept Christ, then we shall
be more inclined to think that we deserve some credit for the fact that we were saved: in
distinction from other people who continue to reject Christ, we were wise enough in our
judgment or good enough in our moral tendencies or perceptive enough in our spiritual
capacities to decide to believe in Christ. But once we begin to think this way then we seri-
ously diminish the glory that is to be given to God for our salvation. We become uncom-
fortable speaking like Paul who says that God “destined us . . . according to the purpose of
his will , to the praise of his glorious grace” (Eph. 1:5-6), and we begin to think that God
“destined us . . . according to the fact that he knew that we would have enough tenden-
cies toward goodness and faith within us that we would believe ” When we think like this
we begin to sound very much unlike the New Testament when it talks about election or
predestination. By contrast, if election is solely based on God’s own good pleasure and his
sovereign decision to love us in spite of our lack of goodness or merit, then certainly we
have a profound sense of appreciation to him for a salvation that is totally undeserved, and
we will forever be willing to praise his “glorious grace” (Eph. 1:6).
In the final analysis, the difference between two views of election can be seen in the
way they answer a very simple question. Given the fact that in the final analysis some
people will choose to accept Christ and some people will not, the question is, “What
makes people differ?” That is, what ultimately makes the difference between those who
believe and those who do not? If our answer is that it is ultimately based on something
God does (namely, his sovereign election of those who would be saved), then we see that
salvation at its most foundational level is based on grace alone . On the other hand, if we
answer that the ultimate difference between those who are saved and those who are not is
because of something in man (that is, a tendency or disposition to believe or not believe),
then salvation ultimately depends on a combination of grace plus human ability. 10
10 The fact that the Arminian position ultimately makes position where he can say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ (which he could not do
something in man the determining factor in whether people before God called him; till then he was in a continuous atti-
are saved or not is seen clearly in the statement of I. Howard tude of ‘no’)” (“Predestination in the New Testament ” in Grace
Marshall: “The effect of the call of God is to place man in a Unlimited , p. 140). In this statement of Marshall’s we see that the
CHAPTER 32 • ELECTION AND REPROBATION
d. Predestination Based on Foreknowledge Still Does Not Give People Free Choice: The
idea that Gods predestination of some to believe is based on foreknowledge of their faith
encounters still another problem: upon reflection, this system turns out to give no real
freedom to man either. For if God can look into the future and see that person A will come
to faith in Christ, and that person B will not come to faith in Christ, then those facts are
already fixed, they are already determined. If we assume that God’s knowledge of the future
is true (which it must be), then it is absolutely certain that person A will believe and person
B will not. There is no way that their lives could turn out any differently than this. There-
fore it is fair to say that their destinies are still determined, for they could not be otherwise.
But by what are these destinies determined? If they are determined by God himself, then we
no longer have election based ultimately on foreknowledge of faith, but rather on God’s sov-
ereign will. But if these destinies are not determined by God, then who or what determines
them? Certainly no Christian would say that there is some powerful being other than God
controlling people’s destinies. Therefore it seems that the only other possible solution is
to say they are determined by some impersonal force, some kind of fate, operative in the
universe, making things turn out as they do. But what kind of benefit is this? We have then
sacrificed election in love by a personal God for a kind of determinism by an impersonal
force and God is no longer to be given the ultimate credit for our salvation.
e. Conclusion: Election Is Unconditional: It seems best, for the previous four reasons,
to reject the idea that election is based on God’s foreknowledge of our faith. We conclude
instead that the reason for election is simply God’s sovereign choice — he “destined us in
love to be his sons” (Eph. 1:5). God chose us simply because he decided to bestow his love
upon us. It was not because of any foreseen faith or foreseen merit in us.
This understanding of election has traditionally been called “unconditional elec-
tion.” 11 It is “unconditional” because it is not conditioned upon anything that God sees in
us that makes us worthy of his choosing us. 12
final determinant of whether people are saved or not is whether
they say yes or no to God’s call, and therefore salvation still ulti-
mately depends on something in man, an ability or tendency
within him that persuades him to say yes rather than no.
“Unconditional election is the “U” in the acronym TULIP,
which stands for “the five points of Calvinism.” The other let-
ters stand for Total depravity (see chapter 24, pp. 497-98),
Limited atonement (see chapter 27, pp. 594-603), Irresistible
grace (see chapter 34, p. 700), and Perseverance of the saints
(see chapter 40, pp. 788-803). See also p. 596, n. 35.
12 Regarding the doctrine of election, there has been a
dispute in Reformed circles (those who hold to election as
presented here) between two positions known as supralapsar-
ianism and infralapsarianism. The difference concerns what
happened in God’s mind before the foundation of the world. It
does not concern something that happened in time, but rather
it concerns the logical order of God’s thoughts. The question is
whether, in logical order, (a) God decided first that he would save
some people and second that he would allow sin into the world so
that he could save them from it (the supralapsarian position), or
whether it was the other way around, so that (b) God first decided
that he would allow sin into the world and second decided that
he would save some people from it (the infralapsarian position).
The word supralapsarian means “before the fall,” and the word
infralapsarian means “after the fall.” The discussion is complex
and highly speculative because there is very little direct biblical
data to help us with it. Good arguments have been advanced
in support of each view, and there is probably some element of
truth in each one. But in the last analysis it seems wiser to say
that Scripture does not give us enough data to probe into this
mystery, and, moreover, it does not seem very edifying to do so.
In fact, I have decided to mention the discussion in this
textbook at this point only because the words “supralapsar-
ian” and “infralapsarian” are sometimes used in theological
circles as symbols for the most abstract and obscure of theo-
logical discussions, and it seemed to me appropriate simply to
inform the reader of the nature of this dispute and the mean-
ing of these terms. For those interested, a further discussion is
found in Berkhof, Systematic Theology, pp. 118-25.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
D. Objections to the Doctrine of Election
It must be said that the doctrine of election as presented here is by no means univer-
sally accepted in the Christian church, either in Catholicism or Protestantism. There
is a long history of acceptance of the doctrine as here presented, but many others have
objected to it as well. Among current evangelicals, those in more Reformed or Calvinistic
circles (conservative Presbyterian denominations, for example) will accept this view, as
will many Lutherans and Anglicans (Episcopalians) and a large number of Baptists and
people in independent churches. On the other hand, it will be rejected quite decisively by
nearly all Methodists, as well as by many others in Baptist, Anglican, and independent
churches. 13 While a number of the objections to election are more specific forms of objec-
tion to the doctrine of providence presented in chapter 16, and have been answered in
more detail there, a few particular objections should be mentioned here.
1. Election Means That We Do Not Have a Choice in Whether We Accept Christ or
Not. According to this objection, the doctrine of election denies all the gospel invitations
that appeal to the will of man and ask people to make a choice in whether to respond to
Christ’s invitation or not. In response to this, we must affirm that the doctrine of elec-
tion is fully able to accommodate the idea that we have a voluntary choice and we make
willing decisions in accepting or rejecting Christ. Our choices are voluntary because they
are what we want to do and what we decide to do. 14 This does not mean that our choices
are absolutely free, because (as explained in chapter 16, on providence), God can work
sovereignly through our desires so that he guarantees that our choices come about as he
has ordained, but this can still be understood as a real choice because God has created
us and he ordains that such a choice is real. In short, we can say that God causes us to
choose Christ voluntarily. The mistaken assumption underlying this objection is that a
choice must be absolutely free (that is, not in any way caused by God) in order for it to
be a genuine human choice.
2. On This Definition of Election, Our Choices Are Not Real Choices. Continuing the
discussion in the previous paragraph, someone might object that if a choice is caused
by God, it may appear to us to be voluntary and willed by us, but it is nonetheless not a
genuine or real choice, because it is not absolutely free. Once again we must respond by
13 For a full discussion of objections to election, the reader
may refer to two excellent recent collections of essays from
what is called an “Arminian” perspective, a perspective that
rejects the view of election advocated in this chapter: see Clark
H. Pinnock, ed., Grace Unlimited (Minneapolis: Bethany Fel-
lowship, 1975), and Clark H. Pinnock, ed., The Grace of God,
the Will of Man: A Case for Arminianism. In response to these
two books, Tom Schreiner and Bruce Ware have edited a sub-
stantial collection of essays from Reformed scholars, published
as Still Sovereign: Contemporary Perspectives on Election , Fore-
knowledge, and Grace (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000).
14 Grant R. Osborne, “Exegetical Notes on Calvinist Texts,”
in Grace Unlimited, pp. 167-89, several times points out evi-
dence of human volition or human choice involved in the imme-
diate context of texts that talk about election or predestination.
A representative example is seen on p. 175, where Osborne
discusses Acts 13:48, “as many as were ordained to eternal life
believed.” Osborne responds, “While we agree that the basic
thrust is divine election, this does not negate the presence of
human volition, as seen in the context” (p. 175). Such a response
seems to assume that a Reformed view denies human volition
or choice. But it must be answered that the Reformed position
as traditionally argued certainly allows for genuine human voli-
tion or human will in choices that are made, and simply says
that God is so wise and powerful that he ordains that we respond
willingly. Osborne does not directly interact with this position.
CHAPTER 32 • ELECTION AND REPROBATION
681
challenging the assumption that a choice must be absolutely free in order to be genuine
or valid. If God makes us in a certain way and then tells us that our voluntary choices
are real and genuine choices, then we must agree that they are. God is the definition of
what is real and genuine in the universe. By contrast, we might ask where Scripture ever
says that our choices have to be free from God’s influence or control in order to be real
or genuine choices. It does not seem that Scripture ever speaks in this way.
3. The Doctrine of Election Makes Us Puppets or Robots, Not Real Persons. According
to this objection, if God really causes everything that we choose with regard to salva-
tion, then we are no longer real persons. Once again it must be answered that God has
created us and we must allow him to define what genuine personhood is. The analogy
of a “puppet” or a “robot” reduces us to a sub-human category of things that have been
created by man. But genuine human beings are far greater than puppets or robots,
because we do have a genuine will and we do make voluntary decisions based on our
own preferences and wants. In fact, it is this ability to make willing choices that is one
thing that distinguishes us from much of the lower creation. We are real people created
in God’s image, and God has allowed us to make genuine choices that have real effects
on our lives.
4. The Doctrine of Election Means That Unbelievers Never Had a Chance to Believe.
This objection to election says that if God had decreed from eternity that some people
would not believe, then there was no genuine chance for them to believe, and the entire
system functions unfairly. Two responses can be made to this objection. First, we must
note that the Bible does not allow us to say that unbelievers had no chance to believe.
When people rejected Jesus he always put the blame on their willful choice to reject him,
not on anything decreed by God the Father. “Why do you not understand what I say? It is
because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father the devil, and your will
is to do your father’s desires” (John 8:43-44). He says to Jerusalem, “How often would
I have gathered your children together . . . and you would not!” (Matt. 23:37). He said to
the Jews who rejected him, “You refuse to come to me that you may have life” (John 5:40).
Romans 1 makes it plain that all people are confronted with a revelation from God of
such clarity that they are “without excuse” (Rom. 1:20). This is the consistent pattern in
Scripture: people who remain in unbelief do so because they are unwilling to come to
God, and the blame for such unbelief always lies with the unbelievers themselves, never
with God.
At a second level, the answer to this question must simply be Paul’s answer to a similar
objection: “But who are you, a man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to
its molder, ‘Why have you made me thus?’ ” (Rom. 9:20).
5. Election Is Unfair. Sometimes people regard the doctrine of election as unfair, since
it teaches that God chooses some to be saved and passes over others, deciding not to save
them. How can this be fair?
Two responses may be given at this point. First, we must remember that it would be
perfectly fair for God not to save anyone, just as he did with the angels: “God did not spare
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
682
the angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of nether
gloom to be kept until the judgment” (2 Peter 2:4). 15 What would be perfectly fair for
God would be to do with human beings as he did with angels, that is, to save none of
those who sinned and rebelled against him. But if he does save some at all, then this is a
demonstration of grace that goes far beyond the requirements of fairness and justice.
But at a deeper level this objection would say that it is not fair for God to create some
people who he knew would sin and be eternally condemned, and whom he would not
redeem. Paul raises this objection in Romans 9. After saying that God “has mercy upon
whomever he wills, and he hardens the heart of whomever he wills” (Rom. 9:18), 16 Paul
then raises this precise objection: “You will say to me then, ‘Why does he still find fault?
For who can resist his will?’” (Rom. 9:19). Here is the heart of the “unfairness” objec-
tion against the doctrine of election. If each person's ultimate destiny is determined by
God, not by the person himself or herself (that is, even when people make willing choices
that determine whether they will be saved or not, if God is actually behind those choices
somehow causing them to occur), then how can this be fair?
Pauls response is not one that appeals to our pride, nor does he attempt to give a
philosophical explanation of why this is just. He simply calls on God's rights as the
omnipotent Creator:
But who are you, a man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its
molder, “Why have you made me thus?” Has the potter no right over the clay,
to make out of the same lump one vessel for beauty and another for menial use?
What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has
endured with much patience the vessels of wrath made for destruction, in order
to make known the riches of his glory for the vessels of mercy, which he has
prepared beforehand for glory, even us whom he has called, not from the Jews
only but also from the Gentiles? (Rom. 9:20-24) 17
15 See chapter 19, p. 403, for a discussion of the fact that it
would be fair for God to save no one.
16 One Arminian view of this verse is given by Jack Cottrell.
He argues that Rom. 9:18, “He has mercy upon whomever he
will, and he hardens the heart of whomever he will,” refers not
to God’s choice of people for salvation, but to God’s choice
of people for certain kinds of service: “He chooses whom he
pleases for service, not salvation” (“The Nature of the Divine
Sovereignty,” in The Grace of God y the Will of Man, p. 114).
This is not a convincing interpretation, however, because the
entire context definitely concerns salvation: Paul says, “I have
great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart” and “I could
wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for
the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen by race” (Rom. 9:2, 3),
not because the Jews were not chosen for some particular ser-
vice, but because they were not saved! He speaks in v. 8 not
of those who were chosen for service and those who were not,
but of those who are “children of God” and those who are
not. And he speaks in v. 22 not of some who missed an oppor-
tunity for service, but of “vessels of wrath made for destruc-
tion.” Salvation is in view in the entire context.
17 James D. Strauss, “God’s Promise and Universal History:
The Theology of Romans 9,” in Grace Unlimited, argues that
in Romans 9 “vessels of wrath made for destruction ” should
rather be translated “fitted themselves” for wrath (p. 200). But
he gives no examples of a genuine reflexive use of the verb
katartizo, which would be required here. BAGD, pp. 417-18,
note that the passive can be used intransitively (as here if we
translate “made for destruction,” as the RSV), but they give no
example of an active or middle voice of this verb being used
without a direct object. Moreover, Strauss’ suggestion, “fit-
ted themselves” for wrath, would not really fit the picture of
a potter making vessels of various sorts, for pots do not make
themselves, but the potter makes them.
Another objection brought by Strauss is to say that the
potter and clay imagery in Rom. 9:20-23 is derived from Old
Testament passages that emphasize God’s call for people freely
to choose repentance and faith. He says that this negates the
idea of sovereign predestining on God’s part (p. 199). But here
Strauss simply misunderstands the Reformed position, which
never denies human responsibility or human willingness in
making choices.
CHAPTER 32 • ELECTION AND REPROBATION
Paul simply says that there is a point beyond which we cannot answer back to God or
question his justice. He has done what he has done according to his sovereign will. He is
the Creator; we are the creatures, and we ultimately have no basis from which to accuse
him of unfairness or injustice. 18 When we read these words of Paul we are confronted with
a decision whether or not to accept what God says here, and what he does, simply because
he is God and we are not. It is a question that reaches deep into our understanding of
ourselves as creatures and of our relationship to God as our Creator.
This objection of unfairness takes a slightly different form when people say that it is
unfair of God to save some people and not to save all. This objection is based on an idea
of justice among human beings that we sense intuitively. We recognize in human affairs
that it is right to treat equal people in an equal way. Therefore it seems intuitively appro-
priate to us to say that if God is going to save some sinners he ought to save all sinners.
But in answer to this objection it must be said that we really have no right to impose on
God our intuitive sense of what is appropriate among human beings. Whenever Scrip-
ture begins to treat this area it goes back to God’s sovereignty as Creator and says he has
a right to do with his creation as he wills (see Rom. 9:19-20, quoted above). 19 If God
ultimately decided to create some creatures to be saved and others not to be saved, then
that was his sovereign choice, and we have no moral or scriptural basis on which we can
insist that it was not fair.
6. The Bible Says That God Wills to Save Everyone. Another objection to the doctrine
of election is that it contradicts certain passages of Scripture that say that God wills for
all to be saved. Paul writes of God our Savior, “ who desires all men to be saved and to come
to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:4). And Peter says, “The Lord is not slow about
his promise as some count slowness, but is forbearing toward you, not wishing that any
should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). Do not these passages
contradict the idea that God has only chosen certain people to be saved?
One common solution to this question (from the Reformed perspective advocated
in this book) is to say that these verses speak of God’s revealed will (telling us what we
should do), not his hidden will (his eternal plans for what will happen). 20 The verses
simply tell us that God invites and commands every person to repent and come to Christ
for salvation, but they do not tell us anything about God’s secret decrees regarding who
will be saved.
The Arminian theologian Clark Pinnock objects to the idea that God has a secret and a
revealed will— he calls it “the exceedingly paradoxical notion of two divine wills regard-
ing salvation.” 21 But Pinnock never really answers the question of why all are not saved
18 For further discussion, see John Piper, The Justification
of God: An Exegetical and Theological Study of Romans 9:1 -23
(Grand Rapids: Baker, 1983).
19 I. Howard Marshall, “Predestination in the New Testa-
ment,” (in Grace Unlimited , p. 136), specifically says, “I can-
not see how it can be just arbitrarily to save one guilty sinner
and not another.” But that seems to be precisely Paul’s point
in Rom. 9:18-20: God does save some and decide not to save
others, and we have no right, as creatures, to say that this is
unjust.
20 For a discussion ofthe difference between God’s revealed
will and his secret will, see chapter 13, pp. 213-16; also
chapter 16, pp. 327-30. See also John Piper, “Are There Two
Wills in God? Divine Election and God’s Desire for All to
Be Saved,” in Still Sovereign , ed. Tom Schreiner and Bruce
Ware.
21 Clark Pinnock, “Introduction,” in Grace Unlimited ,
p. 13.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
684
(from an Arminian perspective) . Ultimately Arminians also must say that God wills some-
thing more strongly than he wills the salvation of all people, for in fact all are not saved .
Arminians claim that the reason why all are not saved is that God wills to preserve the free
will of man more than he wills to save everyone. But is this not also making a distinction
in two aspects of the will of God? On the one hand God wills that all be saved (1 Tim.
2:5-6; 2 Peter 3:9). But on the other hand he wills to preserve man’s absolutely free choice.
In fact, he wills the second thing more than the first. But this means that Arminians also
must say that 1 Timothy 2:5-6 and 2 Peter 3:9 do not say that God wills the salvation of
everyone in an absolute or unqualified way — they too must say that the verses only refer
to one kind or one aspect of God’s will.
Here the difference between the Reformed and the Arminian conception of God’s
will is clearly seen. Both Calvinists and Arminians agree that God’s commands in Scrip-
ture reveal to us what he wants us to do, and both agree that the commands in Scripture
invite us to repent and trust in Christ for salvation. Therefore, in one sense both agree
that God wills that we be saved — it is the will that he reveals to us explicitly in the gospel
invitation.
But both sides must also say that there is something else that God deems more impor-
tant than saving everyone. Reformed theologians say that God deems his own glory more
important than saving everyone, and that (according to Rom. 9) God’s glory is also fur-
thered by the fact that some are not saved. Arminian theologians also say that something
else is more important to God than the salvation of all people, namely, the preservation
of man’s free will. So in a Reformed system God’s highest value is his own glory, and
in an Arminian system God’s highest value is the free will of man. These are two dis-
tinctly different conceptions of the nature of God, and it seems that the Reformed posi-
tion has much more explicit biblical support than the Arminian position does on this
question. 22
E. The Doctrine of Reprobation
When we understand election as God’s sovereign choice of some persons to be saved,
then there is necessarily another aspect of that choice, namely, God’s sovereign decision
to pass over others and not to save them. This decision of God in eternity past is called
reprobation. Reprobation is the sovereign decision of God before creation to pass over some
persons, in sorrow deciding not to save them, and to punish them for their sins, and thereby
to manifest his justice.
In many ways the doctrine of reprobation is the most difficult of all the teachings
of Scripture for us to think about and to accept, because it deals with such horrible
and eternal consequences for human beings made in the image of God. The love that
22 See chapter 15, pp. 271-73, and chapter 21, pp. 440-41, on specific support from Scripture. Moreover, to be consistent it
the fact that God created us and the whole universe for his own seems the Arminian would also have to take account of the mil-
glory. An Arminian may object to putting the difference this lions who do not choose God, and would have to say that God is
way, and may say that God is more glorified when we choose also more glorified by the free choices of the millions who freely
him out of an absolutely free will, but this is simply a doubtful decide against God — otherwise, why would God allow them to
assumption based on intuition or human analogy, and has no persist in this free choice of rebellion?
CHAPTER 32 • ELECTION AND REPROBATION
God gives us for our fellow human beings and the love that he commands us to have
toward our neighbor cause us to recoil against this doctrine, and it is right that we feel
such dread in contemplating it. 23 It is something that we would not want to believe, and
would not believe, unless Scripture clearly taught it.
But are there Scripture passages that speak of such a decision by God? Certainly there
are some. Jude speaks of some persons who long ago were designated for this condemna-
tion, ungodly persons who pervert the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our
only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ” (Jude 4).
Moreover, Paul, in the passage referred to above, speaks in the same way of Pharaoh
and others:
For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, I have raised you up for the very purpose
of showing my power in you, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the
earth.” So then he has mercy upon whomever he wills, and he hardens the heart
of whomever he wills. . . . What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make
known his power, has endured with much patience the vessels of wrath made
for destruction? (Rom. 9:17-22)
Regarding the results of the fact that God failed to choose all for salvation, Paul says,
“The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened” (Rom. 11:7). And Peter says of those
who reject the gospel, they stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined
to do” (1 Peter 2:8). 24
In spite of the fact that we recoil against this doctrine, we must be careful of our atti-
tude toward God and toward these passages of Scripture. We must never begin to wish
that the Bible was written in another way, or that it did not contain these verses. More-
over, if we are convinced that these verses teach reprobation, then we are obligated both
to believe it and accept it as fair and just of God, even though it still causes us to tremble
in horror as we think of it. In this context it may surprise us to see that Jesus can thank
God both for hiding the knowledge of salvation from some and for revealing it to others:
Jesus declared, I thank you. Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden
these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes; yea, Father,
for such was your gracious will’ ” (Matt. 11:25-26).
Moreover, we must recognize that somehow, in God’s wisdom, the fact of reproba-
tion and the eternal condemnation of some will show God’s justice and also result in his
glory. Paul says, What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power,
has endured with much patience the vessels of wrath made for destruction” (Rom. 9:22).
Paul also notes that the fact of such punishment on the “vessels of wrath” serves to show
the greatness of God’s mercy toward us: God does this “in order to make known the
riches of his glory for the vessels of mercy” (Rom. 9:23).
“John Calvin himself says of reprobation, “The decree is
dreadful indeed, I confess.” Calvin, Institutes, 3.23.7 (2:955); but
it should be noted that his Latin word horribilis does not mean
“hateful” but rather “fearful, awe-inspiring.”
24 See discussion of this verse in Wayne Grudem, 1 Peter ,
pp. 107- 10. The verse does not simply say that God destined
the fact that those who disobey would stumble, but speaks
rather of God destining certain people to disobey and stumble:
as they were destined to do.” (The Greek verb etethesan , “they
were destined,” requires a plural subject.)
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
686
We also must remember that there are important differences between election and rep-
robation as they are presented in the Bible. Election to salvation is viewed as a cause for
rejoicing and praise to God, who is worthy of praise and receives all the credit for our
salvation (see Eph. 1:3-6; 1 Peter 1:1-3). God is viewed as actively choosing us for salva-
tion, and doing so in love and with delight. But reprobation is viewed as something that
brings God sorrow, not delight (see Ezek. 33:11), and the blame for the condemnation
of sinners is always put on the people or angels who rebel, never on God himself (see
John 3:18- 19; 5:40). So in the presentation of Scripture the cause of election lies in God,
and the cause of reprobation lies in the sinner. Another important difference is that the
ground of election is God’s grace, whereas the ground of reprobation is God’s justice.
Therefore “double predestination” is not a helpful or accurate phrase, because it neglects
these differences between election and reprobation.
The sorrow of God at the death of the wicked (“I have no pleasure in the death of the
wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live,” Ezek. 33:11) helps us understand
how appropriate it was that Paul himself felt great sorrow when he thought about the
unbelieving Jews who had rejected Christ. Paul says:
I am speaking the truth in Christ, I am not lying; my conscience bears me wit-
ness in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my
heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for
the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen by race. They are Israelites. . . . (Rom.
9:1-4)
We ought also to feel this great sorrow as well when we think about the fate of
unbelievers.
But it might be objected at this point, if God genuinely feels sorrow at the punish-
ment of the wicked, then why does he allow it or even decree that it will come about?
The answer must be that God knows that this will ultimately result in greater glory
for himself. It will show his power and wrath and justice and mercy in a way that
could not otherwise be demonstrated. Certainly in our own human experience it is
possible to do something that causes us great sorrow but which we know will result
in long-term greater good. And so, after this faint human analogy, we may somewhat
understand that God can decree something that causes him sorrow yet ultimately will
further his glory.
F. Practical Application of the Doctrine of Election
In terms of our own relationship with God, the doctrine of election does have signifi-
cant practical application. When we think of the biblical teaching on both election and
reprobation, it is appropriate to apply it to our own lives individually. It is right for each
Christian to ask of himself or herself, “Why am I a Christian? What is the final reason
why God decided to save me?”
The doctrine of election tells us that I am a Christian simply because God in eternity
past decided to set his love on me. But why did he decide to set his love on me? Not for
anything good in me, but simply because he decided to love me. There is no more ulti-
mate reason than that.
CHAPTER 32 • ELECTION AND REPROBATION
687
It humbles us before God to think in this way. It makes us realize that we have no
claim on God s grace whatsoever. Our salvation is totally due to grace alone. Our only
appropriate response is to give God eternal praise.
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. Do you think that God chose you individually to be saved before he created the
world? Do you think he did it on the basis of the fact that he knew you would
believe in Christ, or was it “unconditional election,” not based on anything that he
foresaw in you that made you worthy of his love? No matter how you answered the
previous question, explain how your answer makes you feel when you think about
yourself in relationship to God.
2. Does the doctrine of election give you any comfort or assurance about your
future?
3. After reading this chapter, do you honestly feel that you would like to give thanks
or praise to God for choosing you to be saved? Do you sense any unfairness in the
fact that God did not decide to save everyone?
4. If you agree with the doctrine of election as presented in this chapter, does it dimin-
ish your sense of individual personhood or make you feel somewhat like a robot or
a puppet in Gods hands? Do you think it should make you feel this way?
5. What effect do you think this chapter will have on your motivation for evangelism?
Is this a positive or negative effect? Can you think of ways in which the doctrine
of election can be used as a positive encouragement to evangelism (see 1 Thess.
1:4-5; 2 Tim. 2:10)?
6. Whether you adopt a Reformed or Arminian perspective on the question of elec-
tion, can you think of some positive benefits in the Christian life that those who
hold the opposite position from yours seem more frequently to experience than you
do? Even though you do not agree with the other position, can you list some helpful
concerns or practical truths about the Christian life that you might learn from that
position? Is there anything that Calvinists and Arminians could do to bring about
greater understanding and less division on this question?
SPECIAL TERMS
determinism
election
fatalism
foreknowledge
predestination
reprobation
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
688
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter 1,
pp. 38-39. Complete bibliographical data maybe found on pp. 1224-30.)
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1930 Thomas, 236 - 57
1882-92 Litton, 351-63
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1847
Finney, 481-515
1875-76
Pope, 2:363-67
1892-94
Miley, 2:254-308
1940
Wiley, 2:335-57
1983-
Cottrell, 2:331 -502
3. Baptist
1767
Gill, 1:251-88, 300-306
1887
Boyce, 341-67
1907
Strong, 779-90
1917
Mullins, 338-358
1976-83
Henry, 6:76-107
1983-85
Erickson, 907-28
4. Dispensational
1947
Chafer, 3:165-82
1949
Thiessen, 257-63
1986
Ryrie, 310-18
5. Lutheran
1917-24
Pieper, 3:473 - 506
1934
Mueller, 585-612
6. Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1559
Calvin, 2:920-86 (3.21-24)
1861
Heppe, 150-89
1871-73
Hodge, 2:313-53
1878
Dabney, 223-46
1887-1921
Warfield, BTS, 270-333; SSW, 1:103-11, 285-98; BD, 3-70;
PS, 13-112
1937-66
Murray, CW, 1:119-23; CW, 2:123-31;
RAA, 79-87
1938
Berkhof, 109-25
1962
Buswell, 2:133-56
CHAPTER 32 • ELECTION AND REPROBATION
7. Renewal (or charismatic/Pentecostal)
1988-92 Williams, 2:13-22
689
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
1. Roman Catholic: Traditional
1955 Ott, 242-46
2. Roman Catholic: Post-Vatican II
1980 McBrien (no explicit treatment)
Other Works
Basinger, David, and Randall Basinger, eds. Predestination and Free Will. Downers Grove,
111.: InterVarsity Press, 1985.
Berkouwer, G. C. Divine Election. Trans, by Hugo Bekker. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1960.
Carson, D. A. Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility: Biblical Perspectives in Tension.
Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1981.
Coppedge, Allan. John Wesley in Theological Debate. Wilmore, Ky.: Wesley Heritage Press,
1987.
Feinberg, John S. “God Ordains All Things.” In Predestination and Free Will: Four Views
of Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom. David Basinger & Randall Basinger, eds.
Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press, 1986.
Godfrey, William R. “Predestination.” In NDT, pp. 528-30.
Klein, William W. The New Chosen People: A Corporate View of Election. Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 1990.
Klooster, F. H. “Elect, Election.” In EDT, pp. 348-49.
Nettles, Thomas. By His Grace and for His Glory: A Historical, Theological and Practical
Study of the Doctrines of Grace in Baptist Life. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House,
1986.
Packer, J. I. “Election.” In IBD, Vol. 1, pp. 435-38.
Pinnock, Clark H., ed. Grace Unlimited. Minneapolis: Bethany, 1975.
. The Grace of God, the Will of Man: A Case for Arminianism. Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 1989.
Piper, John. The Justification of God: An Exegetical and Theological Study of Romans 9:1 -23.
Grand Rapids: Baker, 1983.
Poythress, Vern. Using Multiple Thematic Centers in Theological Synthesis: Holiness as
a Test Case in Developing a Pauline Theology.” Unpublished manuscript available
from the Campus Bookstore, Westminster Theological Seminary, P.O. Box 27009,
Philadelphia, PA, 19118 (a study on Pauline themes used to describe the application
of redemption).
Reid, W. S. “Reprobation.” In EDT, p. 937.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
690
Schreiner, Thomas, and Bruce Ware, editors. Still Sovereign: Contemporary Perspectives on
Election , Foreknowledge , and Grace . Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000.
Shank, R. Elect in the Son: A Study of the Doctrine of Election. Springfield, Mo.: Westcott,
1970.
Sproul, R. C. Chosen by God. Wheaton, 111.: Tyndale, 1986.
Steele, David N. and Curtis C. Thomas. The Five Points of Calvinism — Defined , Defended ,
Documented. International Library of Philosophy and Theology: Biblical and Theo-
logical Studies, ed. J. Marcellus Kik. Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed,
1963.
Storms, C. Samuel. Chosen for Life: An Introductory Guide to the Doctrine of Divine Election.
Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987.
Warfield, B. B. The Plan of Salvation. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1942.
. “Predestination.” In Biblical and Theological Studies. Philadelphia: Presbyterian and
Reformed, 1952.
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
Ephesians 1:3-6: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ , who has blessed us
in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before
the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him . He destined us
in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise
of his glorious grace which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.
HYMN
“When This Passing World Is Done”
This hymn reminds us that when we are once in heaven and look back on our life we
will realize how much more we owe to God’s mercy and grace than we ever realized in
this life. The last stanza especially emphasizes the fact that our election is not based on
anything good in ourselves: “Chosen not for good in me.”
When this passing world is done.
When has sunk yon glaring sun,
When we stand with Christ in glory,
Looking o’er life’s finished story,
Then, Lord, shall I fully know.
Not till then, how much I owe.
When I hear the wicked call
On the rocks and hills to fall,
When I see them start to shrink
On the fiery deluge brink,
Then, Lord, shall I fully know,
Not till then, how much I owe.
CHAPTER 32 * ELECTION AND REPROBATION
691
When I stand before the throne,
Dressed in beauty not my own,
When I see thee as thou art,
Love thee with unsinning heart,
Then, Lord, shall I fully know,
Not till then, how much I owe.
When the praise of heav’n I hear,
Loud as thunders to the ear,
Loud as many waters’ noise,
Sweet as harp’s melodious voice,
Then, Lord, shall I fully know,
Not till then, how much I owe.
Chosen not for good in me,
Wakened up from wrath to flee,
Hidden in the Savior’s side,
By the Spirit sanctified,
Teach me, Lord, on earth to show,
By my love, how much I owe.
AUTHOR: ROBERT MURRAY MCCHEYNE, 1837
Chapter
THE GOSPEL CALL AND
EFFECTIVE CALLING
What is the gospel message?
How does it become effective?
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
When Paul talks about the way that God brings salvation into our lives, he says,
“Those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified;
and those whom he justified he also glorified” (Rom. 8:30). Here Paul points to a defi-
nite order in which the blessings of salvation come to us. Although long ago, before the
world was made, God “predestined” us to be his children and to be conformed to the
image of his Son, Paul points to the fact that in the actual outworking of his purpose in
our lives God “called” us (here in this context, God the Father is specifically in view).
Then Paul immediately lists justification and glorification, showing that these come after
calling. Paul indicates that there is a definite order in God’s saving purpose (though not
every aspect of our salvation is mentioned here). So we will begin our discussion of the
different parts of our experience of salvation with the topic of calling.
A. Effective Calling
When Paul says, “Those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he
called he also justified” (Rom. 8:30), he indicates that calling is an act of God. In fact,
it is specifically an act of God the Father, for he is the one who predestines people “to
be conformed to the image of his Son” (Rom. 8:29). Other verses describe more fully
what this calling is. When God calls people in this powerful way, he calls them “out of
darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9); he calls them “into the fellowship of his
Son” (1 Cor. 1:9; cf. Acts 2:39) and “into his own kingdom and glory” (1 Thess. 2:12; cf.
1 Peter 5:10; 2 Peter 1:3). People who have been called by God “belong to Jesus Christ”
(Rom. 1:6). They are called to “be saints” (Rom. 1:7; 1 Cor. 1:2), and have come into a
692
CHAPTER 33 • THE GOSPEL CALL
693
realm of peace (1 Cor. 7:15; Col. 3:15), freedom (Gal. 5:13), hope (Eph. 1:18; 4:4), holi-
ness (1 Thess. 4:7), patient endurance of suffering (1 Peter 2:20-21; 3:9), and eternal life
(1 Tim. 6:12).
These verses indicate that no powerless, merely human calling is in view. This call-
ing is rather a kind of “summons” from the King of the universe and it has such power
that it brings about the response that it asks for in people’s hearts. It is an act of God that
guarantees a response, because Paul specifies in Romans 8:30 that all who were “called”
were also “justified.” 1 This calling has the capacity to draw us out of the kingdom of
darkness and bring us into God’s kingdom so we can join in full fellowship with him:
“God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our
Lord” (1 Cor. 1:9). 2
This powerful act of God is often referred to as effective calling, to distinguish it from
the general gospel invitation that goes to all people and which some people reject. This
is not to say that human gospel proclamation is not involved. In fact, God’s effective
calling comes through the human preaching of the gospel, because Paul says, “To this he
called you through our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ”
(2 Thess. 2:14). Of course, there are many who hear the general call of the gospel message
and do not respond. But in some cases the gospel call is made so effective by the work-
ing of the Holy Spirit in people’s hearts that they do respond; we can say that they have
received “effective calling.” 3
We may define effective calling as follows: Effective calling is an act of God the Father,
speaking through the human proclamation of the gospel, in which he summons people to
himself in such a way that they respond in saving faith.
It is important that we not give the impression that people will be saved by the power
of this call apart from their own willing response to the gospel (see chapter 35 on the
personal faith and repentance that are necessary for conversion). Although it is true that
effective calling awakens and brings forth a response from us, we must always insist that
this response still has to be a voluntary, willing response in which the individual person
puts his or her trust in Christ.
This is why prayer is so important to effective evangelism. Unless God works in
peoples’ hearts to make the proclamation of the gospel effective, there will be no genu-
ine saving response. Jesus said, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me
draws him” (John 6:44).
An example of the gospel call working effectively is seen in Paul’s first visit to Philippi.
When Lydia heard the gospel message, “The Lord opened her heart to give heed to what
was said by Paul” (Acts 16:14).
In distinction from effective calling, which is entirely an act of God, we may talk about
the gospel call in general which comes through human speech. This gospel call is offered
'See the discussion of justification in chapter 36. 3 The older term used for “effective calling” was “effectual
2 1 Thess. 2:12 speaks of God “who calls you into his own calling,” but the term effectual is not as commonly used in
kingdom and glory,” but the sense would even more closely English today,
parallel 1 Cor. 1:9 if we adopt the well-attested textual variant
kalesantos (aorist participle) and translated,“who has called
you into his own kingdom and glory.”
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
694
to all people, even those who do not accept it. Sometimes this gospel call is referred to as
external calling or general calling. By contrast, the effective calling of God that actually
brings about a willing response from the person who hears it is sometimes called internal
calling . The gospel call is general and external and often rejected, while the effective call is
particular, internal, and always effective. However, this is not to diminish the importance
of the gospel call — it is the means God has appointed through which effective calling
will come. Without the gospel call, no one could respond and be saved! “How are they to
believe in him of whom they have never heard?” (Rom. 10:14). Therefore it is important
to understand exactly what the gospel call is.
B. The Elements of the Gospel Call
In human preaching of the gospel, three important elements must be included.
1. Explanation of the Facts Concerning Salvation. Anyone who comes to Christ for
salvation must have at least a basic understanding of who Christ is and how he meets
our needs for salvation. Therefore an explanation of the facts concerning salvation must
include at least the following:
1. All people have sinned (Rom. 3:23).
2. The penalty for our sin is death (Rom. 6:23).
3. Jesus Christ died to pay the penalty for our sins (Rom. 5:8).
But understanding those facts and even agreeing that they are true is not enough for a
person to be saved. There must also be an invitation for a personal response on the part
of the individual who will repent of his or her sins and trust personally in Christ.
2. Invitation to Respond to Christ Personally in Repentance and Faith. When the
New Testament talks about people coming to salvation it speaks in terms of a personal
response to an invitation from Christ himself. That invitation is beautifully expressed,
for example, in the words of Jesus:
Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take
my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and
you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
(Matt. 11:28-30 NIV)
It is important to make clear that these are not just words spoken a long time ago
by a religious leader in the past. Every non- Christian hearing these words should be
encouraged to think of them as words that Jesus Christ is even now, at this very moment,
speaking to him or to her individually. Jesus Christ is a Savior who is now alive in heaven,
and each non-Christian should think of Jesus as speaking directly to him or her, say-
ing, “Come to me . . . and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28). This is a genuine personal
invitation that seeks a personal response from each one who hears it.
John also talks about the need for personal response when he says, “He came to his
own home, and his own people received him not. But to all who received him, who believed
in his name, he gave power to become children of God” (John 1:11 - 12). In emphasizing
CHAPTER 33 • THE GOSPEL CALL
the need to “receive” Christ, John, too, points to the necessity of an individual response.
To those inside a lukewarm church who do not realize their spiritual blindness the Lord
Jesus again issues an invitation that calls for personal response: “Behold, I stand at the
door and knock; if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and
eat with him, and he with me” (Rev. 3:20).
Finally, just five verses from the end of the entire Bible, there is another invitation
from the Holy Spirit and the church to come to Christ: “The Spirit and the Bride say,
‘Come.’ And let him who hears say, ‘Come.’ And let him who is thirsty come, let him who
desires take the water of life without price” (Rev. 22:17).
But what is involved in coming to Christ? Although this will be explained more fully
in chapter 35, it is sufficient to note here that if we come to Christ and trust him to save us
from our sin, we cannot any longer cling to sin but must willingly renounce it in genuine
repentance. In some cases in Scripture both repentance and faith are mentioned together
when referring to someone’s initial conversion (Paul said that he spent his time “testifying
both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance to God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ,” Acts
20:21). But at other times only repentance of sins is named and saving faith is assumed as
an accompanying factor (“that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in
his name to all nations” [Luke 24:47; cf. Acts 2:37-38; 3:19; 5:31; 17:30; Rom. 2:4; 2 Cor.
7:10, et al.]). Therefore, any genuine gospel proclamation must include an invitation to
make a conscious decision to forsake one’s sins and come to Christ in faith, asking Christ
for forgiveness of sins. If either the need to repent of sins or the need to trust in Christ for
forgiveness is neglected, there is not a full and true proclamation of the gospel. 4
But what is promised for those who come to Christ? This is the third element of the
gospel call.
3. A Promise of Forgiveness and Eternal Life. Although the words of personal invitation
spoken by Christ do have promises of rest, and power to become children of God, and
partaking of the water of life, it is helpful to make explicit just what Christ promises to
those who come to him in repentance and faith. The primary thing that is promised in the
gospel message is the promise of forgiveness of sins and eternal life with God. “For God so
loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish
but have eternal life” (John 3:16). And in Peter’s preaching of the gospel he says, “Repent
therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out ” (Acts 3:19; cf. 2:38).
Coupled with the promise of forgiveness and eternal life should be an assurance that
Christ will accept all who come to him in sincere repentance and faith seeking salvation:
“Him who comes to me I will not cast out” (John 6:37).
C. The Importance of the Gospel Call
The doctrine of the gospel call is important, because if there were no gospel call we
could not be saved. “How are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?”
(Rom. 10:14).
4 See chapter 35, pp. 7 1 3 — 17, for a fuller discussion of the discussion of the question of whether someone can be saved by
need for both genuine repentance and genuine faith, and a “accepting Jesus as Savior but not as Lord.”
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
696
The gospel call is important also because through it God addresses us in the fullness
of our humanity. He does not save us “automatically” without seeking for a response
from us as whole persons. Rather, he addresses the gospel call to our intellects, our emo-
tions, and our wills. He speaks to our intellects by explaining the facts of salvation in his
Word. He speaks to our emotions by issuing a heartfelt personal invitation to respond.
He speaks to our wills by asking us to hear his invitation and respond willingly in repen-
tance and faith — to decide to turn from our sins and receive Christ as Savior and rest
our hearts in him for salvation.
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. Can you remember the first time you heard the gospel and responded to it? Can
you describe what it felt like in your heart? Do you think the Holy Spirit was work-
ing to make that gospel call effective in your life? Did you resist it at the time?
2. In your explanation of the gospel call to other people, have some elements been
missing? If so, what difference would it make if you added those elements to your
explanation of the gospel? Do you think those elements are important to add?
What is the one thing most needed to make your proclamation of the gospel more
effective?
3. Before reading this chapter, had you thought of Jesus in heaven speaking the words
of the gospel invitation personally to people even today? If non- Christians do begin
to think of Jesus speaking to them in this way, how do you think it will affect their
response to the gospel?
4. Do you understand the elements of the gospel call clearly enough to present them
to others? Could you easily turn in the Bible to find four or five appropriate verses
that would explain the gospel call clearly to people? (Memorizing the elements of
the gospel call and the verses that explain it should be one of the first disciplines of
anyone’s Christian life.)
SPECIAL TERMS
effective calling
external calling
the gospel call
internal calling
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter 1,
pp. 38-39. Complete bibliographical data maybe found on pp. 1224-30.)
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1882-92 Litton, 239-55
CHAPTER 33 • THE GOSPEL CALL
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1875-76 Pope, 336-57
1940 Wiley, 2:334 - 57
1960 Purkiser, 269- 78
3. Baptist
1767 Gill, 1:530-37; 2:121-31
1887 Boyce, 367-73
1907 Strong, 790- 93
1917 Mullins, 365 -68
1983 - 85 Erickson, 929 - 33
4. Dispensational
1947
1949
1986
5. Lutheran
1917-24
1934
Chafer, 3:210- 24, 371-93
Thiessen, 257-63
Ryrie, 324-25, 335-39
Pieper, 2:423-26, 502; 3:220-52
Mueller, 364-65, 470 -85
6. Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1559 Calvin, 1:537-42 (3.1)
1861 Heppe, 510-42
1871-73 Hodge, 2:639-732
1878 Dabney, 553 - 79
1937 -66 Murray, CW, 1:124-34, 143-65; CW, 2:161-66; CW,
4:113-32; RAA, 88-94
1938 Berkhof, 454-64
1962 Buswell, 2:157-68
7. Renewal (or charismatic/Pentecostal)
1988-92 Williams, 2:13-33
697
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
1. Roman Catholic: Traditional
1955 Ott (no explicit treatment)
2. Roman Catholic: Post-Vatican II
1980 McBrien (no explicit treatment)
Other Works
Aldrich, Joseph C. Life-Style Evangelism: Crossing Traditional Boundaries to Reach the Unbe-
lieving World. Portland: Multnomah, 1981.
Alleine, Joseph. Sure Guide to Heaven. Carlisle, Pa.: Banner of Truth, 1978. First published
in 1672 as An Alarm to the Unconverted.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
698
Baxter, Richard. A Call to the Unconverted to Turn and Live . Reprint: Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 1953.
Coleman, Robert E. The Master Plan of Evangelism. Old Tappan, N.J.: Revell, 1963.
Hoekema, Anthony A. Saved by Grace . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, and Exeter: Paternoster,
1989, pp. 68-92.
Kennedy, D. James. Evangelism Explosion . 3d ed. Wheaton, 111.: Tyndale, 1983.
Kevan, Ernest E Salvation. Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1973.
Little, Paul. How to Give Away Your Faith . Revised by Marie Little. Downers Grove, 111.:
InterVarsity Press, 1988.
MacArthur, John F., Jr. The Gospel According to Jesus. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1988.
Murray, John. “Effectual Calling” In Redemption Accomplished and Applied. Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1955, pp. 88-94.
Packer, J. I. “Call, Calling.” In EDT, p. 184.
. Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God. Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press,
1961.
Wells, David F. God the Evangelist: How the Holy Spirit Works to Bring Men and Women to
Faith. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987.
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
Matthew 11:28-30: Cometo me, allwho labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will
find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
HYMN
“I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say”
I heard the voice of Jesus say, “Come unto me and rest;
Lay down, thou weary one, lay down thy head upon my breast.”
I came to Jesus as I was, weary and worn and sad,
I found in him a resting place, and he has made me glad.
I heard the voice of Jesus say, “Behold, I freely give
The living water; thirsty one, stoop down and drink, and live ”
I came to Jesus, and I drank of that life-giving stream;
My thirst was quenched, my soul revived, and now I live in him.
I heard the voice of Jesus say, “I am this dark world’s light;
Look unto me, thy morn shall rise, and all thy day be bright.”
I looked to Jesus, and I found in him my star, my sun;
And in that light of life Y 11 walk, till traveling days are done.
AUTHOR: HORATIUS BONAR, 1846
Chapter
REGENERATION
What does it mean to be born again ?
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
We may define regeneration as follows: Regeneration is a secret act of God in which
he imparts new spiritual life to us . This is sometimes called “being born again” (using
language from John 3:3-8).
A. Regeneration Is Totally a Work of God
In some of the elements of the application of redemption that we discuss in subsequent
chapters, we play an active part (this is true, for example, of conversion, sanctification
and perseverance). But in the work of regeneration we play no active role at all. It is
instead totally a work of God. We see this, for example, when John talks about those to
whom Christ gave power to become children of God — they “were born, not of blood nor
of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:13). Here John specifies
that children of God are those who are “born ... of God” and our human will (“the will
of man”) does not bring about this kind of birth.
The fact that we are passive in regeneration is also evident when Scripture refers to it
as being “born” or being “born again” (cf. James 1:18; 1 Peter 1:3; John 3:3-8). We did
not choose to be made physically alive and we did not choose to be born — it is something
that happened to us; similarly, these analogies in Scripture suggest that we are entirely
passive in regeneration.
This sovereign work of God in regeneration was also predicted in the prophecy of Eze-
kiel. Through him God promised a time in the future when he would give new spiritual
life to his people:
A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take
out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put
my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to
observe my ordinances. (Ezek. 36:26-27)
699
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
700
Which member of the Trinity is the one who causes regeneration? When Jesus speaks
of being “born of the Spirit” (John 3:8), he indicates that it is especially God the Holy
Spirit who produces regeneration. But other verses also indicate the involvement of God
the Father in regeneration: Paul specifies that it is God who “made us alive together with
Christ” (Eph. 2:5; cf. Col. 2:13). And James says that it is the “Father of lights” who gave
us new birth: “Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth that we should
be a kind of first fruits of his creatures” (James 1:17- 18). 1 Finally, Peter says that God
“according to his abundant mercy has given us new birth . . . through the resurrection of
Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3, author’s translation). We can conclude that both
God the Father and God the Holy Spirit bring about regeneration.
What is the connection between effective calling 2 and regeneration? As we will see
later in this chapter, Scripture indicates that regeneration must come before we can
respond to effective calling with saving faith. Therefore we can say that regeneration
comes before the result of effective calling (our faith). But it is more difficult to specify
the exact relationship in time between regeneration and the human proclamation of the
gospel through which God works in effective calling. At least two passages suggest that
God regenerates us at the same time as he speaks to us in effective calling: Peter says,
“You have been born anew ; not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living
and abiding word of God. . . . That word is the good news which was preached to you”
(1 Peter 1:23, 25). And James says, “He chose to give us birth through the word of truth ”
(James 1:18 NIV). As the gospel comes to us, God speaks through it to summon us to
himself (effective calling) and to give us new spiritual life (regeneration) so that we are
enabled to respond in faith. Effective calling is thus God the Father speaking powerfully
to us, and regeneration is God the Father and God the Holy Spirit working powerfully in
us, to make us alive. These two things must have happened simultaneously as Peter was
preaching the gospel to the household of Cornelius, for while he was still preaching “the
Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word” (Acts 10:44).
Sometimes the term irresistible grace 3 is used in this connection. It refers to the fact
that God effectively calls people and also gives them regeneration, and both actions
guarantee that we will respond in saving faith. The term irresistible grace is subject to
misunderstanding, however, since it seems to imply that people do not make a voluntary,
willing choice in responding to the gospel — a wrong idea, and a wrong understanding of
the term irresistible grace. The term does preserve something valuable, however, because
it indicates that God’s work reaches into our hearts to bring about a response that is
absolutely certain — even though we respond voluntarily. 4
^hen James says that God “brought us forth,” he uses lan-
guage that ordinarily applies to physical birth (being brought
forth out of our mothers’ wombs, and into the world) and
applies it to spiritual birth.
2 See chapter 33, pp. 692-94, on effective calling.
3 This is the “I” in the “five points of Calvinism” repre-
sented by the acronym TULIP. The other letters stand for
Total depravity (see chapter 24, pp. 497-98), Unconditional
election (see chapter 32, pp. 676-79), Limited atonement
(see chapter 27, pp. 594-603), and Perseverance of the saints
(see chapter 40, pp. 788-803) See also p. 596, n. 35.
4 Some people will object here that God cannot guarantee
a response that is still willing and voluntary on our part. But
this objection simply inserts into the discussion a defini-
tion of “voluntary” or “willing” that is not itself supported
by Scripture; see discussion in chapter 16, pp. 320-22, 334,
340-47, on God’s providence in relation to our voluntary
decisions.
CHAPTER 34 ■ REGENERATION
B. The Exact Nature of Regeneration Is Mysterious to Us
Exactly what happens in regeneration is mysterious to us. We know that somehow we
who were spiritually dead (Eph. 2:1) have been made alive to God and in a very real sense
we have been “born again” (John 3:3, 7; Eph. 2:5; Col. 2:13). But we don’t understand
how this happens or what exactly God does to us to give us this new spiritual life. Jesus
says. The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know
whence it comes or whither it goes; so it is with every one who is born of the Spirit”
(John 3:8).
Scripture views regeneration as something that affects us as whole persons. Of course,
our “spirits are alive” to God after regeneration (Rom. 8:10), but that is simply because
we as whole persons are affected by regeneration. It is not just that our spirits were dead
before — we were dead to God in trespasses and sins (see Eph. 2:1). And it is not cor-
rect to say that the only thing that happens in regeneration is that our spirits are made
alive (as some would teach), 5 for every part of us is affected by regeneration: “If any one
is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come”
(2 Cor. 5:17).
Because regeneration is a work of God within us in which he gives us new life it is right
to conclude that it is an instantaneous event. It happens only once. At one moment we
are spiritually dead, and then at the next moment we have new spiritual life from God.
Nevertheless, we do not always know exactly when this instantaneous change occurs.
Especially for children growing up in a Christian home, or for people who attend an
evangelical church or Bible study over a period of time and grow gradually in their
understanding of the gospel, there may not be a dramatic crisis with a radical change
of behavior from hardened sinner” to “holy saint,” but there will be an instantaneous
change nonetheless, when God through the Holy Spirit, in an unseen, invisible way,
awakens spiritual life within. The change will become evident over time in patterns of
behavior and desires that are pleasing to God.
In other cases (in fact, probably most cases when adults become Christians) regenera-
tion takes place at a clearly recognizable time at which the person realizes that previously
he or she was separated from God and spiritually dead, but immediately afterward there
was clearly new spiritual life within. The results can usually be seen at once — a heartfelt
trusting in Christ for salvation, an assurance of sins forgiven, a desire to read the Bible
and pray (and a sense that these are meaningful spiritual activities), a delight in wor-
ship, a desire for Christian fellowship, a sincere desire to be obedient to God’s Word in
Scripture, and a desire to tell others about Christ. People may say something like this:
I don t know exactly what happened, but before that moment I did not trust in Christ
for salvation. I was still wondering and questioning in my mind. But after that moment
I realized that I did trust in Christ and he was my Savior. Something happened in my
5 This view of regeneration usually depends on viewing
man as trichotomous or consisting of three parts (body, soul,
and spirit), a position we discussed in chapter 23 above (pp.
472-83). But if we reject trichotomy and see “soul” and “spirit”
as synonyms in Scripture that speak of the immaterial part of
our nature, then such an explanation is not persuasive. Even for
those who accept trichotomy, the Scriptures that speak of us as a
new creation and that say that we have been born again (not just
our spirits), should be good reason for seeing more in regenera-
tion than merely making our spirits alive.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
702
heart.” 6 Yet even in these cases we are not quite sure exactly what has happened in our
hearts. It is just as Jesus said with respect to the wind — we hear its sound and we see the
result, but we cannot actually see the wind itself. So it is with the working of the Holy
Spirit in our hearts.
C. In This Sense of “Regeneration,” It Comes Before Saving Faith
Using the verses quoted above, we have defined regeneration to be the act of God
awakening spiritual life within us, bringing us from spiritual death to spiritual life. On
this definition, it is natural to understand that regeneration comes before saving faith.
It is in fact this work of God that gives us the spiritual ability to respond to God in faith.
However, when we say that it comes “before” saving faith, it is important to remember
that they usually come so close together that it will ordinarily seem to us that they are
happening at the same time. As God addresses the effective call of the gospel to us, he
regenerates us and we respond in faith and repentance to this call. So from our perspective
it is hard to tell any difference in time, especially because regeneration is a spiritual work
that we cannot perceive with our eyes or even understand with our minds.
Yet there are several passages that tell us that this secret, hidden work of God in our
spirits does in fact come before we respond to God in saving faith (though often it may
be only seconds before we respond). When talking about regeneration with Nicodemus,
Jesus said, “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of
God” (John 3:5). Now we enter the kingdom of God when we become Christians at
conversion. But Jesus says that we have to be born “of the Spirit” before we can do that. 7
Our inability to come to Christ on our own, without an initial work of God within us,
is also emphasized when Jesus says, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent
6 C. S. Lewis tells the story of his own conversion: “I know
very well when, but hardly how, the final step was taken. I was
driven to Whipsnade one sunny morning. When we set out I
did not believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and when
we reached the zoo I did. Yet I had not exactly spent the journey
in thought. Nor in great emotion” ( Surprised by Joy [New York:
Harcourt, Brace and World, 1955] , p. 237).
7 When Jesus talks about being “born of water” here, the
most likely interpretation of this is that he is referring to
spiritual cleansing from sin , which Ezekiel prophesied when he
said, “I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be
clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I
will cleanse you. A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit
I will put within you” (Ezek. 36:25-26). Here the water sym-
bolizes spiritual cleansing from sin, just as the new heart and
new spirit speak of the new spiritual life that God will give.
Ezekiel is prophesying that God will give an internal cleans-
ing from the pollution of sin in the heart at the same time as
he awakens new spiritual life within his people. The fact that
these two ideas are connected so closely in this well-known
prophecy from Ezekiel, and the fact that Jesus assumes that
Nicodemus should have understood this truth (“Are you a
teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand this?” [John
3:10]), together with the fact that throughout the conversa-
tion Jesus is talking about intensely spiritual concerns, all
suggest that this is the most likely understanding of the pas-
sage. Another suggestion has been that “born of water” refers to
physical birth and the “water” (or amniotic fluid) that accom-
panies it, but it would hardly be necessary for Jesus to specify
that one has to be born in this way when he is talking about
spiritual birth, and it is questionable whether first-century Jews
would have understood the phrase in this way either. Another
interpretation is that Jesus is referring to the water of baptism
here, but baptism or any other similar ceremony is not in view
in this passage (and it would have been anachronistic for Jesus
to speak of Christian baptism here, since that did not begin
until Pentecost); moreover, this would make Jesus teach that
a physical act of baptism is necessary for salvation, something
that would contradict the New Testament emphasis on salva-
tion by faith alone as necessary for salvation, and something
which, if it were true, we would certainly expect to find taught
much more explicitly in the other New Testament passages
that clearly deal with baptism (see chapter 49 on baptism).
CHAPTER 34 ■ REGENERATION
me draws him” (John 6:44), and “No one can come to me unless it is granted him by the
Father” (John 6:65). This inward act of regeneration is described beautifully when Luke
says of Lydia, “ The Lord opened her heart to give heed to what was said by Paul” (Acts
16:14). First the Lord opened her heart, then she was able to give heed to Paul’s preaching
and to respond in faith.
By contrast, Paul tells us, “The man without the Spirit [literally, the ‘natural man’]
does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to
him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor.
2:14 NIV). He also says of people apart from Christ, “no one understands. No one seeks
for God” (Rom. 3:11).
The solution to this spiritual deadness and inability to respond only comes when God
gives us new life within. “But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which
he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses , made us alive together with
Christ (Eph. 2:4—5). Paul also says, “ When you were dead in your sins and in the uncir-
cumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ” (Col. 2:13 NIV). 8
The idea that regeneration comes before saving faith is not always understood by
evangelicals today. Sometimes people will even say something like, “If you believe in
Christ as your Savior, then (after you believe) you will be born again.” But Scripture itself
never says anything like that. This new birth is viewed by Scripture as something that
God does within us in order to enable us to believe.
The reason that evangelicals often think that regeneration comes after saving faith is
that they see the results (love for God and his Word, and turning from sin) after people
come to faith, and they think that regeneration must therefore have come after saving
faith. Yet here we must decide on the basis of what Scripture tells us, because regeneration
itself is not something we see or know about directly: “The wind blows where it wills, and
you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes; so it is
with every one who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8).
Because Christians often tend to focus on the results of regeneration, rather than the
hidden spiritual act of God itself, some evangelical statements of faith have contained
wording that suggests that regeneration comes after saving faith. So, for example, the
statement of faith of the Evangelical Free Church of America (which has been adapted by
a number of other evangelical organizations) says,
We believe that the true Church is composed of all such persons who through
saving faith in Jesus Christ have been regenerated by the Holy Spirit and are
united together in the body of Christ of which He is the Head, (paragraph 8)
8 The RSV translates Col. 2:13 with a relative clause: “And
you, who were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your
flesh, God made alive together with him,” but the Greek text
has no relative pronoun ( hous ), which Paul could easily have
used, but rather has a participial phrase with the present par-
ticiple ontas, “being,” giving a nuance of continuing activity
that occurred at the same time that the action of the main verb
(“made alive”) took place. Thus, the NIV expresses the appro-
priate sense: at the time when we were continuing in the state of
being dead in our sins, God made us alive. No matter whether
we translate the participle as concessive, causative, or expressing
attendant circumstances, or with any other sense possible to the
participle, this temporal nuance of time simultaneous with the
main verb would still be present as well. Yet the NIV, in trans-
lating it as an explicitly temporal participle (“when you were
dead”) seems to have given the best rendering of the intended
sense of the verse.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
Here the word “regeneration” apparently means the outward evidence of regeneration
that is seen in a changed life, evidence that certainly does come after saving faith. Thus
“being born again” is thought of not in terms of the initial impartation of new life, but
in terms of the total life change that results from that impartation. If the term “regenera-
tion” is understood in this way, then it would be true that regeneration comes after saving
faith.
Nevertheless, if we are to use language that closely conforms to the actual wording
of Scripture, it would be better to restrict the word “regeneration” to the instantaneous,
initial work of God in which he imparts spiritual life to us. Then we can emphasize that
we do not see regeneration itself but only the results of it in our lives, and that faith in
Christ for salvation is the first result that we see. In fact, we can never know that we have
been regenerated until we come to faith in Christ, for that is the outward evidence of this
hidden, inward work of God. Once we do come to saving faith in Christ, we know that
we have been born again.
By way of application, we should realize that the explanation of the gospel message in
Scripture does not take the form of a command, “Be born again and you will be saved,”
but rather, Believe in Jesus Christ and you will be saved.” 9 This is the consistent pattern
in the preaching of the gospel throughout the book of Acts, and also in the descriptions
of the gospel given in the Epistles.
D. Genuine Regeneration Must Bring Results in Life
In an earlier section we saw a beautiful example of the first result of regeneration
in a person’s life, when Paul spoke the gospel message to Lydia and “the Lord opened
her heart to give heed to what was said by Paul” (Acts 16:14; cf. John 6:44, 65; 1 Peter
1:3). Similarly, John says, “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God ”
(1 John 5:1 NIV). 10 But there are also other results of regeneration, many of which are
specified in John’s first epistle. For example, John says, “No one who is born of God will
continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning , because he
has been born of God” (1 John 3:9 NIV). Here John explains that a person who is born
again has that spiritual “seed” (that life-generating and growing power) within him, and
that this keeps the person living a life free of continual sin. This does not of course mean
that the person will have a perfect life, but only that the pattern of life will not be one
of continuing indulgence in sin. When people are asked to characterize a regenerated
person s life, the adjective that comes to mind should not be “sinner,” but rather some-
thing like “obedient to Christ” or “obedient to Scripture.” We should notice that John
says this is true of everyone who is truly born again: “No one who is born of God will
9 It is true that Jesus tells Nicodemus that he needs to
be born again (John 3:7: “Do not marvel that I said to you,
‘You must be born anew’”), but this is not a command to
Nicodemus to do something that no one can ever do (that is,
give himself new spiritual life). It is an indicative sentence, not
an imperative sentence. It is a statement of fact designed to point
out to Nicodemus his total spiritual need and lack of ability on
his own to enter the kingdom of God. A little later, when Jesus
begins to speak about the response that is expected from Nico-
demus, he speaks about the personal response of faith as the
thing necessary: “So must the Son of man be lifted up, that who-
ever believes in him may have eternal life” (John 3:14- 15).
10 The perfect participle translated here “is born” could
more explicitly be translated “has been born and continues in
the new life that resulted from that event.”
CHAPTER 34 * REGENERATION
705
continue to sin.” Another way of looking at this is to say that “every one who does what
is right has been born of him” (1 John 2:29).
A genuine, Christlike love will be one specific result in life: “Everyone who loves has
been born of God and knows God” (1 John 4:7 NIV). Another effect of the new birth is
overcoming the world: “And his commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God
has overcome the world” (1 John 5:3-4 NIV). Here John explains that regeneration gives
the ability to overcome the pressures and temptations of the world that would otherwise
keep us from obeying God’s commandments and following his paths. John says that we
will overcome these pressures and therefore it will not be “burdensome” to obey God’s
commands but, he implies, it will rather be joyful. He goes on to explain that the process
through which we gain victory over the world is continuing in faith: “This is the victory
that has overcome the world, even our faith” (1 John 5:4 NIV).
Finally, John notes that another result of regeneration is protection from Satan himself:
“We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin; the one who was born of
God [that is, Jesus] keeps him safe, and the evil one cannot harm him ” (1 John 5:18 NIV).
Though there may be attacks from Satan, John reassures his readers that “the one who is in
you is greater than the one who is in the world” (1 John 4:4 NIV), and this greater power
of the Holy Spirit within us keeps us safe from ultimate spiritual harm by the evil one.
We should realize that John emphasizes these as necessary results in the lives of those
who are born again. If there is genuine regeneration in a person’s life, he or she will
believe that Jesus is the Christ, and will refrain from a life pattern of continual sin, and
will love his brother, and will overcome the temptations of the world, and will be kept
safe from ultimate harm by the evil one. These passages show that it is impossible for a
person to be regenerated and not become truly converted. 11
Other results of regeneration are listed by Paul where he speaks of the “ fruit of the
Spirit that is, the result in life that is produced by the power of the Holy Spirit working
within every believer: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Gal. 5:22-23). If there is true regen-
eration then these elements of the fruit of the Spirit will be more and more evident in
that person’s life. But by contrast, those who are unbelievers, including those who are
pretending to be believers but are not, will clearly lack of these character traits in their
lives. Jesus told his disciples:
Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are
ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from
thorns, or figs from thistles? So, every sound tree bears good fruit, but the bad
tree bears evil fruit. A sound tree cannot bear evil fruit, nor can a bad tree bear
good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into
the fire. Thus you will know them by their fruits. (Matt. 7:15-20)
Neither Jesus nor Paul nor John point to activity in the church or miracles as evidence
of regeneration. They rather point to character traits in life. In fact, immediately after
n Since we indicated above that a person is first regenerated, love, etc.) are not yet seen. But John is saying that the results
and then subsequently comes to saving faith, there will be a brief will follow; they are inevitable once someone is born again,
time in which someone is regenerated and the results (faith,
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
706
the verses quoted above Jesus warns that on the day of judgment many will say to him,
“Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name,
and do many mighty works in your name?” But he will declare to them, “I never knew
you; depart from me, you evildoers” (Matt. 7:22-23). Prophecy, exorcism, and many
miracles and mighty works in Jesus’ name (to say nothing of other kinds of intensive
church activity in the strength of the flesh over perhaps decades of a persons life) do not
provide convincing evidence that a person is truly born again. Apparently all these can
be produced in the natural man or woman’s own strength, or even with the help of the
evil one. But genuine love for God and his people, heartfelt obedience to his commands,
and the Christlike character traits that Paul calls the fruit of the Spirit, demonstrated
consistently over a period of time in a person’s life, simply cannot be produced by Satan or
by the natural man or woman working in his or her own strength. These can only come
about by the Spirit of God working within and giving us new life.
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. Have you been born again? Is there evidence of the new birth in your life? Do
you remember a specific time when regeneration occurred in your life? Can you
describe how you knew that something had happened?
2 . If you (or friends who come to you) are not sure whether you have been born again,
what would Scripture encourage you to do in order to gain greater assurance (or to
be truly born again for the first time) ? (Note : further discussion of repentance and
saving faith is given in the next chapter.)
3. Have you thought before that regeneration is prior to saving faith? Are you
convinced of it now, or is there still some question in your mind?
4. What do you think about the fact that your regeneration was totally a work of God,
and that you contributed nothing to it? How does it make you feel toward yourself?
How does it make you feel toward God? By way of analogy, how do you feel about
the fact that when you were born physically you had no choice in the matter?
5. Are there areas where the results of regeneration are not very clearly seen in your
own life? Do you think it is possible for a person to be regenerated and then stag-
nate spiritually so that there is little or no growth? What circumstances might a
person live in that would lead to such spiritual stagnation and lack of growth (if
that is possible), even though the person was truly born again? To what degree does
the kind of church one attends, the teaching one receives, the kind of Christian
fellowship one has, and the regularity of one’s personal time of Bible reading and
prayer, affect one’s own spiritual life and growth?
6. If regeneration is entirely a work of God and human beings can do nothing to
bring it about, then what good does it do to preach the gospel to people at all? Is it
somewhat absurd or even cruel to preach the gospel and ask for a response from
people who cannot respond because they are spiritually dead? How do you resolve
this question?
CHAPTER 34 • REGENERATION
707
SPECIAL TERMS
born again irresistible grace
born of the Spirit regeneration
born of water
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter 1,
pp. 38-39. Complete bibliographical data maybe found on pp. 1224-30.)
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1882 -92 Litton, 320-28
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1847 Finney, 282-364
1892-94 Miley, 2:327-36
1960 Purkiser, 292-97
3. Baptist
1767 Gill, 2:107-21
1887 Boyce, 373-82
1907 Strong, 809-29
1917 Mullins, 385-89
1983 - 85 Erickson, 932 - 33, 942 - 46
4. Dispensational
1947 Chafer, 6:104-21
1949 Thiessen, 271-76
1986 Ryrie, 325-26
5. Lutheran
1917-24 Pieper, 2:498-501
1934 Mueller, 363-64
6. Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1559 Calvin, 1:592-621 (3.3)
1724-58 Edwards, 543-65, 849-55
1861 Heppe, 518-27
1871-73 Hodge, 2:682-732; 3:3-40
1878 Dabney, 579- 99
1887- 1921 Warfield, BTS, 351-74; SSW, 2:321 -24
1889 Shedd, 2b, 490-528
1937 -66 Murray, CW, 2:167-201; RAA, 95-105
1938 Berkhof, 465-79
1962 Buswell, 2:168-75
7. Renewal (or charismatic/Pentecostal)
1988-92 Williams, 2:35-59
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
708
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
1. Roman Catholic: Traditional
1955 Ott, 219-49
2. Roman Catholic: Post-Vatican II
1980 McBrien, 2:991 - 1005
Other Works
Hoekema, Anthony A. “Regeneration.” In Saved by Grace. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, and
Exeter: Paternoster, 1989, pp. 93-1 12.
Kevan, E. F. Salvation. Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1973.
Packer, J. I. “Regeneration.” In EDT, pp. 924-26.
Toon, Peter. Born Again: A Biblical and Theological Study of Regeneration. Grand Rapids:
Baker, 1987.
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
John 3:5-8: Jesus answered , “Truly, truly ; I say to you , unless one is born of water and the
Spirit , he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that
which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, You must be born anew
The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it
comes or whither it goes; so it is with every one who is born of the Spirit”
HYMN
“I Sought the Lord, and Afterward I Knew”
This hymn beautifully expresses thanks to God for the fact that, though we did not
know it, he sought us, worked in our hearts in a mysterious way, and enabled us to
believe, before we came to trust in him.
I sought the Lord, and afterward I knew
He moved my soul to seek him, seeking me;
It was not I that found, O Savior true,
No, I was found of thee.
Thou didst reach forth thy hand and mine enfold;
I walked and sank not on the storm-vexed sea,
’Twas not so much that I on thee took hold,
As thou, dear Lord, on me.
I find, I walk, I love, but, O the whole
Of love is but my answer, Lord, to thee;
For thou wert long beforehand with my soul,
Always thou lovedst me.
ANON., C. 1904
/-x
Chapter
CONVERSION
(FAITH AND REPENTANCE)
What is true repentance? What is saving faith?
Can people accept Jesus as Savior and not as Lord?
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
The last two chapters have explained how God himself (through the human preaching
of the Word) issues the gospel call to us and, by the work of the Holy Spirit, regenerates
us, imparting new spiritual life within. In this chapter we examine our response to the
gospel call. We may define conversion as follows: Conversion is our willing response to the
gospel call, in which we sincerely repent of sins and place our trust in Christ for salvation.
The word conversion itself means “turning” — here it represents a spiritual turn, a
turning from sin to Christ. The turning from sin is called repentance, and the tur nin g
to Christ is called faith. We can look at each of these elements of conversion, and in one
sense it does not matter which one we discuss first, for neither one can occur without the
other, and they must occur together when true conversion takes place. For the purposes
of this chapter, we shall examine saving faith first, and then repentance.
A. True Saving Faith Includes Knowledge, Approval,
and Personal Trust
1. Knowledge Alone Is Not Enough. Personal saving faith, in the way Scripture under-
stands it, involves more than mere knowledge. Of course it is necessary that we have some
knowledge of who Christ is and what he has done, for “how are they to believe in him of
whom they have never heard?” (Rom. 10:14). But knowledge about the facts of Jesus’ life,
death, and resurrection for us is not enough, for people can know facts but rebel against
them or dislike them. For example, Paul tells us that many people know God’s laws but
dislike them: Though they know God’s decree that those who do such things deserve
to die, they not only do them but approve those who practice them” (Rom. 1:32). Even
the demons know who God is and know the facts about Jesus’ life and saving works, for
709
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
710
James says, “You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe — and
shudder” (James 2:19). But that knowledge certainly does not mean that the demons
are saved.
2. Knowledge and Approval Are Not Enough. Moreover, merely knowing the facts and
approving of them or agreeing that they are true is not enough. Nicodemus knew that
Jesus had come from God, for he said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come
from God; for no one can do these signs that you do, unless God is with him” (John 3:2).
Nicodemus had evaluated the facts of the situation, including Jesus’ teaching and his
remarkable miracles, and had drawn a correct conclusion from those facts: Jesus was a
teacher come from God. But this alone did not mean that Nicodemus had saving faith,
for he still had to put his trust in Christ for salvation; he still had to “believe in him.”
King Agrippa provides another example of knowledge and approval without saving faith.
Paul realized that King Agrippa knew and apparently viewed with approval the Jewish
Scriptures (what we now call the Old Testament). When Paul was on trial before Agrippa,
he said, “King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know that you believe ” (Acts 26:27).
Yet Agrippa did not have saving faith, for he said to Paul, “In a short time you think to
make me a Christian!” (Acts 26:28).
3. 1 Must Decide to Depend on Jesus to Save Me Personally. In addition to knowledge of
the facts of the gospel and approval of those facts, in order to be saved, I must decide to
depend on Jesus to save me. In doing this I move from being an interested observer of the
facts of salvation and the teachings of the Bible to being someone who enters into a new
relationship with Jesus Christ as a living person. We may therefore define saving faith in
the following way: Saving faith is trust in Jesus Christ as a living person for forgiveness of
sins and for eternal life with God.
This definition emphasizes that saving faith is not just a belief in facts but personal
trust in Jesus to save me. As we will explain in the following chapters, much more is
involved in salvation than simply forgiveness of sins and eternal life, but someone who
initially comes to Christ seldom realizes the extent of the blessings of salvation that will
come. Moreover, we may rightly summarize the two major concerns of a person who
trusts in Christ as “forgiveness of sins” and “eternal life with God.” Of course, eternal
life with God involves such matters as a declaration of righteousness before God (part of
justification, as explained in the next chapter), adoption, sanctification, and glorifica-
tion, but these things may be understood in detail later. The main thing that concerns
an unbeliever who comes to Christ is the fact that sin has separated him or her from the
fellowship with God for which we were made. The unbeliever comes to Christ seeking to
have sin and guilt removed and to enter into a genuine relationship with God that will
last forever.
The definition emphasizes personal trust in Christ, not just belief in facts about
Christ. Because saving faith in Scripture involves this personal trust, the word “trust”
is a better word to use in contemporary culture than the word “faith” or “belief.” The
reason is that we can “believe” something to be true with no personal commitment or
dependence involved in it. I can believe that Canberra is the capital of Australia, or that
CHAPTER 35 • CONVERSION (FAITH AND REPENTANCE)
711
7 times 6 is 42, but have no personal commitment or dependence on anyone when I
simply believe those facts. The word faith, on the other hand, is sometimes used today to
refer to an almost irrational commitment to something in spite of strong evidence to the
contrary, a sort of irrational decision to believe something that we are quite sure is not
true! (If your favorite football team continues to lose games, someone might encourage
you to “have faith” even though all the facts point the opposite direction.) In these two
popular senses, the word “belief” and the word “faith” have a meaning contrary to the
biblical sense. 1
The word trust is closer to the biblical idea, since we are familiar with trusting persons
in everyday life. The more we come to know a person, and the more we see in that person
a pattern of life that warrants trust, the more we find ourselves able to place trust in that
person to do what he or she promises, or to act in ways that we can rely on. This fuller
sense of personal trust is indicated in several passages of Scripture in which initial sav-
ing faith is spoken of in very personal terms, often using analogies drawn from personal
relationships. John says, “To all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave
power to become children of God” (John 1:12). Much as we would receive a guest into
our homes, John speaks of receiving Christ.
John 3:16 tells us that “whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
Here John uses a surprising phrase when he does not simply say, “whoever believes him”
(that is, believes that what he says is true and able to be trusted), but rather, “whoever
believes in him.” The Greek phrase pisteud eis auton could also be translated “believe into
him with the sense of trust or confidence that goes into and rests in Jesus as a person.
Leon Morris can say, “Faith, for John, is an activity which takes men right out of them-
selves and makes them one with Christ.” He understands the Greek phrase pisteud eis
to be a significant indication that New Testament faith is not just intellectual assent but
includes a “moral element of personal trust.” 2 Such an expression was rare or perhaps
nonexistent in the secular Greek found outside the New Testament, but it was well suited
to express the personal trust in Christ that is involved in saving faith.
Jesus speaks of “coming to him” in several places. He says, “All that the Father gives
me will come to me; and him who comes to me I will not cast out” (John 6:37). He also
says, “If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink” (John 7:37). In a similar way, he
says, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my
yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find
rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matt. 11:28-30). In
these passages we have the idea of coming to Christ and asking for acceptance, for liv-
ing water to drink, and for rest and instruction. All of these give an intensely personal
picture of what is involved in saving faith. The author of Hebrews also asks us to think
*Of course, the words believe /belief and faith occur fre-
quently in the Bible, and we should not completely give up
using them in a proper biblical sense just because our culture
sometimes gives them an incorrect sense. My point is simply
that when explaining the gospel to an unbeliever, the word trust
seems to be most likely to convey the biblical sense today.
2 Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John , p. 336, with
reference to the longer discussion by C. H. Dodd, The Interpre-
tation of the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1953), pp. 179-86, and a note that Dodd finds no paral-
lel to the use of pisteud followed by the preposition eis , to refer
to trust in a person, in secular Greek. The expression rather is
a literal translation of the expression “to believe in” from the
Hebrew Old Testament.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
712
of Jesus as now alive in heaven, ready to receive us: “He is able for all time to save those
who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them”
(Heb. 7:25). Jesus is pictured here (as many times in the New Testament) as one who is
now alive in heaven, always able to help those who come to him.
Reformed theologian J. I. Packer quotes the following paragraphs from the British Puri-
tan writer John Owen, describing the invitation of Christ to respond in personal faith:
This is somewhat of the word which he now speaks unto you: Why will ye die?
why will ye perish? why will ye not have compassion on your own souls? Can
your hearts endure, or can your hands be strong, in the day of wrath that is
approaching? . . . Look unto me, and be saved; come unto me, and I will ease
you of all sins, sorrows, fears, burdens, and give rest to your souls. Come, I
entreat you; lay aside all procrastinations, all delays; put me off no more; eter-
nity lies at the door ... do not so hate me as that you will rather perish than
accept of deliverance by me.
These and the like things doth the Lord Christ continually declare, proclaim,
plead and urge upon the souls of sinners. ... He doth it in the preaching of the
word, as if he were present with you, stood amongst you, and spake personally
to every one of you. ... He hath appointed the ministers of the gospel to appear
before you, and to deal with you in his stead, avowing as his own the invitations
which are given you in his name. (2 Cor. 5:19-20) 3
With this understanding of true New Testament faith, we may now appreciate that
when a person comes to trust in Christ, all three elements must be present. There must
be some basic knowledge or understanding of the facts of the gospel. There must also be
approval of, or agreement with, these facts. Such agreement includes a conviction that
the facts spoken of the gospel are true, especially the fact that I am a sinner in need of
salvation and that Christ alone has paid the penalty for my sin and offers salvation to
me. It also includes an awareness that I need to trust in Christ for salvation and that he is
the only way to God, and the only means provided for my salvation. This approval of the
facts of the gospel will also involve a desire to be saved through Christ. But all this still
does not add up to true saving faith. That comes only when I make a decision of my will
to depend on, or put my trust in, Christ as my Savior. This personal decision to place my
trust in Christ is something done with my heart, the central faculty of my entire being
that makes commitments for me as a whole person.
4. Faith Should Increase as Our Knowledge Increases. Contrary to the current secular
understanding of “faith,” true New Testament faith is not something that is made stron-
ger by ignorance or by believing against the evidence. Rather, saving faith is consistent
with knowledge and true understanding of facts. Paul says, “Faith comes from hearing,
and hearing by the word of Christ” (Rom. 10:17 NASB). When people have true informa-
tion about Christ, they are better able to put their trust in him. Moreover, the more we
3 J. I. Packer, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God ,
p. 104.
CHAPTER 35 • CONVERSION (FAITH AND REPENTANCE)
713
know about him and about the character of God that is completely revealed in him, the
more fully we are able to put our trust in him. Thus faith is not weakened by knowledge
but should increase with more true knowledge.
In the case of saving faith in Christ, our knowledge of him comes by believing a reli-
able testimony about him. Here, the reliable testimony that we believe is the words of
Scripture. Since they are God’s very words, they are completely reliable, and we gain true
knowledge of Christ through them. This is why “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing
by the word of Christ” (Rom. 10:17 NASB). In everyday life, we come to believe many
things when we hear testimony from a person we consider to be reliable or trustworthy.
This kind of decision is even more justified here, when the actual words of God provide
that testimony and we believe it.
B. Faith and Repentance Must Come Together
We may define repentance as follows: Repentance is a heartfelt sorrow for sin, a renounc-
ing of it, and a sincere commitment to forsake it and walk in obedience to Christ.
This definition indicates that repentance is something that can occur at a specific
point in time, and is not equivalent to a demonstration of change in a person’s pattern
of life. Repentance, like faith, is an intellectual understanding (that sin is wrong), an
emotional approval of the teachings of Scripture regarding sin (a sorrow for sin and a
hatred of it), and a personal decision to turn from it (a renouncing of sin and a decision
of the will to forsake it and lead a life of obedience to Christ instead). We cannot say that
someone has to actually live that changed life over a period of time before repentance can
be genuine, or else repentance would be turned into a kind of obedience that we could do
to merit salvation for ourselves. Of course, genuine repentance will result in a changed
life. In fact, a truly repentant person will begin at once to live a changed life, and we can
call that changed life the fruit of repentance. But we should never attempt to require that
there be a period of time in which a person actually lives a changed life before we give
assurance of forgiveness. Repentance is something that occurs in the heart and involves
the whole person in a decision to turn from sin.
It is important to realize that mere sorrow for one’s actions, or even deep remorse
over one’s actions, does not constitute genuine repentance unless it is accompanied by a
sincere decision to forsake sin that is being committed against God. Paul preached about '
“repentance to God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:21). He says that
he rejoiced over the Corinthians, “not because you were grieved, but because you were
grieved into repenting. . . . For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation and
brings no regret, but worldly grief produces death ” (2 Cor. 7:9- 10). A worldly sort of grief
may involve great sorrow for one’s actions and probably also fear of punishment but no
genuine renouncing of sin or commitment to forsake it in one’s life. Hebrews 12:17 tells
us that Esau wept over the consequences of his actions but did not truly repent. More-
over, as 2 Corinthians 7:9-10 indicates, even true godly grief is just one factor that leads
to genuine repentance, but such grief is not itself the sincere decision of the heart in the
presence of God that makes genuine repentance.
Scripture puts repentance and faith together as different aspects of the one act of com-
ing to Christ for salvation. It is not that a person first turns from sin and next trusts in
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
Christ, or first trusts in Christ and then turns from sin, but rather that both occur at the
same time. When we turn to Christ for salvation from our sins, we are simultaneously
turning away from the sins that we are asking Christ to save us from. If that were not
true our turning to Christ for salvation from sin could hardly be a genuine turning to
him or trusting in him.
The fact that repentance and faith are simply two different sides of the same coin, or
two different aspects of the one event of conversion, may be seen in figure 35.1.
"Come to me, all
who are weary and
burdened, and I will
give you rest"
(Matt. 11:26)
c O/VVERSlO^
A REPENTANCE AND TURNING TO CHRIST IN FAITH
Figure 35. 1
In this diagram, the person who genuinely turns to Christ for salvation must at the
same time release the sin to which he or she has been clinging and turn away from that
sin in order to turn to Christ. Thus, neither repentance nor faith comes first; they must
come together. John Murray speaks of “penitent faith” and “believing repentance/* 4
Therefore, it is clearly contrary to the New Testament evidence to speak about the pos-
sibility of having true saving faith without having any repentance for sin. It is also con-
trary to the New Testament to speak about the possibility of someone accepting Christ
“as Savior” but not “as Lord/’ if that means simply depending on him for salvation but
not committing oneself to forsake sin and to be obedient to Christ from that point on.
Some prominent voices within evangelicalism have differed with this point, arguing
that a gospel presentation that requires repentance as well as faith is really preaching sal-
vation by works. They argue that the view advocated in this chapter, that repentance and
faith must go together, is a false gospel of “lordship salvation.” They would say that
4 John Murray, Redemption Accomplished and Applied,
p. 113.
Non-Christian J esus
CHAPTER 35 • CONVERSION (FAITH AND REPENTANCE)
715
saving faith only involves trusting Christ as Savior, and that submitting to him as Lord
is an optional later step that is unnecessary for salvation. For many who teach this view,
saving faith only requires an intellectual agreement with the facts of the gospel. 5
When Jesus invites sinners, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest,” he immediately adds, “ Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me” (Matt.
11:28-29). To come to him includes taking his yoke upon us, being subject to his direc-
tion and guidance, learning from him and being obedient to him. If we are unwilling to
make such a commitment, then we have not truly placed our trust in him.
When Scripture speaks of trusting in God or in Christ, it frequently connects such
trust with genuine repentance. For example, Isaiah gives an eloquent testimony that is
typical of the message of many of the Old Testament prophets:
Seek the Lord while he may be found,
call upon him while he is near;
let the wicked forsake his way ,
and the unrighteous man his thoughts;
let him return to the Lord , that he may have mercy on him,
and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. (Isa. 55:6-7)
5 The source of this view of the gospel is apparently Lewis
Sperry Chafer, especially in his Systematic Theology ; vol. 3, where
he says, “The New Testament does not impose repentance
upon the unsaved as a condition of salvation” (p. 376). Cha-
fer recognizes that many verses call upon people to repent,
but he simply defines repentance away as a “change of mind”
that does not include sorrow for sin or turning from sin (pp.
372-75). Thus he can say, “Repentance, which is a change of
mind, is included in believing” (p. 375). He argues that “the
added demand that the unsaved must dedicate themselves to
do God’s will in their daily life, as well as to believe upon Christ”
is a “confusing intrusion into the doctrine that salvation is con-
ditioned alone upon believing” (p. 384). Chafer provides a basis
for the view that people must first accept Christ as Savior, and
later as Lord, when he says that the preacher has the obligation
“of preaching the Lordship of Christ to Christians exclusively,
and the Saviorhood of Christ to those who are unsaved” (p.
387). The most vocal contemporary proponent of this view has
been Dallas Seminary professor Zane C. Hodges: see his book
The Gospel Under Siege (Dallas: Redencidn Viva, 1981).
But not all at Dallas Seminary or all within Dispensational
theology would hold this view. A controversy over this point
erupted in American evangelicalism when John MacArthur,
himself a Dispensationalist, published The Gospel Accord-
ing to Jesus (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1988, rev. ed. 1994).
This excellent book (with enthusiastic forewords by J. I.
Packer and James Montgomery Boice) strongly criticized the
views of writers like Chafer and Hodges on evangelism and
the nature of saving faith. MacArthur argued very convinc-
ingly from many New Testament passages that one cannot
truly accept Christ as Savior without also accepting him as
Lord, or, in other words, that there can be no true saving faith
without genuine repentance as well. He said that any other
view preaches a cheap gospel that offers unconverted people
false security, telling them they are saved simply because they
agreed that the facts of the gospel were true or prayed a prayer,
but they had no true repentance and no real change of life.
MacArthur argued that such unbiblical evangelism has never
been the teaching of the church through history, and that the
weakened gospel heard so often today has resulted in a whole
generation of professing Christians whose lives are no differ-
ent from the surrounding culture and who are really not saved
at all. Hodges quickly responded to MacArthur with another
book, Absolutely Free! A Biblical Reply to Lordship Salvation
(Dallas: Redencidn Viva, and Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1989).
As I have argued in this chapter, it seems to me clear that
MacArthur is certainly right to maintain that true saving
faith in New Testament terms is more than mere intellectual
assent to facts; it must include a heartfelt coming to Christ in
personal dependence on him for salvation, combined with a
heartfelt repentance from sin. It is misleading to brand this
teaching “Lordship salvation” as if it were some new doctrine,
or as if there were any other kind of salvation — MacArthur
is teaching what has been the historic position of Christian
orthodoxy on this matter, as he demonstrates in an appen-
dix to his book (pp. 221-37). This position is not salvation by
works, but simply states the gospel of free grace, and salvation
by grace through faith in all its biblical fullness. The change of
life that will result from genuine conversion does not save us,
but it will certainly result if our faith is genuine, for “faith by
itself, if it has no works, is dead” (James 2:17).
The Sandemanians were a small group of evangelical
churches who taught a view similar to Zane Hodges in England
and the United States from 1725 until they died out around
1900; see R. E. D. Clark, “Sandemanians,” in NIDCC, p. 877.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
716
Here both repentance from sin and coming to God for pardon are mentioned. In the
New Testament, Paul summarizes his gospel ministry as one of “testifying both to Jews
and to Greeks of repentance to God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:21).
The author of Hebrews includes as the first two elements in a list of elementary doctrines
“repentance from dead works” and “ faith toward God” (Heb. 6:1).
Of course sometimes faith alone is named as the thing necessary for coming to
Christ for salvation (see John 3:16; Acts 16:31; Rom. 10:9; Eph. 2:8-9, et al.). These
are familiar passages and we emphasize them often when explaining the gospel to
others. But what we do not often realize is the fact that there are many other passages
where only repentance is named, for it is simply assumed that true repentance will also
involve faith in Christ for forgiveness of sins. The New Testament authors understood
so well that genuine repentance and genuine faith had to go together that they often
simply mentioned repentance alone with the understanding that faith would also be
included, because turning from sins in a genuine way is impossible apart from a genu-
ine turning to God. Therefore, just before Jesus ascended into heaven, he told his dis-
ciples, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from
the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name
to all nations” (Luke 24:46-47). Saving faith is implied in the phrase “forgiveness of
sins,” but it is not explicitly named.
The preaching recorded in the book of Acts shows the same pattern. After Peter’s ser-
mon at Pentecost, the crowd asked, “Brethren, what shall we do?” Peter replied, “ Repent ,
and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your
sins” (Acts 2: 37 -38). 6 In his second sermon Peter spoke to his hearers in a similar way,
saying, “Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins maybe blotted out, that times of
refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord” (Acts 3:19). Later, when the apostles
were on trial before the Sanhedrin, Peter spoke of Christ, saying, “God exalted him at his
right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins” (Acts
5:31). And when Paul was preaching on the Areopagus in Athens to an assembly of Greek
philosophers, he said, “The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands
all men everywhere to repent ” (Acts 17:30). He also says in his epistles, “Do you not know
that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?” (Rom. 2:4), and he speaks of
“a repentance that leads to salvation” (2 Cor. 7:10).
We also see that when Jesus encounters people personally he requires them to turn
from their sin before they come to follow him. Whether it be speaking to the rich young
ruler and asking that he give up his possessions (Luke 18:18-30), coming to the house of
Zacchaeus and declaring that salvation had come to him that day because he had given
half his goods to the poor and had repaid fourfold anything that he had stolen (Luke
19:1-10), speaking to the woman at the well and asking her to call her husband (John
4:16), or speaking to Nicodemus and rebuking his rabbinic unbelief and pride in his
own knowledge (John 3:1-21), Jesus consistently puts his finger on the area of sin most
influential in that person’s life. In fact, we may ask whether anyone in the gospels ever
came to sincere faith in Christ without repenting of his or her sins.
6 See chapter 49, pp. 973-75, 981-82, on the question of
whether baptism is necessary for salvation.
CHAPTER 35 • CONVERSION (FAITH AND REPENTANCE)
717
When we realize that genuine saving faith must be accompanied by genuine repen-
tance for sin, it helps us to understand why some preaching of the gospel has such
inadequate results today. If there is no mention of the need for repentance, sometimes
the gospel message becomes only, “Believe in Jesus Christ and be saved” without any
mention of repentance at all. 7 But this watered- down version of the gospel does not ask
for a wholehearted commitment to Christ — commitment to Christ, if genuine, must
include a commitment to turn from sin. Preaching the need for faith without repentance
is preaching only half of the gospel. It will result in many people being deceived, thinking
that they have heard the Christian gospel and tried it, but nothing has happened. They
might even say something like, “I accepted Christ as Savior over and over again and it
never worked.” Yet they never really did receive Christ as their Savior, for he comes to us
in his majesty and invites us to receive him as he is — the one who deserves to be, and
demands to be, absolute Lord of our lives as well.
Finally, what shall we say about the common practice of asking people to pray to
receive Christ as their personal Savior and Lord? Since personal faith in Christ must
involve an actual decision of the will, it is often very helpful to express that decision in
spoken words, and this could very naturally take the form of a prayer to Christ in which
we tell him of our sorrow for sin, our commitment to forsake it, and our decision actually
to put our trust in him. Such a spoken prayer does not in itself save us, but the attitude
of heart that it represents does constitute true conversion, and the decision to speak that
prayer can often be the point at which a person truly comes to faith in Christ.
C. Both Faith and Repentance Continue Throughout Life
Although we have been considering initial faith and repentance as the two aspects
of conversion at the beginning of the Christian life, it is important to realize that faith
and repentance are not confined to the beginning of the Christian life. They are rather
attitudes of heart that continue throughout our lives as Christians. Jesus tells his disciples
to pray daily, “And forgive us our sins as we also have forgiven those who sin against us”
(Matt. 6:12, author s translation), a prayer that, if genuine, will certainly involve daily
sorrow for sin and genuine repentance. And the risen Christ says to the church in Laodi-
cea, “Those whom I love, I reprove and chasten; so be zealous and repent” (Rev. 3:19; cf.
2 Cor. 7:10).
With regard to faith, Paul tells us, “So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the great-
est of these is love” (1 Cor. 13:13). He certainly means that these three abide throughout
the course of this life, but he probably also means that they abide for all eternity: if faith
is trusting God to provide all our needs, then this attitude will never cease, not even in
the age to come. But in any case, the point is clearly made that faith continues throughout
this life. Paul also says, “The life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God,
who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20).
7 It is true that Paul tells the Philippian jailer in Acts 16:31, makes it clear that Paul said much more to the man than this
“Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your brief sentence, for we read, “And they spoke the word of the Lord
household.” However, even that sentence includes an acknowl- to him and to all that were in his house” (Acts 16:32).
edgment that Jesus is “Lord,” and, moreover, the next sentence
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
718
Therefore, although it is true that initial saving faith and initial repentance occur only
once in our lives, and when they occur they constitute true conversion, nonetheless, the
heart attitudes of repentance and faith only begin at conversion. These same attitudes
should continue throughout the course of our Christian lives. Each day there should be
heartfelt repentance for sins that we have committed, and faith in Christ to provide for
our needs and to empower us to live the Christian life.
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. Have you come to trust in Christ personally, or are you still at the point of intel-
lectual knowledge and emotional approval of the facts of salvation without having
personally put your trust in Christ? If you have not put your trust in Christ yet,
what do you think it is that is making you hesitate?
2. Did this chapter help you think of faith in Christ in more personal terms? If so,
how might that increase your own level of faith? Do you think that it might be
easier for young children than for adults to think of trust in Christ as trust in a
real person who is alive today? Why or why not? What does this tell you about the
way Christian parents should teach their children about Jesus?
3. If your knowledge about God has increased through reading this book, has your
faith in God increased along with that knowledge? Why or why not? If your faith
has not increased along with your knowledge, what can you do to encourage your
faith to grow more than it has?
4. In terms of human relationships, do you trust a person more when you do not
know that person very well or after you have come to know him or her quite well
(assuming that the person is essentially a trustworthy and reliable person)? What
does that fact tell you about how your trust in God might increase? What things
might you do during the day to come to know God better, and to come to know
Jesus and the Holy Spirit better?
5. Did you feel a sincere sorrow for sin when you first came to Christ? Can you
describe what it felt like? Did it lead you to a genuine commitment to forsake sin?
How long was it before you noticed a change in your pattern of life?
6. Have you ever truly repented of sin, or do you think you have been taught a
watered-down gospel that did not include repentance? Do you think it is possible
for someone genuinely to trust in Christ for forgiveness of sins without also sin-
cerely repenting for sins? Do you think that genuine repentance usually involves
only a sincere feeling of sorrow for sin in general, or does it involve genuine sorrow
for specific sins, and turning from those specific sins?
7. Have faith and repentance remained a continuing part of your Christian life, or
have those attitudes of heart grown somewhat weak in your life? What has been the
result in your Christian life?
CHAPTER 35 ■ CONVERSION (FAITH AND REPENTANCE)
719
SPECIAL TERMS
faith
repentance
trust
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter 1,
pp. 38-39. Complete bibliographical data maybe found on pp. 1224-30.)
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1882-92 Litton, 288-300
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1847 Finney, 364-82
1875- 76 Pope, 2:367-85
1940 Wiley, 2:357-78
1983 Carter, 1:496-99
3. Baptist
1767 Gill, 2:131-41
1887 Boyce, 373-94
1907 Strong, 829-49
1917 Mullins, 368-85
1983-85 Erickson, 933-42
4. Dispensational
1947 Chafer, 3:371-93
1949 Thiessen, 264-70
1986 Ryrie, 324-27
5. Lutheran
1917-24 Pieper, 2:422-503
1934 Mueller, 319-66
6. Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1559 Calvin, 1:340-67, 423-28 (2.6-7, 9; 3.2-5),
542-684
1724-58 Edwards, 2:578-96
1861 Heppe, 526-42
1871-73 Hodge, 3:41-113
1878 Dabney, 600-612, 651-60
1887- 1921 Warfield, BTS, 375 -403; SSW, 1:267-82;
SSW, 2:655-59; BD, 467-510
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
720
1889 Shedd, 2b:529-37
1937-66 Murray, CW, 2:235 - 74; RAA> 106-16
1938 Berkhof, 480-509
1962 Buswell, 2:175-86
7. Renewal (or charismatic/Pentecostal)
1988-92 Williams, 2:28-31
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
1. Roman Catholic: Traditional
1955 Ott, 252-54
2. Roman Catholic: Post-Vatican II
1980 McBrien, 1:31-46
Other Works
Berkouwer, G. C. Faith and Justification. Trans, by Lewis B. Smedes. Grand Rapids: Eerd-
mans, 1954.
Boice, James Montgomery. Christ's Call to Discipleship. Chicago: Moody, 1986.
Chantry, Walter. Today's Gospel: Authentic or Synthetic? Carlisle, Pa.: Banner of Truth,
1970.
Hodges, Zane C. Absolutely Free! A Biblical Reply to Lordship Salvation. Dallas: Redencidn
Viva, and Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1989.
. The Gospel Under Siege: A Study on Faith and Works. Dallas: Redencion Viva,
1981.
Hoekema, Anthony A. Saved by Grace. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, and Exeter: Paternoster,
1989, pp. 113-51.
Kromminga, C. G. “Repentance.” In EDT, pp. 936-37.
MacArthur, John E, Jr. The Gospel According to Jesus. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1988.
Machen, J. Gresham. What Is Faith? Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1925.
Morris, Leon. “Faith.” In IBD. Vol. 1, pp. 496-98.
Murray, John. “Faith and Repentance.” In Redemption Accomplished and Applied. Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1955, pp. 106-16.
. “Repentance.” In The New Bible Dictionary. Ed. by J. D. Douglas. London: Tyndale
Press, and Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1962, pp. 1083-84.
Packer, J. I. “Evangelicals and the Way of Salvation: New Challenges to the Gospel -
Universalism and Justification by Faith.” In Evangelical Ajfirmations. Ed. by Kenneth
S. Kantzer and Carl F. H. Henry. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990, pp. 107-36.
. Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God. London: Inter- Varsity Press, 1961.
. “Faith.” In EDT, pp. 399-402.
Ryrie, Charles C. So Great Salvation: What It Means to Believe in Jesus Christ. Wheaton, 111.:
Scripture Press, 1989.
Watson, Thomas. The Doctrine of Repentance. Carlisle, Pa.: Banner of Truth, 1987.
CHAPTER 35 • CONVERSION (FAITH AND REPENTANCE)
721
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
John 3:16: For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son , that whoever believes in him
should not perish but have eternal life .
HYMN
“Just As I Am”
Just as I am, without one plea
But that thy blood was shed for me,
And that thou bidd’st me come to thee,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.
Just as I am, and waiting not
To rid my soul of one dark blot,
To thee, whose blood can cleanse each spot,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.
Just as I am, though tossed about
With many a conflict, many a doubt,
Fightings and fears within, without,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.
Just as I am, poor, wretched, blind;
Sight, riches, healing of the mind,
Yea, all I need, in thee to find,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.
Just as I am! Thou wilt receive,
Wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve;
Because thy promise I believe,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.
Just as I am! Thy love unknown
Has broken ev'ry barrier down;
Now, to be thine, yea, thine alone,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.
AUTHOR: CHARLOTTE ELLIOT, 1836
Chapter
JUSTIFICATION
(RIGHT LEGAL STANDING
BEFORE GOD)
How and when do we gain right legal
standing before God?
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
In the previous chapters we talked about the gospel call (in which God calls us to trust
in Christ for salvation), regeneration (in which God imparts new spiritual life to us),
and conversion (in which we respond to the gospel call in repentance for sin and faith in
Christ for salvation) . But what about the guilt of our sin ? The gospel call invited us to trust
in Christ for forgiveness of sins. Regeneration made it possible for us to respond to that
invitation. In conversion we did respond, trusting in Christ for forgiveness of sins. Now
the next step in the process of applying redemption to us is that God must respond to
our faith and do what he promised, that is, actually declare our sins to be forgiven. This
must be a legal declaration concerning our relationship to God’s laws, stating that we are
completely forgiven and no longer liable to punishment.
A right understanding of justification is absolutely crucial to the whole Christian
faith. Once Martin Luther realized the truth of justification by faith alone, he became a
Christian and overflowed with the new-found joy of the gospel. The primary issue in the
Protestant Reformation was a dispute with the Roman Catholic Church over justifica-
tion. If we are to safeguard the truth of the gospel for future generations, we must under-
stand the truth of justification. Even today, a true view of justification is the dividing line
between the biblical gospel of salvation by faith alone and all false gospels of salvation
based on good works.
When Paul gives an overview of the process by which God applies salvation to us, he
mentions justification explicitly: “Those whom he predestined he also called; and those
whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified” (Rom.
722
CHAPTER 36 • JUSTIFICATION
723
8:30). As we explained in a previous chapter, the word called here refers to the effective
calling of the gospel, which includes regeneration and brings forth the response of repen-
tance and faith (or conversion) on our part. After effective calling and the response that
it initiates on our part, the next step in the application of redemption is “justification.”
Here Paul mentions that this is something that God himself does: “Those whom he called
he also justified.”
Moreover, Paul quite clearly teaches that this justification comes after our faith and as
God’s response to our faith. He says that God “justifies him who has faith in Jesus” (Rom.
3:26), and that “a man is justified by faith apart from works oflaw” (Rom. 3:28). He says,
“Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ”
(Rom. 5:1). Moreover, “a man is not justified by works of the law but through faith in
Jesus Christ” (Gal. 2:16).
Just what is justification? We may define it as follows: Justification is an instantaneous
legal act of God in which he (1) thinks of our sins as forgiven and Christ’s righteousness as
belonging to us, and (2) declares us to be righteous in his sight.
In explaining the elements of this definition, we will look first at the second half of
it, the aspect of justification in which God “declares us to be righteous in his sight.” The
reason for treating these items in reverse order is that the emphasis of the New Testa-
ment in the use of the word justification and related terms is on the second half of the
definition, the legal declaration by God. But there are also passages that show that this
declaration is based on the fact that God first thinks of righteousness as belonging to us.
So both aspects must be treated, even though the New Testament terms for justification
focus on the legal declaration by God.
A. Justification Includes a Legal Declaration By God
The use of the word justify in the Bible indicates that justification is a legal declaration
by God. The verb justify in the New Testament (Gk. dikaioo ) has a range of meanings, but
a very common sense is “to declare righteous.” For example, we read, “When they heard
this all the people and the tax collectors justified God, having been baptized with the bap-
tism of John” (Luke 7:29). Of course the people and the tax collectors did not make God
to be righteous — that would be impossible for anyone to do. Rather they declared God to
be righteous. This is also the sense of the term in passages where the New Testament talks
about us being declared righteous by God (Rom. 3:20, 26, 28; 5:1; 8:30; 10:4, 10; Gal. 2:16;
3:24). This sense is particularly evident, for example, in Romans 4:5: “And to one who does
not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness.”
Here Paul cannot mean that God “makes the ungodly to be righteous” (by changing them
internally and making them morally perfect), for then they would have merit or works of
their own to depend on. Rather, he means that God declares the ungodly to be righteous
in his sight, not on the basis of their good works, but in response to their faith.
The idea that justification is a legal declaration is quite evident also when justifica-
tion is contrasted with condemnation. Paul says, “Who shall bring any charge against
God’s elect? It is God who justifies; who is to condemn?” (Rom. 8:33-34). To “condemn”
someone is to declare that person guilty. The opposite of condemnation is justification,
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
724
which, in this context, must mean “to declare someone not guilty.” This is also evident
from the fact that God’s act of justifying is given as Paul’s answer to the possibility of
someone bringing an accusation or “charge” against God’s people: such a declaration of
guilt cannot stand in the face of God’s declaration of righteousness.
Some Old Testament examples of the word justify (Gk. dikaiod in the Septuagint, when
translating the hiphil of tsddak y “to justify”) add support to this understanding. For exam-
ple, we read of judges who “justify the righteous and condemn the wicked” (Deut. 25:1
NASB). Now in this case “justify” must mean “declare to be righteous or not guilty,” just
as “condemn” means “declare to be guilty.” It would make no sense to say that “justify”
here means “to make someone to be good internally,” for judges simply do not and cannot
make people to be good on the inside. Nor does a judge’s act of condemning the wicked
make that person to be evil on the inside; it simply declares that the person is guilty with
respect to the particular crime that has been brought before the court (cf. Ex. 23:7; 1 Kings
8:32; 2 Chron. 6:23). Similarly, Job refuses to say that his comforters were right in what
they said: “Far be it from me that I should declare you right” (Job 27:5 NASB, using the
same Hebrew and Greek terms for “justify”). The same idea is found in Proverbs: “He who
justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to
the Lord” (Prov. 17:15). Here the idea of legal declaration is especially strong. Certainly
it would not be an abomination to the Lord if “justify” meant “to make someone good or
righteous inside.” In that case, to “justify the wicked” would be a very good thing in God’s
sight. But if “justify” means “declare to be righteous,” then it is perfectly clear why “he
who justifies the wicked” is “an abomination to the Lord.” Similarly, Isaiah condemns
those “who justify the wicked for a bribe” (Isa. 5:23 NASB); again, “justify” must mean
“declare to be righteous” (here used in the context of a legal declaration).
In this sense of “declare to be righteous” or “declare to be not guilty” Paul frequently uses
the word to speak of God’s justification of us, his declaration that we, though guilty sinners,
are nonetheless righteous in his sight. It is important to emphasize that this legal declaration
in itself does not change our internal nature or character at all. In this sense of “justify,” God
issues a legal declaration about us. This is why theologians have also said that justification is
forensic, where the word forensic means “having to do with legal proceedings.”
John Murray makes an important distinction between regeneration and
justification:
Regeneration is an act of God in us; justification is a judgment of God with
respect to us. The distinction is like that of the distinction between the act
of a surgeon and the act of a judge. The surgeon, when he removes an inward
cancer, does something in us. That is not what a judge does — he gives a verdict
regarding our judicial status. If we are innocent he declares accordingly.
The purity of the gospel is bound up with the recognition of this distinction.
If justification is confused with regeneration or sanctification, then the door
is opened for the perversion of the gospel at its center. Justification is still the
article of the standing or falling of the Church. 1
^ohn Murray, Redemption Accomplished and Applied ,
p. 121.
CHAPTER 36 • JUSTIFICATION
725
B. God Declares Us to Be Just in His Sight
In God’s legal declaration of justification, he specifically declares that we are just in
his sight. This declaration involves two aspects. First, it means that he declares that we
have no penalty to pay for sin, including past, present, and future sins. After a long dis-
cussion of justification by faith alone (Rom. 4:1-5:21), and a parenthetical discussion
on remaining sin in the Christian life, Paul returns to his main argument in the book of
Romans and tells what is true of those who have been justified by faith: “There is there-
fore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1). In this sense
those who are justified have no penalty to pay for sin. This means that we are not subject
to any charge of guilt or condemnation: “Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect?
It is God who justifies; who is to condemn?” (Rom. 8:33-34).
The idea of full forgiveness of sins is prominent when Paul discusses justification by
faith alone in Romans 4. Paul quotes David as pronouncing a blessing on one “to whom
God reckons righteousness apart from works.” He then recalls how David said, “Blessed
are those whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man
against whom the Lord will not reckon his sin” (Rom. 4:6-8). This justification therefore
clearly involves the forgiveness of sins. David spoke similarly in Psalm 103:12, “As far as
the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us” (cf. v. 3).
But if God merely declared us to be forgiven from our sins, that would not solve our
problems entirely, for it would only make us morally neutral before God. We would
be in the state that Adam was in before he had done anything right or wrong in God’s
sight — he was not guilty before God, but neither had he earned a record of righteousness
before God. This first aspect of justification, in which God declares that our sins are
forgiven, may be represented as in figure 36.1, in which the minus signs represent sins on
our account that are completely forgiven in justification.
FORGIVENESS OF PAST SINS IS ONE PART OF JUSTIFICATION
Figure 36. 1
However, such a movement is not enough to earn us favor with God. We must rather
move from a point of moral neutrality to a point of having positive righteousness before
God, the righteousness of a life of perfect obedience to him. Our need may therefore be
represented as in figure 36.2, in which the plus signs indicate a record of righteousness
before God.
Therefore the second aspect of justification is that God must declare us not to be
merely neutral in his sight but actually to be righteous in his sight. In fact, he must declare
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
726
IMPUTATION OF CHRIST'S RIGHTEOUSNESS TO US
IS THE OTHER PART OF JUSTIFICATION
Figure 36.2
us to have the merits of perfect righteousness before him. The Old Testament sometimes
spoke of God as giving such righteousness to his people even though they had not earned
it themselves. Isaiah says, “He has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has
covered me with the robe of righteousness” (Isa. 61:10). But Paul speaks more specifically
about this in the New Testament. As a solution to our need for righteousness, Paul tells us
that “the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from law, although the law and
the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for
all who believe” (Rom. 3:21-22). He says, “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned
to him as righteousness ” (Rom. 4:3, quoting Gen. 15:6). This came about through the
obedience of Christ, for Paul says at the end of this extensive discussion of justification
by faith that “by one man s obedience many will be made righteous ” (Rom. 5:19). The
second aspect of Gods declaration in justification, then, is that we have the merits of
perfect righteousness before him.
But questions arise: How can God declare that we have no penalty to pay for sin, and
that we have the merits of perfect righteousness, if we are in fact guilty sinners? How
can God declare us to be not guilty but righteous when in fact we are unrighteous? These
questions lead to our next point.
C. God Can Declare Us to Be Just Because He Imputes
Christ’s Righteousness to Us
When we say that God imputes Christ’s righteousness to us it means that God thinks
of Christ’s righteousness as belonging to us, or regards it as belonging to us. He “reckons”
it to our account. We read, “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righ-
teousness” (Rom. 4:3, quoting Gen. 15:6). Paul explains, “To one who does not work
but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness. So also
David pronounces a blessing upon the man to whom God reckons righteousness apart
from works” (Rom. 4:6). In this way, Christ’s righteousness became ours. Paul says that
we are those who received “the free gift of righteousness” (Rom. 5:17).
This is the third time in studying the doctrines of Scripture that we have encountered
the idea of imputing guilt or righteousness to someone else. First, when Adam sinned, his
guilt was imputed to us; God the Father viewed it as belonging to us, and therefore it did. 2
2 See chapter 24, pp. 494-97, on the idea of Adam’s sin being
imputed to us.
CHAPTER 36 • JUSTIFICATION
727
Second, when Christ suffered and died for our sins, our sin was imputed to Christ; God
thought of it as belonging to him, and he paid the penalty for it. 3 Now in the doctrine of
justification we see imputation for the third time. Christ’s righteousness is imputed to
us, and therefore God thinks of it as belonging to us. It is not our own righteousness but
Christ’s righteousness that is freely given to us. So Paul can say that God made Christ
to be “our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30).
And Paul says that his goal is to be found in Christ, “not having a righteousness of my
own, based on law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God
that depends on faith” (Phil. 3:9). Paul knows that the righteousness he has before God
is not anything of his own doing; it is the righteousness of God that comes through Jesus
Christ (cf. Rom. 3:21 -22). 4
It is essential to the heart of the gospel to insist that God declares us to be just or righ-
teous not on the basis of our actual condition of righteousness or holiness, but rather on
the basis of Christ’s perfect righteousness, which he thinks of as belonging to us. This was
the heart of the difference between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism at the Refor-
mation. Protestantism since the time of Martin Luther has insisted that justification does
not change us internally and it is not a declaration based in any way on any goodness that
we have in ourselves. If justification changed us internally and then declared us to be righ-
teous based on how good we actually were, then (1) we could never be declared perfectly
righteous in this life, because there is always sin that remains in our lives, and (2) there
would be no provision for forgiveness of past sins (committed before we were changed
internally), and therefore we could never have confidence that we are right before God.
We would lose the confidence that Paul has when he says, “Therefore, since we are justi-
fied by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:1). 5 If we
thought of justification as based on something that we are internally we would never have
the confidence to say with Paul, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who
are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1). We would have no assurance of forgiveness with God, no
confidence to draw near to him “with a true heart in full assurance of faith” (Heb. 10:22).
3 See chapter 27, p. 573 - 74, on the fact that our guilt was
imputed to Christ. Paul says, “God made him who had no
sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righ-
teousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21 NIV).
4 One sometimes hears the popular explanation that jus-
tified means “just-as-if-I’d-never-sinned.” The definition is
a clever play on words and contains an element of truth (for
the justified person, like the person who has never sinned, has
no penalty to pay for sin). But the definition is misleading in
two other ways because (1) it mentions nothing about the fact
that Christ's righteousness is reckoned to my account when
I am justified; to do this it would have to say also “just-as-
if-I’d-lived-a-life-of-perfect-righteousness.” (2) But more sig-
nificantly, it cannot adequately represent the fact that I will
never be in a state that is “just-as-if-I’d-never-sinned,” because
I will always be conscious of the fact that I have sinned and
that I am not an innocent person but a guilty person who has
been forgiven. This is very different from “just as if I had never
sinned” ! Moreover, it is different from “just as if I had lived a
life of perfect righteousness,” because I will forever know that
I have not lived a life of perfect righteousness, but that Christ’s
righteousness is given to me by God’s grace.
Therefore both in the forgiveness of sins and in the impu-
tation of Christ’s righteousness, my situation is far different
from what it would be if I had never sinned and had lived a
perfectly righteous life. For all eternity I will remember that
I am a forgiven sinner, and that my righteousness is not based
on my own merit, but on the grace of God in the saving work
of Jesus Christ. None of that rich teaching at the heart of the
gospel will be understood by those who are encouraged to go
through their lives thinking “justified” means “just-as-if-I’d-
never-sinned.”
5 The aorist passive participle dikadthentes placed before
the main verb conveys the sense of a completed event prior to
the present tense main verb, “We have peace,” giving the sense,
“Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace.”
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
728
We would not be able to speak of “the free gift of righteousness” (Rom. 5:17), or say that
“the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 6:23).
The traditional Roman Catholic understanding of justification is very different from
this. The Roman Catholic Church understands justification as something that changes us
internally and makes us more holy within. “According to the teaching of the Council of
Trent, justification is ‘sanctifying and renewing of the inner man.’ ” 6 In order for justifi-
cation to begin, one must first be baptized and then (as an adult) continue to have faith:
“The instrumental cause ... of the first justification is the Sacrament of Baptism.” 7 But
“the justification of an adult is not possible without Faith As far as the content of jus-
tifying faith is concerned, the so-called fiducial faith does not suffice. What is demanded
is theological or dogmatic faith (confessional faith) which consists in the firm acceptance
of the Divine truths of Revelation.” 8 Thus baptism is the means by which justification
is first obtained, and then faith is necessary if an adult is to receive justification or to
continue in the state of justification. Ott explains that “the so-called fiduciary faith” is
not enough — meaning that the faith that simply trusts in Christ for forgiveness of sins
is not enough. It must be a faith that accepts the content of the teaching of the Catholic
Church, “theological or dogmatic faith.”
The Roman Catholic view may be said to understand justification as based not on
imputed righteousness but on infused righteousness — that is, righteousness that God
actually puts into us and that changes us internally and in terms of our actual moral
character. Then he gives us varying measures of justification according to the measure
of righteousness that has been infused or placed within us.
The result of this Roman Catholic view of justification is that people cannot be sure if
they are in a “state of grace” where they experience God’s complete acceptance and favor.
The Catholic Church teaches that people cannot be certain that they are in this “state
of grace” unless they receive a special revelation from God to this effect. The Council of
Trent declared,
If one considers his own weakness and his defective disposition, he may well be
fearful and anxious as to the state of grace, as nobody knows with the certainty
of faith, which permits of no error, that he has achieved the grace of God.
To this statement Ott adds the comment,
The reason for the uncertainty of the state of grace lies in this, that without
a special revelation nobody can with certainty of faith know whether or not
he has fulfilled all the conditions which are necessary for the achieving of
justification. The impossibility of the certainty of faith, however, by no means
excludes a high moral certainty supported by the testimony of conscience. 9
Moreover, since the Roman Catholic Church views justification as including some-
thing that God does within us, it follows that people can experience varying degrees of
6 Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma , p. 257; to a Protestant view,
also quoted with approval on p. 250. It should be noted 7 Ibid., p. 251.
that Ott represents more traditional, pre-Vatican II Roman 8 Ibid., pp. 252-53.
Catholicism, and that many contemporary Roman Catholics 9 Ibid., pp. 261 - 62 .
have sought an understanding of justification that is closer
CHAPTER 36 * JUSTIFICATION
729
justification. We read, “The degree of justifying grace is not identical in all the just” and
“grace can be increased by good works.” 10 Ott explains how this Catholic view differs
from that of the Protestant Reformers: “As the Reformers wrongly regarded justifica-
tion as a merely external imputation of Christ’s justice, they were obliged also to hold
that justification is identical in all men. The Council of Trent, however, declared that
the measure of the grace of justification received varies in the individual person who is
justified, according to the measure of God’s free distribution and to the disposition and
the co-operation of the recipient himself.” 11
Finally, the logical consequence of this view of justification is that our eternal life with
God is not based on God’s grace alone, but partially on our merit as well: “For the justi-
fied eternal life is both a gift of grace promised by God and a reward for his own good
works and merits Salutary works are, at the same time, gifts of God and meritorious
acts of man.” 12
To support this view of justification from Scripture, Ott repeatedly mingles passages
from the New Testament that talk not only of justification, but also of many other aspects
of the Christian life, such as regeneration (which God works in us), sanctification (which
is a process in the Christian life and which of course does vary from individual to indi-
vidual), the possession and use of various spiritual gifts in the Christian life (which differ
from individual to individual), and eternal reward (which also varies according to the
individual). To classify all of these passages under the category of “justification” only
blurs the issue and ultimately makes forgiveness of sins and right legal standing before
God a matter of our own merit, not a free gift from God. Therefore, this blurring of dis-
tinctions ultimately destroys the heart of the gospel.
That is what Martin Luther so clearly saw and that is what gave such motivation to the
Reformation. When the good news of the gospel truly became the good news of totally
free salvation in Jesus Christ, then it spread like wildfire throughout the civilized world.
But this was simply a recovery of the original gospel, which declares, “The wages of sin
is death, but the free gif t of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 6:23), and
insists that “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”
(Rom. 8:1).
D. Justification Comes to Us Entirely by God’s Grace,
Not on Account of Any Merit in Ourselves
After Paul explains in Romans 1:18-3:20 that no one will ever be able to make himself
righteous before God (“For no human being will be justified in his sight by works of the
law,” Rom. 3:20), then Paul goes on to explain that “since all have sinned and fall short
of the glory of God, they are justified by his grace as a gift , through the redemption which
is in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 3:23-24). God’s “grace” means his “unmerited favor.” Because
we are completely unable to earn favor with God, the only way we could be declared
righteous is if God freely provides salvation for us by grace, totally apart from our work.
Paul explains, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own
10 Ibid., p. 262.
n Ibid., p. 262.
12 Ibid., p. 264.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
730
doing, it is the gift of God — not because of works, lest any man should boast” (Eph.
2:8-9; cf. Titus 3:7). Grace is clearly put in contrast to works or merit as the reason why
God is willing to justify us. God did not have any obligation to impute our sin to Christ
or to impute Christ’s righteousness to us; it was only because of his unmerited favor that
he did this.
In distinction from the Roman Catholic teaching that we are justified by God’s grace
plus some merit of our own , as we make ourselves fit to receive the grace of justifica-
tion and as we grow in this state of grace though our good works, Luther and the other
Reformers insisted that justification comes by grace alone y not by grace plus some merit
on our part.
E. God Justifies Us Through Our Faith in Christ
When we began this chapter we noted that justification comes after saving faith. Paul
makes this sequence clear when he says, “We have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be
justified by faith in Christ, and not by works of the law, because by works of the law shall
no one be justified” (Gal. 2:16). Here Paul indicates that faith comes first and it is for the
purpose of being justified. He also says that Christ is “to be received by faith” and that
God “justifies him who has faith in Jesus” (Rom. 3:25, 26). The entire chapter of Romans
4 is a defense of the fact that we are justified by faith, not by works, just as Abraham and
David themselves were. Paul says, “We are justified byfaith n (Rom. 5:1).
Scripture never says that we are justified because of the inherent goodness of our faith,
as if our faith has merit before God. It never allows us to think that our faith in itself
earns favor with God. Rather, Scripture says that we are justified “by means of” our faith,
understanding faith to be the instrument through which justification is given to us, but
not at all an activity that earns us merit or favor with God. Rather, we are justified solely
because of the merits of Christ’s work (Rom. 5:17- 19). 13
But we may ask why God chose faith to be the attitude of heart by which we would
obtain justification. Why could God not have decided to give justification to all those
who sincerely show love? Or who show joy? Or contentment? Or humility? Or wisdom?
Why did God choose faith as the means by which we receive justification?
It is apparently because faith is the one attitude of heart that is the exact opposite of
depending on ourselves. When we come to Christ in faith we essentially say, “I give up!
I will not depend on myself or my own good works any longer. I know that I can never
make myself righteous before God. Therefore, Jesus, I trust you and depend on you com-
pletely to give me a righteous standing before God.” In this way, faith is the exact opposite
of trusting in ourselves, and therefore it is the attitude that perfectly fits salvation that
13 One example from ordinary life might be seen in receiv-
ing a paycheck for work that has been done for an employer.
The “means” or “instrument” that I use to get this paycheck is
the act of reaching out my hand and taking an envelope from
my mail box, then opening it and pulling out the check. But my
employer does not pay me for doing any of those actions. The
pay is entirely for work that I did prior to that. Actually taking
the check did not earn me one cent of the money I received — it
was simply the instrument or means I used to take the payment
into my possession. Similarly, faith is the instrument we use to
receive justification from God, but it in itself gains us no merit
with God. (The analogy is helpful but it is not perfect, because I
had previously worked to earn the money, whereas justification
is based on the work of Christ. The analogy would be closer if
I had worked and then died, and my wife then picked up the
paycheck from my mail box.)
CHAPTER 36 ♦ JUSTIFICATION
731
depends not at all on our own merit but entirely on Gods free gift of grace. Paul explains
this when he says, “That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on
grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants” (Rom. 4:16). This is why the Reform-
ers from Martin Luther on were so firm in their insistence that justification comes not
through faith plus some merit or good work on our part, but only through faith alone.
“For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this 14 is not your own doing, it is
the gift of God — not because of works, lest any man should boast” (Eph. 2:8-9). Paul
repeatedly says that “no human being will be justified in his sight by works of law” (Rom.
3:20); the same idea is repeated in Galatians 2:16; 3:11; 5:4.
But is this consistent with the epistle of James? What can James mean when he says,
“You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone” (James 2:24). Here we
must realize that James is using the word justified in a different sense from the way Paul
uses it. In the beginning of this chapter we noted that the word justify has a range of
meanings, and that one significant sense was “declare to be righteous,” but we should
also notice that the Greek word dikaioo can also mean “demonstrate or show to be righ-
teous.” For instance, Jesus said to the Pharisees, “You are those who justify yourselves
before men, but God knows your hearts” (Luke 16:15). The point here was not that the
Pharisees went around making legal declarations that they were “not guilty” before God,
but rather that they were always attempting to show others that they were righteous by
their outward deeds. Jesus knew that the truth was otherwise: “But God knows your
hearts” (Luke 16:15). Similarly, the lawyer who put Jesus to a test by asking what he
should do to inherit eternal life answered Jesus’ first question well. But when Jesus told
him, “Do this, and you will live,” he was not satisfied. Luke tells us, “But he, desiring to
justify himself, said to Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’ ” (Luke 10:28-29). Now he was
not desiring to give a legal pronouncement about himself that he was not guilty in God’s
sight; rather, he was desiring to “show himself righteous” before others who were listen-
ing. Other examples of the word justify meaning “show to be righteous” can be found in
Matthew 11:19; Luke 7:35; Romans 3:4.
Our interpretation of James 2 depends not only on the fact that “show to be righteous”
is an acceptable sense for the word justified, but also on the consideration that this sense
fits well in the context of James 2. When James says, “Was not Abraham our father jus-
tified by works , when he offered his son Isaac upon the altar?” (v. 21) he is referring to
something later in Abraham’s life, the story of the sacrifice of Isaac, which occurred in
Genesis 22. This is long after the time recorded in Genesis 15:6 where Abraham believed
God “and he reckoned it to him as righteousness.” Yet this earlier incident at the begin-
ning of Abraham’s covenantal relationship with God is the one that Paul quotes and
repeatedly refers to in Romans 4. Paul is talking about the time God justified Abraham
once for all, reckoning righteousness to him as a result of his faith in God. But James is
talking about something far later, after Abraham had waited many years for the birth of
Isaac, and then after Isaac had grown old enough to carry wood up the mountain for a
sacrifice. At that point Abraham was “shown to be righteous” by his works, and in that
14 The word translated “this” is the neuter pronoun touto , and would require feminine pronouns), but to the entire idea
which refers not to “faith” or to “grace” specifically in the expressed in the preceding phrase, the idea that you have been
previous clause (for they are both feminine nouns in Greek, saved by grace through faith.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
732
sense James says that Abraham was “justified by works, when he offered his son Isaac
upon the altar” (James 2:21). 15
The larger concern of James in this section also fits this understanding. James is con-
cerned to show that mere intellectual agreement with the gospel is a “faith” that is really
no faith at all. He is concerned to argue against those who say they have faith but show
no change in their lives. He says, “Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by
my works will show you my faith” (James 2:18). “For as the body apart from the spirit is
dead, so faith apart from works is dead” (James 2:26). James is simply saying here that
“faith” that has no results or “works” is not real faith at all; it is “dead” faith. He is not
denying Paul’s clear teaching that justification (in the sense of a declaration of right legal
standing before God) is by faith alone apart from works of the law; he is simply affirming
a different truth, namely, that “justification” in the sense of an outward showing that one
is righteous only occurs as we see evidence in a person’s life. To paraphrase, James is say-
ing that a person is “ shown to be righteous by his works, and not by his faith alone.” This
is something with which Paul also would certainly agree (2 Cor. 13:5; Gal. 5:19-24).
The practical implications of the doctrine of justification by faith alone are very sig-
nificant. First, this doctrine enables us to offer genuine hope to unbelievers who know
they could never make themselves righteous before God: if salvation is a free gift to be
received through faith alone t then anyone who hears the gospel may hope that eternal life
is freely offered and may be obtained.
Second, this doctrine gives us confidence that God will never make us pay the penalty
for sins that have been forgiven on Christ’s merits. Of course, we may continue to suffer
the ordinary consequences of sin (an alcoholic who quits drinking may still have physi-
cal weakness for the rest of his or her life, and a thief who is justified may still have to
go to jail to pay the penalty for his or her crime). Moreover, God may discipline us if we
continue to act in ways that are disobedient to him (see Heb. 12:5-11), doing this out
of love and for our own good. But God can never nor will ever take vengeance on us for
past sins or make us pay the penalty that is due for them or punish us out of wrath and for
the purpose of doing us harm . “There is therefore now no condemnation for those that are
in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1). This fact should give us a great sense of joy and confidence
before God that we are accepted by him and that we stand before him as “not guilty” and
“righteous” forever.
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. Are you confident that God has declared you “not guilty” forever in his sight? Do
you know when that happened in your own life? Did you do or think anything that
resulted in God’s justifying of you? Did you do anything to deserve justification? If
you are not sure that God has justified you fully and for all time, is there something
15 James does quote the text, “Abraham believed God, and apparently meaning that the earlier declaration of righteousness
it was reckoned to him as righteousness” in v. 23, but he says was then worked out and its results were seen to be true in
that Scripture “was fulfilled” when Abraham offered his son, Abraham s life when he offered Isaac on the altar.
CHAPTER 36 ■ JUSTIFICATION
733
you need to do before that will happen? What would persuade you that God has
certainly justified you?
2. If you think of yourself standing before God on the day of judgment, would you
think that it is enough simply to have your sins all forgiven, or would you also feel
a need to have the righteousness of Christ reckoned to your account?
3. Do you think the difference between the Roman Catholic and Protestant under-
standing of justification is an important one? Describe how you would feel about
your relationship to God if you held the Roman Catholic view of justification.
Do modern Roman Catholics you know seem to hold to this traditional Roman
Catholic view of justification, or do they have another view?
4. Have you ever wondered if God is still continuing to punish you from time to
time for sins you have done in the past, even long ago? How does the doctrine of
justification help you deal with those feelings?
SPECIAL TERMS
forensic
impute
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter 1,
pp. 38-39. Complete bibliographical data maybe found on pp. 1224-30.)
Sections In Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1882-92 Litton, 265-320
1930 Thomas, 184-98, 210-20
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1847 Finney, 382 - 402
1875- 76 Pope, 2:358-62, 402-51
1892-94 Miley, 2:309-26
1940 Wiley, 2:379 - 401
1960 Purkiser, 287-92
3. Baptist
1767 Gill, 1:291-300; 2:68-93
1887 Boyce, 394-404
1907 Strong, 846-68
1917 Mullins, 389-401
1983-85 Erickson, 954- 61
infused righteousness
justification
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
4. Dispensational
1947 Chafer, 3:238-46
1949 Thiessen, 271-76
1986 Ryrie, 298-300
5. Lutheran
1917-24 Pieper, 2:3-54, 503-57
1934 Mueller, 242 - 54, 367-83
6. Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1559 Calvin, I, 725-833 (3.11 - 18)
1861 Heppe, 543-64
1871-73 Hodge, 3:114-212
1878 Dabney, 618 - 50
1887-1921 Warfield, BTS, 262-68
1889 Shedd, 2b: 538 -52
1937-66 Murray, CW, 2:202-22; RAA, 117-31
1938 Berkhof, 510-26
1962 Buswell, 2:187-96
7. Renewal (or charismatic/Pentecostal)
1988 - 92 Williams, 2:61-82
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
1. Roman Catholic: Traditional
1955 Ott, 250-69
Other Works
Berkouwer, G. C. Faith and Justification . Trans, by Lewis B. Smedes. Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1954.
Carson, D. A., ed. Right With God: Justification in the Bible and the World . Grand Rapids:
Baker, 1992.
Hoekema, Anthony A. “Justification.” In Saved by Grace. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, and
Exeter: Paternoster, 1989, pp. 152-91.
McGrath, Alister E. Iustitia Dei: A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification. 2 vols.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
. Justification by Faith: An Introduction. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1988.
Morris, Leon. The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross. 3d ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965,
pp. 251-98.
Murray, John. “Justification.” In Redemption Accomplished and Applied . Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1955, pp. 117-31.
Packer, J. I. et al. Here We Stand: Justification by Faith Today. London: Hodder and
Stoughton, 1986.
. “Justification.” In EDT t pp. 593-97.
Pink, A. W. The Doctrines of Election and Justification . Grand Rapids: Baker, 1974.
CHAPTER 36 • JUSTIFICATION
735
Wright, N. T. “Justification” In NDT, pp. 359-61.
Ziesler, J.A. The Meaning of Righteous in Paul. Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1972.
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
Romans 3:27-28: Then what becomes of our boasting ? It is excluded. On what principle?
On the principle of works? No, but on the principle of faith. For we hold that a man is
justified by faith apart from works of law.
HYMN
“Jesus, Thy Blood and Righteousness”
Jesus, thy blood and righteousness
My beauty are, my glorious dress;
’Midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed,
With joy shall I lift up my head.
Bold shall I stand in thy great day;
For who aught to my charge shall lay?
Fully absolved through these I am
From sin and fear, from guilt and shame.
When from the dust of death I rise
To claim my mansion in the skies,
Evn then this shall be all my plea,
Jesus hath lived, hath died, for me.
Jesus, be endless praise to thee,
Whose boundless mercy hath for me —
For me a full atonement made,
An everlasting ransom paid.
O let the dead now hear thy voice;
Now bid thy banished ones rejoice;
Their beauty this, their glorious dress,
Jesus, thy blood and righteousness.
AUTHOR: COUNT NIKOLAUS LUDWIG VON ZINZENDORF, 1739
(TRANS. JOHN WESLEY, 1740, ALT.)
Chapter
ADOPTION
(MEMBERSHIP IN GOD'S
FAMILY)
What are benefits of being a member
of God's family ?
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
In regeneration God gives us new spiritual life within. In justification God gives us
right legal standing before him. But in adoption God makes us members of his family.
Therefore, the biblical teaching on adoption focuses much more on the personal relation-
ships that salvation gives us with God and with his people.
A. Scriptural Evidence for Adoption
We may define adoption as follows: Adoption is an act of God whereby he makes us
members of his family.
John mentions adoption at the beginning of his gospel, where he says, “But to all who
received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God” (John
1: 12). By contrast, those who do not believe in Christ are not children of God or adopted
into his family, but are “children of wrath” (Eph. 2:3) and “sons of disobedience” (Eph.
2:2; 5:6). Although those Jews who rejected Christ tried to claim that God was their
father (John 8:41), Jesus told them, “If God were your Father, you would love me You
are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your fathers desires” (John 8:42-44).
The New Testament epistles bear repeated testimony to the fact that we are now God’s
children in a special sense, members of his family. Paul says:
For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive
the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of son-
ship. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with
736
CHAPTER 37 • ADOPTION
737
our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God
and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may
also be glorified with him. (Rom. 8:14- 17)
But if we are God’s children, are we then related to one another as family members?
Certainly so. In fact, this adoption into Gods family makes us partakers together in one
family even with the believing Jews of the Old Testament, for Paul says that we are Abra-
ham’s children as well: “Not all are children of Abraham because they are his descen-
dants; but ‘Through Isaac shall your descendants be named.’ This means that it is not
the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise
are reckoned as descendants” (Rom. 9:7-8). He further explains in Galatians, “Now we,
brethren, like Isaac, are children of promise ... we are not children of the slave but of the
free woman” (Gal. 4:28, 31; cf. 1 Peter 3:6, where Peter sees believing women as daughters
of Sarah in the new covenant).
Paul explains that this status of adoption as God’s children was not fully realized in
the old covenant. He says that “before faith came, we were confined under the law . . . the
law was our custodian until Christ came, that we might be justified by faith. But now that
faith has come, we are no longer under a custodian; for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of
God, through faith” (Gal. 3:23-26). This is not to say that the Old Testament completely
omitted talk of God as our Father, for God did call himself the Father of the children of
Israel and called them his children in several places (Ps. 103:13; Isa. 43:6-7; Mai. 1:6;
2:10). But even though there was a consciousness of God as Father to the people of Israel,
the full benefits and privileges of membership in God’s family, and the full realization of
that membership, did not come until Christ came and the Spirit of the Son of God was
poured into our hearts, bearing witness with our spirit that we were God’s children.
What evidence do we see in our lives that we are God’s children? Paul sees clear evi-
dence in the fact that the Holy Spirit bears witness in our hearts that we are God’s chil-
dren: “But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born
under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption
as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, cry-
ing, ‘Abba! Father!’ So through God you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son then
an heir” (Gal. 4:4-7).
John’s first epistle places much emphasis on our status as children of God: “See what
love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. . . .
Beloved, we are God’s children now” (1 John 3:1-2; John frequently calls his readers
“children” or “little children”). 1
Although Jesus does call us his “brothers” (Heb. 2:12 NIV) and he is therefore in one
sense our older brother in God’s family (cf. Heb. 2:14), and can be called “the firstborn
among many brethren” (Rom. 8:29), he is nevertheless careful to make a clear distinction
between the way in which God is our heavenly Father and the way in which he relates
to God the Father. He says to Mary Magdalene, “I am ascending to my Father and your
Father, to my God and your God” (John 20:17), thus making a clear distinction between
There are several other passages that speak about our sta- Matt. 5:48; 7:11; 2 Cor. 6:18; Eph. 5:1; Phil. 2:15; Heb. 2:13-14;
tus as Gods children or our membership in his family (see 12:5-11; 1 Peter 1:14; 1 John 3:10).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
738
the far greater and eternal sense in which God is his Father, and the sense in which God
is our Father.
Although the New Testament says that we are now God’s children (1 John 3:2), we
should also note that there is another sense in which our adoption is still future because
we will not receive the full benefits and privileges of adoption until Christ returns and
we have new resurrection bodies. Paul speaks of this later, fuller sense of adoption when
he says, “Not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit,
groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (Rom.
8:23). Here Paul sees the receiving of new resurrection bodies as the fulfillment of our
privileges of adoption, so much so that he can refer to it as our “adoption as sons.”
B. Adoption Follows Conversion and Is an Outcome of Saving Faith
We might initially think that we would become God’s children by regeneration, since
the imagery of being “born again” in regeneration makes us think of children being born
into a human family. But the New Testament never connects adoption with regeneration:
indeed, the idea of adoption is opposite to the idea of being born into a family!
Rather, the New Testament connects adoption with saving faith, and says that in
response to our trusting in Christ, God has adopted us into his family. Paul says, “In
Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith” (Gal. 3:23-26). And John writes, “But
to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of
God (John I:12). 2 These two verses make it clear that adoption follows conversion and
is God’s response to our faith.
One objection to this might be brought from Paul’s statement, “Because you are sons,
God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!”’ (Gal. 4:6).
Someone might understand this verse to mean that first God adopted us as sons and sec-
ond he gave us the Holy Spirit to bring regeneration to our hearts. But a few verses earlier
Paul had said that we have become sons of God “through faith” (Gal. 3:26). Therefore
Paul’s statement in Galatians 4:6 is best understood not to refer to the giving of the Holy
Spirit in regeneration, but rather to an additional activity of the Holy Spirit in which
he begins to bear witness with our spirit and to assure us that we are members of God’s
family. This work of the Holy Spirit gives us assurance of our adoption, and it is in this
sense that Paul says that, after we have become sons, God causes his Holy Spirit within
our hearts to cry, “Abba! Father!” (cf. Rom. 8:15-16).
C. Adoption Is Distinct From Justification
Although adoption is a privilege that comes to us at the time we become Christians
(John 1:12; Gal. 3:26; 1 John 3:1-2), nevertheless, it is a privilege that is distinct from
justification and distinct from regeneration. In regeneration we are made spiritu-
ally alive, able to relate to God in prayer and worship and able to hear his Word with
2 It is true that in John 1:13 he specifies that these were peo- ated by God). That does not negate the fact that it was to those
pie who were born of God, but this is simply giving additional who “believed in his name” that Christ gave power to become
information about them (namely, that they had been regener- children of God.
CHAPTER 37 ■ ADOPTION
receptive hearts. But it is possible that God could have creatures who are spiritually alive
and yet are not members of his family and do not share the special privileges of family
members — angels, for example, apparently fall into that category. 3 Therefore, it would
have been possible for God to decide to give us regeneration without the great privileges
of adoption into his family.
Moreover, God could have given us justification without the privileges of adoption
into his family, for he could have forgiven our sins and given us right legal standing
before him without making us his children. It is important to realize this because it
helps us to recognize how great are our privileges in adoption. Regeneration has to do
with our spiritual life within. Justification has to do with our standing before God’s law.
But adoption has to do with our relationship with God as our Father, and in adoption
we are given many of the greatest blessings that we will know for all eternity. When we
begin to realize the excellence of these blessings, and when we appreciate that God has no
obligation to give us any of them, then we will be able to exclaim with the apostle John,
“See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and so
we are” (1 John 3:1).
D. The Privileges of Adoption
The benefits or privileges that accompany adoption are seen, first, in the way God
relates to us, and then also in the way we relate to one another as brothers and sisters in
Gods family.
One of the greatest privileges of our adoption is being able to speak to God and relate
to him as a good and loving Father We are to pray, “Our Father who art in heaven” (Matt.
6:9), and we are to realize that we are “no longer slaves, but sons” (Gal. 4:7). Therefore,
we now relate to God not as a slave relates to a slave master, but as a child relates to his
or her father. In fact, God gives us an internal witness from the Holy Spirit that causes us
instinctively to call God our Father. “When we cry, Abba! Father!’ it is the Spirit himself
bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (Rom. 8:15-16). This rela-
tionship to God as our Father is the foundation of many other blessings of the Christian
life, and it becomes the primary way in which we relate to God. Certainly it is true that
God is our Creator, our judge, our Lord and Master, our teacher, our provider and pro-
tector, and the one who by his providential care sustains our existence. But the role that
is most intimate, and the role that conveys the highest privileges of fellowship with God
for eternity, is his role as our heavenly Father.
The fact that God relates to us as Father shows very clearly that he loves us (l John
3:1), that he understands us (“As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has
compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that
Although both good and evil angels are in one place in
Scripture called “the sons of God” (Job 1:6), this is apparently a
reference to the status of sonship that comes by the fact that God
created them. It does not seem to indicate that angels generally
(especially evil angels) share in any of the family privileges that
we receive as Gods children. In fact, Heb. 2:14-16 makes a clear
distinction between our status as Gods children and the status
of angels. Moreover, angels are nowhere else referred to as mem-
bers of God’s family or said to have the family privileges that
belong to us as God’s children. (It is unlikely that Gen. 6:2-4
refers to angels; see Wayne Grudem, The First Epistle of Peter,
pp. 211-15.)
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
740
we are dust” [Ps. 103:13- 14 NIV]), and that he takes care of our needs (“For the Gentiles
seek all these things; and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all,” Matt.
6:32). Moreover, in his role as our Father, God gives us many good gifts: “If you then, who
are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father
who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matt. 7:11). He especially gives
us the gift of the Holy Spirit to comfort us and to empower us for ministry and for living
the Christian life (Luke 11:13). 4 In fact, it is not only gifts in this life that God gives to
us, but he also gives us a great inheritance in heaven , because we have become joint heirs
with Christ. Paul says, “You are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son then an heir”
(Gal. 4:7); we are in fact “heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ” (Rom. 8:17). As heirs
we have the rights to a great eternal “inheritance which is imperishable, undefiled, and
unfading, kept in heaven for you” (1 Peter 1:4). All the great privileges and blessings of
heaven are laid up for us and put at our disposal because we are children of the King,
members of the royal family, princes and princesses who will reign with Christ over the
new heavens and new earth (Rev. 2:26-27; 3:21). As a foretaste of this great privilege,
angels are even now sent to minister to us and serve us (Heb. 1:14).
It is in the context of this relationship with God as our heavenly Father that we are to
understand the prayer that Jesus told his disciples to pray daily, “Our Father who art in
heaven . . . forgive us our sins, as we also have forgiven those who sin against us” (Matt.
6:9-12, author’s translation). This daily prayer for forgiveness of sins is not a prayer that
God would give us justification again and again throughout our lives, for justification
is a one-time event that occurs immediately after we trust in Christ with saving faith.
Rather, the prayer for forgiveness of sins each day is a prayer that God’s fatherly relation-
ship with us, which has been disrupted by sin that displeased him, be restored, and that
he relate to us once again as a Father who delights in his children whom he loves. The
prayer, “Forgive us our sins,” therefore, is one in which we are relating not to God as
eternal judge of the universe, but to God as a Father. It is a prayer in which we wish to
restore the open fellowship with our Father that has been broken because of sin (see also
1 John 1:9; 3:19-22).
The privilege of being led by the Holy Spirit is also a benefit of adoption. Paul indicates
that this is a moral benefit whereby the Holy Spirit puts in us desires to obey God and
live according to his will. He says, “All who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God ”
(Rom. 8:14), and he gives this as the reason Christians should “put to death the deeds
of the body” by means of the Holy Spirit working within them (v. 13; note “for” at the
beginning of v. 14). He sees the Holy Spirit as leading and guiding God’s children in paths
of obedience to God.
Another privilege of adoption into God’s family, though we do not always recognize
it as a privilege, is the fact that God disciplines us as his children. “My son, do not regard
lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor lose courage when you are punished by him. For
the Lord disciplines him whom he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives”
4 In this verse Jesus says, “If you then, who are evil, know ing within as he comes at regeneration, but the gift of further
how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will empowering for ministry, for gifts to be used in ministry, or for
the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him! ” Christian living.
Here he seems to mean not the gift of the Holy Spirit dwell-
CHAPTER 37 * ADOPTION
741
(Heb. 12:5-6, quoting Prov. 3:11-12). The author of Hebrews explains, “God is treat-
ing you as sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? ... he disci-
plines us for our good, that we may share his holiness” (Heb. 12:7, 10). Just as earthly
children grow in obedience and righteousness when they are disciplined properly by
their earthly fathers, so we grow in righteousness and holiness when we are disciplined
by our heavenly Father.
Related to the fatherly discipline of God is the fact that, as children of God and joint
heirs with Christ, we have the privilege of sharing both in his sufferings and in his subse-
quent glory. Just as it was “necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter
into his glory” (Luke 24:26), so God gives us the privilege of walking the same path that
Christ walked, enduring sufferings in this life that we may also receive great glory in the
life to come: “if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided
we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him ” (Rom. 8:17).
In addition to these great privileges that concern our relationship to God and fel-
lowship with him, we also have privileges of adoption that affect the way that we relate
to each other and affect our own personal conduct. Because we are God’s children, our
relationship with each other is far deeper and more intimate than the relationship that
angels, for example, have to one another, for we are all members of one family. Many
times the New Testament refers to Christians as “brothers” and “sisters” in Christ (Rom.
1:13; 8:12; 1 Cor. 1:10; 6:8; James 1:2; Matt. 12:50; Rom. 16:1; 1 Cor. 7:15; Philem. 1:2;
James 2:15). In addition to this, the many verses in which entire churches are referred to
as “brothers” should not be understood to refer to the men in the congregation only, but
are rather generic references to the whole church, and, except where the context explic-
itly indicates otherwise, should be taken to mean “brothers and sisters in the Lord.” The
designation “brother” is so common in the epistles that it seems to be the predominant
way in which the New Testament authors refer to the other Christians to whom they are
writing. This indicates the strong consciousness they had of the nature of the church as
the family of God. In fact, Paul tells Timothy to relate to the church at Ephesus, and to
the individuals within the church, as he would relate to members of a large family: “Do
not rebuke an older man but exhort him as you would a father; treat younger men like
brothers , older women like mothers, younger women like sisters, in all purity” (1 Tim.
5:1-2). 5
This concept of the church as Gods family should give us a new perspective on the
work of the church; it is “family work,” and the various members of the family never
should compete with each other or hinder one another in their efforts, but should
encourage one another and be thankful for whatever good or whatever progress comes
to any member of the family, for all are contributing to the good of the family and the
honor of God our Father. In fact, just as members of an earthly family often have times of
joy and fellowship when they work together on a single project, so our times of working
together in building up the church ought to be times of great joy and fellowship with one
another. Moreover, just as members of an earthly family honor their parents and fulfill
5 An extensive analysis of the New Testament teaching on the Male Leadership in the Church as Well,” in W. Grudem and
church as a family is found in Vern S. Poythress, “The Church J. Piper, eds., Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood ,
as a Family: Why Male Leadership in the Family Requires pp. 233-47.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
742
the purpose of a family most when they eagerly welcome any brothers or sisters who are
newly adopted into that family, so we ought to welcome new members of the family of
Christ eagerly and with love.
Another aspect of our membership in God's family is that we, as God's children, are to
imitate our Father in heaven in all our conduct. Paul says, “be imitators of God, as beloved
children” (Eph. 5:1). Peter echoes this theme when he says, “As obedient children, do
not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is
holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; since it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I
am holy'” (1 Peter 1:14-16). Both Peter and Paul realize that it is natural for children
to imitate their earthly fathers. They appeal to this natural sense that children have in
order to remind us that we are to imitate our heavenly Father — indeed, this should be
something we naturally want to do and delight in. If God our Father in heaven is holy,
we should be holy as obedient children.
When we walk in paths of righteous conduct we honor our heavenly Father and bring
glory to him. When we act in a way that is pleasing to God, we are to do so that others
“may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 5:16).
Paul encourages the Philippians to maintain pure conduct before unbelievers “that you
may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked
and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world” (Phil. 2:15).
Indeed, a consistent pattern of moral conduct is also evidence that we are truly children
of God. John says, “By this it may be seen who are the children of God, and who are the
children of the devil: whoever does not do right is not of God, nor he who does not love
his brother” (1 John 3:10).
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1 . Look back over the list of privileges that come with our adoption as God's children.
Had you previously thought of these as automatically yours because you had been
born again? Can you describe what our eternal life would be like if we had regen-
eration and justification and many of the other privileges that come with salvation,
but no adoption into God's family? Now how do you feel about the fact that God
has adopted you into his family compared with the way you felt before reading this
chapter?
2. Has your relationship with your own human family become better or more diffi-
cult as a result of your becoming a Christian? If your relationship with your earthly
family has become more difficult, how have you found Mark 10:29-30 to be true
in your life as a Christian?
3. Sometimes people who have had unloving or cruel earthly fathers have found that
their background creates difficulty in their thinking about God and relating to
him as a heavenly Father. How can Hebrews 12:10; Matthew 7:11; and Luke 11:13,
which contrast sinful earthly fathers with our perfect Father in heaven, be of help
in that situation? Might 1 Peter 1:18 be helpful in this situation as well? What can
CHAPTER 37 • ADOPTION
743
a person who has had a cruel and unloving earthly father do to gain a better and
better appreciation of who God is and what kind of Father he is? Do you think that
any of the people who became Christians in the first century had cruel and unlov-
ing fathers, or no living fathers at all? What teachings of the Old Testament would
have helped them at this point? Do you think that people who have had evil earthly
fathers have a God-given inward sense of what a good father would be like?
4. Think of the people who are members of your church. Has this chapter helped you
to think of them more as your brothers and sisters (or if they are older, as those who
are like “fathers” and “mothers” to you)? How do you think an added appreciation
of this idea of the church as a family would be helpful to your church? How could
you encourage a greater appreciation of this idea?
5. Does your church have any sense of competition with other churches that might be
overcome by greater appreciation of the doctrine of adoption?
6. In the human family, when one of the children commits a crime and is publicly
punished for it, the entire family suffers shame. On the other hand, when a family
member is honored for an outstanding achievement, the entire family is proud and
rejoices. How does this analogy of events in a human family make you feel about
your own personal level of holiness in life, and the way it reflects on the other
members of your spiritual family? How does it make you feel about the need for
personal holiness among your brothers and sisters in the church? Do you person-
ally have a strong inward desire to imitate your heavenly Father in your conduct
(Eph. 5:1; 1 Peter 1:14-16)?
7. Do you sense the Holy Spirit within you bearing witness with your spirit that you
are a child of God (Rom. 8:15-16; Gal. 4:6)? Can you describe what that sense is
like?
8. Do you sense any discrimination against Christians of other races or other social
or economic positions? Can you understand how the doctrine of adoption should
obliterate such distinctions in the church (see Gal. 3:26-28)? Can you also see how
the doctrine of adoption means that neither men nor women should think of the
other sex as more important or less important in the church (see Gal. 3:28)?
SPECIAL TERM
adoption
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter 1,
pp. 38-39. Complete bibliographical data maybe found on pp. 1224-30.)
Note: Many systematic theologies do not treat adoption as a separate topic, but include
a discussion of the privileges of adoption in a discussion of justification and its results.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
744
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1882-92 Litton (no explicit treatment)
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1875-76
Pope, 3:1-27
1892 -94
Miley, 2:337-38
1940
Wiley, 2:402-39
1960
Purkiser, 297-98
3. Baptist
1767
Gill, 1:288-91;2:93-107
1887
Boyce, 404-9
1917
Mullins, 401 -9
1983-85
Erickson, 961 -66
4. Dispensational
1947
Chafer, 3:241-43
1949
Thiessen, 278- 82
1986
Ryrie, 301-2, 306-7
5. Lutheran
1917-24
Pieper, 2:408-9
6. Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1937 -66 Murray, CW, 2:223-34; RAA, 132-40
1962 Buswell, 2:212-13
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
1. Roman Catholic: Traditional
1955 Ott (no explicit treatment)
2. Roman Catholic: Post-Vatican II
1980 McBrien (no explicit treatment)
Other Works
Davids, P. H. “Adoption.” In EDT, p. 13.
Murray, John. “Adoption.” In Redemption Accomplished and Applied. Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1955, pp. 132-40.
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
Romans 8:14- 17: For all who are led hy the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not
receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear ; but you have received the spirit of sonship.
When we cry ; “Abba! Father /” it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we
are children of God , and if children , then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ,
provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.
CHAPTER 37 • ADOPTION
745
HYMN
“Children of the Heavenly Father”
Children of the heav’nly Father
Safely in his bosom gather;
Nestling bird nor star in heaven
Such a refuge e’er was given.
God his own doth tend and nourish,
In his holy courts they flourish;
From all evil things he spares them,
In his mighty arms he bears them.
Neither life nor death shall ever
From the Lord his children sever;
Unto them his grace he showeth,
And their sorrows all he knoweth.
Praise the Lord in joyful numbers,
Your Protector never slumbers;
At the will of your Defender
Every foeman must surrender.
Though he giveth or he taketh,
God his children ne’er forsaketh;
His the loving purpose solely
To preserve them pure and holy.
AUTHOR: CAROLINE V. SANDELL BERG, C. 1855
(TRANS. ERNST W. OLSON, 1925)
Text © Board of Publication, Lutheran Church in America. Reprinted by permission of
Augsburg Fortress.
Chapter 38
SANCTIFICATION
(GROWTH IN LIKENESS
TO CHRIST)
How do we grow in Christian maturity ?
What are the blessings of Christian growth ?
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
The previous chapters have discussed several acts of God that occur at the beginning
of our Christian lives: the gospel call (which God addresses to us), regeneration (by
which God imparts new life to us), justification (by which God gives us right legal stand-
ing before him), and adoption (in which God makes us members of his family). We have
also discussed conversion (in which we repent of sins and trust in Christ for salvation).
These events all occur at the beginning of our Christian lives . 1
But now we come to a part of the application of redemption that is a progressive work
that continues throughout our earthly lives. It is also a work in which God and man
cooperate, each playing distinct roles. This part of the application of redemption is called
sanctification: Sanctification is a progressive work of God and man that makes us more and
more free from sin and like Christ in our actual lives.
A. Differences Between Justification and Sanctification
The following table specifies several differences between justification and
sanctification:
Although the initial saving faith by which we are justi- beginning of the Christian life, the results of all of these con-
fled occurs only at the time of conversion, faith and repen- tinue throughout life: we continue to have the spiritual life we
tance do continue throughout our lives as well (see chapter 35, receive from regeneration, the legal standing we receive from
p. 717- 18). Similarly, although regeneration, justification, and justification, and the membership in God’s family we receive
adoption are instantaneous one-time events that occur at the from adoption.
746
Justification
Legal standing
Once for all time
Entirely Gods work
Perfect in this life
The same in all Christians
CHAPTER 38 ♦ SANCTIFICATION
747
Sanctification
Internal condition
Continuous throughout life
We cooperate
Not perfect in this life
Greater in some than in others
As this chart indicates, sanctification is something that continues throughout our
Christian life. The ordinary course of a Christian’s life will involve continual growth in
sanctification, and it is something that the New Testament encourages us to give effort
and attention to.
B. Three Stages of Sanctification
1. Sanctification Has a Definite Beginning at Regeneration. A definite moral change
occurs in our lives at the point of regeneration, for Paul talks about the “washing of
regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5). Once we have been born again
we cannot continue to sin as a habit or a pattern of life (1 John 3:9), because the power of
new spiritual life within us keeps us from yielding to a life of sin.
This initial moral change is the first stage in sanctification. In this sense, there is some
overlap between regeneration and sanctification, for this moral change is actually a part
of regeneration. But when we view it from the standpoint of moral change within us, we
can also see it as the first stage in sanctification. Paul looks back on a completed event
when he says to the Corinthians, But you were washed, you were sanctified , you were
justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:11).
Similarly, in Acts 20:32 Paul can refer to Christians as “all those who are sanctified.” 2
This initial step in sanctification involves a definite break from the ruling power and
love of sin, so that the believer is no longer ruled or dominated by sin and no longer loves
to sin. Paul says, So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in
Christ Jesus For sin will have no dominion over you” (Rom. 6:11, 14). Paul says that
Christians have been “set free from sin” (Rom. 6:18). In this context, to be dead to sin or
to be set free from sin involves the power to overcome acts or patterns of sinful behavior
in one s life. Paul tells the Romans not to let sin “reign in your mortal bodies,” and he
also says, “Do not yield your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but yield
yourselves to God” (Rom. 6:12-13). To be dead to the ruling power of sin means that we
as Christians, by virtue of the power of the Holy Spirit and the resurrection life of Christ
working within us, have power to overcome the temptations and enticements of sin. Sin
will no longer be our master, as once it was before we became Christians.
In practical terms, this means that we must affirm two things to be true. On the one
hand, we will never be able to say, “I am completely free from sin,” because our sanctifica-
tion will never be completed (see below). But on the other hand, a Christian should never
The Greek expression is tois hegiasmenois , a substantival continue to experience the sanctifying influence of that past
perfect passive participle that expresses both a completed past action),
activity (they were sanctified) and a continuing result (they
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
748
say (for example), “This sin has defeated me. I give up. I have had a bad temper for thirty-
seven years, and I will have one until the day I die, and people are just going to have to
put up with me the way I am!” To say this is to say that sin has gained dominion. It is to
allow sin to reign in our bodies. It is to admit defeat. It is to deny the truth of Scripture,
which tells us, “You also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ
Jesus” (Rom. 6:11). It is to deny the truth of Scripture that tells us that “sin will have no
dominion over you” (Rom. 6:14).
This initial break with sin, then, involves a reorientation of our desires so that we no
longer have a dominant love for sin in our lives. Paul knows that his readers were formerly
slaves to sin (as all unbelievers are), but he says that they are enslaved no longer. “You who
were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching
to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of
righteousness” (Rom. 6:17-18). This change of one’s primary love and primary desires
occurs at the beginning of sanctification. 3
2. Sanctification Increases Throughout Life. Even though the New Testament speaks
about a definite beginning to sanctification, it also sees it as a process that continues
throughout our Christian lives. This is the primary sense in which sanctification is used
in systematic theology and in Christian conversation generally today. 4 Although Paul
says that his readers have been set free from sin (Rom. 6:18) and that they are “dead to
sin and alive to God” (Rom. 6:11), he nonetheless recognizes that sin remains in their
lives, so he tells them not to let it reign and not to yield to it (Rom. 6:12-13). Their task,
therefore, as Christians is to grow more and more in sanctification, just as they previ-
ously grew more and more in sin: “Just as you once yielded your members to impurity
and to greater and greater iniquity, so now yield your members to righteousness for
sanctification” (Rom. 6:19; the words “just as ... so now” [Gk. hosper . . . houtos] indicate
3 Some may wish to add to this section one or more passages
from Hebrews that speak about our sanctification as having
been completed in the past. For example, the author says that
by the will of God “we have been sanctified through the offer-
ing of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Heb. 10:10). The
Greek expression is a periphrastic perfect passive participle, he -
giasmenoi esmen, which speaks of a continuing present situation
that results from a completed past action: “We are continually
in the state of ‘having been sanctified’ (and we continue to feel
the results of that previous act of sanctification).”
But in Hebrews the term sanctify (Gk. hagiazd) is related
more to the Old Testament background of ceremonial purity or
holiness as necessary for access to God’s presence, and there-
fore “sanctified” in Hebrews means “made holy and righteous
in God’s sight and therefore fit to draw near to God in wor-
ship.” As such, “sanctified” in Hebrews is roughly equivalent
to “justified” in Paul’s vocabulary. This sense of “sanctified”
can be seen in Heb. 9:13; 10:10; 13:12. These passages speak
of a ceremonial kind of purification that allows access to God,
and, as such, “sanctification” here applies to the beginning of
the Christian life. Nevertheless, the focus is more on access to
God in worship, while the Pauline emphasis is on justification
from the penalty of sin that was due under God’s law.
4 There is a different usage of the word sanctified in the
Wesleyan/Holiness tradition within Protestantism. In these
circles the experience of sanctification is sometimes viewed as
a single event subsequent to conversion in which a Christian
attains a higher level of holiness, a level sometimes known
as “entire sanctification” or “sinless perfection.” Within this
tradition, sanctification is seen as an experience one seeks for
in the Christian life and is sometimes able to attain. (See the
systematic theologies listed under the category “Arminian”
in the bibliography at the end of this chapter.) Therefore,
while most Protestants would say, “I am being sanctified,”
some within the Wesleyan /Holiness tradition would say, “I
have been sanctified,” referring not to the initial break with
sin that comes with conversion, but to a subsequent experi-
ence in which they began to know freedom from conscious
sin in their lives. The difficulties with this position are out-
lined in section 4 below, “Sanctification Is Never Completed
in This Life.”
CHAPTER 38 • SANCTIFICATION
that Paul wants them to do this in the same way: “just as” they previously yielded to more
and more sin, “in just the same way” they are now to yield themselves to more and more
righteousness for sanctification).
Paul says that throughout the Christian life “we all . . . are being changed into his like-
ness from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor. 3:18). We are progressively becoming
more and more like Christ as we go on in the Christian life. Therefore he says, “Forgetting
what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for
the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:13-14) — this is in the con-
text of saying that he is not already perfect but he presses on to achieve all of the purposes
for which Christ has saved him (vv. 9-12).
Paul tells the Colossians that they should not lie to one another, since they have “put
on the new nature, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator”
(Col. 3:10), thus showing that sanctification even involves increasing likeness to God in
our thoughts as well as our words and deeds. The author of Hebrews tells his readers to
“lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely” (Heb. 12:1), and to “strive for . . .
the holiness without which no one will see the Lord” (Heb. 12:14). James encourages his
hearers, “Be doers of the word, and not hearers only” (James 1:22), and Peter tells his
readers, “Be holy yourselves in all your conduct” (1 Peter 1:15).
It is not necessary to list multiple additional quotations, because much of the New
Testament is taken up with instructing believers in various churches on how they should
grow in likeness to Christ. All of the moral exhortations and commands in the New Tes-
tament epistles apply here, because they all exhort believers to one aspect or another of
greater sanctification in their lives. It is the expectation of all the New Testament authors
that our sanctification will increase throughout our Christian lives.
3. Sanctification Is Completed at Death (for Our Souls) and When the Lord Returns
(for Our Bodies). Because there is sin that still remains in our hearts even though we
have become Christians (Rom. 6:12-13; 1 John 1:8), our sanctification will never be
completed in this life (see below). But once we die and go to be with the Lord, then our
sanctification is completed in one sense, for our souls are set free from indwelling sin
and are made perfect. The author of Hebrews says that when we come into the presence
of God to worship we come “to the spirits of just men made perfect” (Heb. 12:23). This is
only appropriate because it is in anticipation of the fact that “nothing unclean shall enter”
into the presence of God, the heavenly city (Rev. 21:27).
However, when we appreciate that sanctification involves the whole person, including
our bodies (see 2 Cor. 7:1; 1 Thess. 5:23), then we realize that sanctification will not be
entirely completed until the Lord returns and we receive new resurrection bodies. We
await the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ from heaven, and he “will change our lowly
body to be like his glorious body” (Phil. 3:21). It is “at his coming” (1 Cor. 15:23) that we
will be made alive with a resurrection body and then we shall fully “bear the image of
the Man of heaven” (1 Cor. 15:49). 5
5 See chapter 42 on glorification (that is, receiving a resur-
rection body when Christ returns).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
750
THE PROCESS OF SANCTIFICATION
Figure 38. 1
We may diagram the process of sanctification as in figure 38.1, showing that we are
slaves to sin prior to conversion, (1) that there is a definite beginning to sanctification
at the point of conversion, (2) that sanctification should increase throughout the Chris-
tian life, and (3) that sanctification is made perfect at death. (The completion of sanc-
tification when we receive resurrection bodies is omitted from this chart for the sake of
simplicity.)
I have shown the progress of sanctification as a jagged line on this chart, indicating
that growth in sanctification is not always one- directional in this life, but that progress
in sanctification occurs at some times, while at other times we realize that we are regress-
ing somewhat. In the extreme case, a believer who makes very little use of the means of
sanctification, but rather has bad teaching, lacks good Christian fellowship, and pays
little attention to God’s Word and prayer, may actually go for many years with very little
progress in sanctification at all — but this is certainly not the normal or expected pattern
of the Christian life. It is in fact highly abnormal.
4. Sanctification Is Never Completed in This Life. There have always been some in the
history of the church who have taken commands such as Matthew 5:48 (“You, therefore,
must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect”) or 2 Corinthians 7:1 (“let us cleanse
ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, and make holiness perfect in the fear
of God”) and reasoned that since God gives us these commands, he must also give us
the ability to obey them perfectly. Therefore, they have concluded, it is possible for us
to attain a state of sinless perfection in this life. Moreover, they point to Paul’s prayer
for the Thessalonians, “May the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly” (1 Thess.
5:23), and infer that Paul’s prayer may well have been fulfilled for some of the Thes-
salonian Christians. In fact, John even says, “No one who abides in him sins” (1 John
3:6)! Do these verses not point to the possibility of sinless perfection in the life of some
Christians? In this discussion, I will use the term perfectionism to refer to this view that
sinless perfection is possible in this life.
CHAPTER 38 • SANCTIFICATION
On closer inspection, these passages do not support the perfectionist position. First,
it is simply not taught in Scripture that when God gives a command, he also gives the
ability to obey it in every case. 6 God commands all people everywhere to obey all of his
moral laws and holds them accountable for failing to obey them, even though unre-
deemed people are sinners and, as such, dead in trespasses and sins, and thus unable to
obey God’s commands. When Jesus commands us to be perfect as our Father in heaven is
perfect (Matt. 5:48), this simply shows that God’s own absolute moral purity is the stan-
dard toward which we are to aim and the standard for which God holds us accountable.
The fact that we are unable to attain that standard does not mean that it will be lowered;
rather, it means that we need God’s grace and forgiveness to overcome our remaining
sin. Similarly, when Paul commands the Corinthians to make holiness perfect in the
fear of the Lord (2 Cor. 7:1), or prays that God would sanctify the Thessalonians wholly
(1 Thess. 5:23), he is pointing to the goal that he desires them to reach. He does not imply
that any reach it, but only that this is the high moral standard toward which God wants
all believers to aspire.
John’s statement that “No one who abides in him sins” (1 John 3:6) does not teach that
some of us attain perfection, because the present-tense Greek verbs are better translated
as indicating continual or habitual activity: “No one who lives in him keeps on sinning .
No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him” (1 John 3:6 NIV). This is
similar to John’s statement a few verses later, “No one who is born of God will continue
to sin, because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been
born of God” (1 John 3:9 NIV). If these verses were taken to prove sinless perfection, they
would have to prove it for all Christians, because they talk about what is true of everyone
born of God, and everyone who has seen Christ and known him. 7
Therefore, there do not seem to be any convincing verses in Scripture that teach that
it is possible for anyone to be completely free of sin in this life. On the other hand, there
are passages in both the Old and New Testaments that clearly teach that we cannot be
morally perfect in this life. In Solomon’s prayer at the dedication of the temple, he says,
“If they sin against you — for there is no man who does not sin” (1 Kings 8:46). Similarly,
we read a rhetorical question with an implied negative answer in Proverbs 20:9: “Who
can say, ‘I have made my heart clean; I am pure from my sin’?” And we read the explicit
statement in Ecclesiastes 7:20, “ Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good
and never sins”
In the New Testament, we find Jesus commanding his disciples to pray, “Give us this
day our daily bread; and forgive us our sins , as we also have forgiven those who sin against
us” (Matt. 6:11-12, author’s translation). Just as the prayer for daily bread provides a
model for a prayer that should be repeated each day, so the prayer for the forgiveness of
sins is included in the type of prayer that should be made each day in a believer’s life.
As we noted above, when Paul talks about the new power over sin that is given to a
Christian, he does not say that there will be no sin in the Christian’s life, but simply tells
the believers not to let sin “reign” in their bodies nor to “yield” their members to sin
6 See chapter 24, p. 499, for a discussion of the fact that God’s 7 1 John 5: 18 is to be understood in a similar way.
commands in Scripture do not always imply that we have the
ability to obey them.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
752
(Rom. 6:12- 13). He does not say that they will not sin, but says that sin will not dominate
or “have . . . dominion” over them (Rom. 6:14). The very fact that he issues these direc-
tions shows his realization that sin will continue to be present in the lives of believers
throughout their time on earth. Even James the brother of our Lord could say, “ We all
make many mistakes” (James 3:2), and if James himself can say this, then we certainly
should be willing to say it as well. Finally, in the same letter in which John declares so
frequently that a child of God will not continue in a pattern of sinful behavior, he also
says clearly, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1
John 1:8). Here John explicitly excludes the possibility of being completely free from sin
in our lives. In fact, he says that anyone who claims to be free from sin is simply deceiving
himself, and the truth is not in him. 8
But once we have concluded that sanctification will never be completed in this life, we
must exercise pastoral wisdom and caution in the way we use this truth. Some may take
this fact and use it as an excuse not to strive for holiness or grow in sanctification — a
procedure exactly contrary to dozens of New Testament commands. Others may think
about the fact that we cannot be perfect in this life and lose hope of making any progress
in the Christian life — an attitude that is also contrary to the clear teaching of Romans
6 and other passages about the resurrection power of Christ in our lives enabling us to
overcome sin. Therefore, although sanctification will never be completed in this life, we
must also emphasize that it should never stop increasing in this life.
Moreover, as Christians grow in maturity, the kinds of sin that remain in their lives
are often not so much sins of words or deeds that are outwardly noticeable to others, but
inward sins of attitudes and motives of the heart — desires such as pride and selfishness,
lack of courage or faith, lack of zeal in loving God with our whole hearts and our neigh-
bors as ourselves, and failure to fully trust God for all that he promises in every situation.
These are real sins! They show how far short we fall of the moral perfection of Christ.
However, recognizing the nature of these sins that will persist even in more mature
Christians also helps to guard against misunderstanding when we say that no one will be
perfect and free from sin in this life. It is certainly possible that many mature Christians
at many times during the day are free from conscious or willful acts of disobedience to
God in their words or their deeds. In fact, if Christian leaders are to “set the believers
an example in speech and conduct, in love, in faith, in purity” (1 Tim. 4:12), then it will
frequently be true that their lives will be free from words or deeds that others will count
as blameworthy. But this is far removed from attaining total freedom from sin in our
motives and in the thoughts and intents of our hearts.
John Murray notes that when Isaiah the prophet came into the presence of God he
could only cry out, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I
dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord
of hosts!” (Isa. 6:5). And when Job, whose righteousness was earlier commended in the
story about his life, came into the presence of almighty God, he could only say, “I had
heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself,
8 See chapter 24, p. 498, n. 16, for a discussion of the view that
1 John 1:8 does not necessarily apply to all Christians.
CHAPTER 38 • SANCTIFICATION
and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:5—6). Murray concludes from these examples and
from the testimony of other saints through the history of the church:
Indeed, the more sanctified the person is, the more conformed he is to the image
of his Savior, the more he must recoil against every lack of conformity to the
holiness of God. The deeper his apprehension of the majesty of God, the greater
the intensity of his love to God, the more persistent his yearning for the attain-
ment of the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus, the more conscious
will he be of the gravity of the sin that remains and the more poignant will be
his detestation of it. . . . Was this not the effect in all the people of God as they
came into closer proximity to the revelation of Gods holiness? 9
C. God and Man Cooperate in Sanctification
Some (such as John Murray) 10 object to saying that God and man “cooperate” in
sanctification, because they want to insist that God’s work is primary and our work in
sanctification is only a secondary one (see Phil. 2:12-13). However, if we explain the
nature of God s role and our role in sanctification clearly, it does not seem inappropriate
to say that God and man cooperate in sanctification. God works in our sanctification
and we work as well, and we work for the same purpose. We are not saying that we have
equal roles in sanctification or that we both work in the same way, but simply that we
cooperate with God in ways that are appropriate to our status as God’s creatures. And the
fact that Scripture emphasizes the role that we play in sanctification (with all the moral
commands of the New Testament), makes it appropriate to teach that God calls us to
cooperate with him in this activity. 11
1. God’s Role in Sanctification. Since sanctification is primarily a work of God, it is
appropriate that Paul prays, “May the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly”
(1 Thess. 5:23). One specific role of God the Father in this sanctification is his process of
disciplining us as his children (see Heb. 12:5-11). Paul tells the Philippians, “God is at
work in you , both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13), thus indicating
something of the way in which God sanctifies them — both by causing them to want his
will and by giving them power to do it. The author of Hebrews speaks of the role of the
Father and the role of the Son in a familiar benediction: “Now may the God of peace . . .
equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in you that which is
pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever” (Heb.
13:20-21).
The role of God the Son, Jesus Christ, in sanctification is, first, that he earned our
sanctification for us. Therefore Paul could say that God made Christ to be “our wisdom,
9 John Murray, Redemption Accomplished and Applied ,
p. 145.
10 Ibid., pp. 148-49.
n On the other hand, if we wish to say that sanctifica-
tion is entirely God’s work, and that we use the means of
sanctification in order to contribute to it (or some similar
expression), the meaning is the same. I am simply concerned
that if we say sanctification is entirely God’s work, we can
be misunderstood and encourage an excessively passive role
on the part of Christians, who may be led to think that they
need to do nothing in the process of sanctification in their
lives.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
754
our righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30). Moreover, in the
process of sanctification, Jesus is also our example , for we are to run the race of life “ look-
ing to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith” (Heb. 12:2). Peter tells his readers,
“Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps”
(1 Peter 2:21). And John says, “He who says he abides in him ought to walk in the same
way in which he walked” (1 John 2:6).
But it is specifically God the Holy Spirit who works within us to change us and sanc-
tify us, giving us greater holiness of life. Peter speaks of the “sanctification of the Spirit”
(1 Peter 1:2, author’s translation), and Paul speaks of “sanctification by the Spirit”
(2 Thess. 2:13). It is the Holy Spirit who produces in us the “fruit of the Spirit” (Gal.
5:22-23), those character traits that are part of greater and greater sanctification. If we
grow in sanctification we “walk by the Spirit” and are “led by the Spirit” (Gal. 5:16-18;
cf. Rom. 8:14), that is, we are more and more responsive to the desires and promptings
of the Holy Spirit in our life and character. The Holy Spirit is the spirit of holiness, and
he produces holiness within us. 12
2. Our Role in Sanctification. The role that we play in sanctification is both a passive one
in which we depend on God to sanctify us, and an active one in which we strive to obey
God and take steps that will increase our sanctification. We can now consider both of
these aspects of our role in sanctification.
First, what may be called the “passive” role that we play in sanctification is seen in
texts that encourage us to trust God or to pray and ask that he sanctify us. Paul tells
his readers, “ Yield yourselves to God as men who have been brought from death to life”
(Rom. 6: 13; cf. v. 19), and he tells the Roman Christians, “Present your bodies as a living
sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God” (Rom. 12:1). Paul realizes that we are dependent
on the Holy Spirit’s work to grow in sanctification, because he says, “If by the Spirit you
put to death the deeds of the body you will live” (Rom. 8:13).
Unfortunately today, this “passive” role in sanctification, this idea of yielding to God
and trusting him to work in us “to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13),
is sometimes so strongly emphasized that it is the only thing people are told about the
path of sanctification. Sometimes the popular phrase “let go and let God” is given as a
summary of how to live the Christian life. But this is a tragic distortion of the doctrine
of sanctification, for it only speaks of one half of the part we must play, and, by itself, will
lead Christians to become lazy and to neglect the active role that Scripture commands
them to play in their own sanctification.
That active role which we are to play is indicated by Romans 8:13, where Paul says, “If
s by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live.” Here Paul acknowl-
edges that it is “by the Spirit” that we are able to do this. But he also says we must do it!
It is not the Holy Spirit who is commanded to put to death the deeds of the flesh, but
Christians! Similarly, Paul tells the Philippians, “Therefore, my beloved, as you have
always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work
12 See chapter 30, pp. 642-44, for a further discussion of the
work of the Holy Spirit in sanctification.
CHAPTER 38 • SANCTIFICATION
755
out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for God is at work in you, both to will
and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:12—13). Paul encourages them to obey even
more than they did when he was present. He says that obedience is the way in which they
“work out [their] own salvation,” meaning that they will “work out” the further realiza-
tion of the benefits of salvation in their Christian life. 13 The Philippians are to work at
this growth in sanctification, and to do it solemnly and with reverence (“with fear and
trembling”), for they are doing it in the presence of God himself. But there is more: the
reason why they are to work and to expect that their work will yield positive results is
that “God is at work in you” — the prior and foundational work of God in sanctification
means that their own work is empowered by God; therefore it will be worthwhile and
will bear positive results.
There are many aspects to this active role that we are to play in sanctification. We are
to “Strive . . .for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord” (Heb. 12:14); we are
to “abstain from immorality ” and so obey the will of God, which is our “sanctification”
(1 Thess. 4:3). John says that those who hope to be like Christ when he appears will
actively work at purification in this life: “And every one who thus hopes in him purifies
himself as he is pure” (1 John 3:3). Paul tells the Corinthians to “shun immorality ” (1 Cor.
6:18), and not to have partnership with unbelievers (2 Cor. 6:14). He then says, “Let us
cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, and make holiness perfect in
the fear of God” (2 Cor. 7:1). This kind of striving for obedience to God and for holiness
may involve great effort on our part, for Peter tells his readers to “make every effort ” to
grow in character traits that accord with godliness (2 Peter 1:5). Many specific passages
of the New Testament encourage detailed attention to various aspects of holiness and
godliness in life (see Rom. 12:1-13:14; Eph. 4:17-6:20; Phil. 4:4-9; Col. 3:5-4:6; 1
Peter 2:11-5:11, et al.). We are continually to build up patterns and habits of holiness,
for one measure of maturity is that mature Christians “have their faculties trained by
practice to distinguish good from evil” (Heb. 5:14).
The New Testament does not suggest any short-cuts by which we can grow in sane- ,
tification, but simply encourages us repeatedly to give ourselves to the old-fashioned,
time-honored means of Bible reading and meditation (Ps. 1:2; Matt. 4:4; John 17:17),
prayer (Eph. 6:18; Phil. 4:6), worship (Eph. 5:18-20), witnessing (Matt. 28:19-20),
Christian fellowship (Heb. 10:24-25), and self-discipline or self-control (Gal. 5:23;
Titus 1:8).
It is important that we continue to grow both in our passive trust in God to sanctify
us and in our active striving for holiness and greater obedience in our lives. If we neglect
active striving to obey God, we become passive, lazy Christians. If we neglect the pas-
sive role of trusting God and yielding to him, we become proud and overly confident in
ourselves. In either case, our sanctification will be greatly deficient. We must maintain
faith and diligence to obey at the same time. The old hymn wisely says, “Trust and obey,
for there’s no other way, to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.” 14
13 This verse does not use the word “salvation” to refer to '^Comparing our life to a tree with two large roots, John
initial justification, but to the ongoing process of experiencing Livingstone said, “Satan strikes . . . either at the root of faith or
more and more of the blessings of salvation; here, “salvation” is at the root of diligence” (quoted in D. M. M’Intyre, The Hidden
roughly equivalent to sanctification.” Life of Prayer [Minneapolis: Bethany Fellowship, 1969], p. 39).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
756
One more point must be added to this discussion of our role in sanctification: sanc-
tification is usually a corporate process in the New Testament. It is something that hap-
pens in community. We are admonished, “Let us consider how to stir up one another to
love and good works , not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encour-
aging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near” (Heb. 10:24-25).
Together Christians are “built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood” (1 Peter
2:5); together they are “a holy nation” (1 Peter 2:9); together they are to “encourage one
another and build one another up” (1 Thess. 5:11). Paul says that “to lead a life worthy
of the calling to which you have been called” (Eph. 4:1) is to live in a special way in
community — “with all lowliness and meekness, with patience, forbearing one another
in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:2-3).
When that happens, the body of Christ functions as a unified whole, with each part
“working properly,” so that corporate sanctification occurs as it “makes bodily growth
and upbuilds itself in love” (Eph. 4:16; cf. 1 Cor. 12:12—26; Gal. 6:1—2). It is significant
that the fruit of the Spirit includes many things that build community (“love, joy, peace,
patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control,” Gal. 5:22-23),
whereas “the works of the flesh” destroy community (“fornication, impurity, licentious-
ness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit,
envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like,” Gal. 5:19-21).
D. Sanctification Affects the Whole Person
We see that sanctification affects our intellect and our knowledge when Paul says that
we have put on the new nature “which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of
its creator” (Col. 3:10). He prays that the Philippians may see their love “abound more
and more, with knowledge and all discernment” (Phil. 1:9). And he urges the Roman
Christians to be “transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Rom. 12:2). Although
our knowledge of God is more than intellectual knowledge, there is certainly an intel-
lectual component to it, and Paul says that this knowledge of God should keep increas-
ing throughout our lives: a life “worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him” is one that is
continually “increasing in the knowledge of God” (Col. 1:10). The sanctification of our
intellects will involve growth in wisdom and knowledge as we increasingly “take every
thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5) and find that our thoughts are more and
more the thoughts that God himself imparts to us in his Word.
Moreover, growth in sanctification will affect our emotions . We will see increasingly
in our lives emotions such as “love, joy, peace, patience” (Gal. 5:22). We will be able
increasingly to obey Peter’s command “to abstain from the passions of the flesh that wage
war against your soul” (1 Peter 2:11). We will find it increasingly true that we do not “love
the world or things in the world” (1 John 2:15), but that we, like our Savior, delight to do
God’s will. In ever-increasing measure we will become “obedient from the heart” (Rom.
6:17), and we will “put away” the negative emotions involved in “bitterness and wrath
and anger and clamor and slander” (Eph. 4:31).
Moreover, sanctification will have an effect on our will , our decision-making faculty,
because God is at work in us, “to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13). As
CHAPTER 38 • SANCTIFICATION
we grow in sanctification, our will will be more and more conformed to the will of our
heavenly Father.
Sanctification will also affect our spirit, the nonphysical part of our beings. We are to
“cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, and make holiness perfect
in the fear of God” (2 Cor. 7:1), and Paul says that a concern about the affairs of the Lord
will mean taking thought for “how to be holy in body and spirit ” (1 Cor. 7:34). 15
Finally, sanctification affects our physical bodies . Paul says, “May the God of peace
himself sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and
blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess. 5:23). Moreover, Paul encour-
ages the Corinthians, “Let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit,
and make holiness perfect in the fear of God” (2 Cor. 7:1; cf. 1 Cor. 7:34). As we become
more sanctified in our bodies, our bodies become more and more useful servants of
God, more and more responsive to the will of God and the desires of the Holy Spirit (cf.
1 Cor. 9:27). 16 We will not let sin reign in our bodies (Rom. 6:12) nor allow our bodies
to participate in any way in immorality (1 Cor. 6:13), but will treat our bodies with care
and will recognize that they are the means by which the Holy Spirit works through us in
this life. Therefore they are not to be recklessly abused or mistreated, but are to be made
useful and able to respond to God’s will: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of
the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? You are not your own; you were
bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (1 Cor. 6:19-20).
E. Motives for Obedience to God in the Christian Life
Christians sometimes fail to recognize the wide range of motives for obedience to
God that are found in the New Testament. (1) It is true that a desire to please God and
express our love to him is a very important motive for obeying him — Jesus says, “If you
love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15), and, “He who has my com-
mandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me” (John 14:21; cf. 1 John 5:3). But many
other motives are also given to us: (2) the need to keep a clear conscience before God
(Rom. 13:5; 1 Tim. 1:5, 19; 2 Tim. 1:3; 1 Peter 3:16); (3) the desire to be a “vessel for noble ^
use” and have increased effectiveness in the work of the kingdom (2 Tim. 2:20-21); (4)
the desire to see unbelievers come to Christ through observing our lives (1 Peter 3:1-2,
15-16); (5) the desire to receive present blessings from God on our lives and ministries
(1 Peter 3:9-12); (6) the desire to avoid God’s displeasure and discipline on our lives
(sometimes called “the fear of God”) (Acts 5:11; 9:31; 2 Cor. 5:11; 7:1; Eph. 4:30; Phil.
2:12; 1 Tim. 5:20; Heb. 12:3-11; 1 Peter 1:17; 2:17; cf. the state of unbelievers in Rom.
3:18); (7) the desire to seek greater heavenly reward (Matt. 6:19-21; Luke 19:17-19; 1
Cor. 3:12-15; 2 Cor. 5:9- 10); 17 (8) the desire for a deeper walk with God (Matt. 5:8;
15 See chapter 23, pp. 473-77, for a discussion of the fact
that “soul” and “spirit” are used roughly synonymously in the
Bible.
16 Of course, physical weakness will inevitably come with
old age, and sometimes comes earlier due to infirmity, but
this can be consistent with increased sanctification as God’s
power is “made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9). Paul clearly
teaches this when he says, “We have this treasure in earthen
vessels, to show that the transcendent power belongs to God
and not to us” (2 Cor. 4:7), and, “We do not lose heart. Though
our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being
renewed every day” (2 Cor. 4:16).
17 See chapter 56, pp. 1143-45, for a discussion of degrees
of reward in heaven.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
John 14:21; 1 John 1:6; 3:21-22; and, in the Old Testament, Ps. 66:18; Isa. 59:2); (9) the
desire that angels would glorify God for our obedience (1 Tim. 5:21; 1 Peter 1:12); (10) the
desire for peace (Phil. 4:9) and joy (Heb. 12:1-2) in our lives; and (11) the desire to do
what God commands, simply because his commands are right, and we delight in doing
what is right (Phil. 4:8; cf. Ps. 40:8).
F. The Beauty and Joy of Sanctification
It would not be right to end our discussion without noting that sanctification brings
great joy to us. The more we grow in likeness to Christ, the more we will personally expe-
rience the “joy” and “peace” that are part of the fruit of the Holy Spirit (Gal. 5:22), and
the more we will draw near to the kind of life that we will have in heaven. Paul says that
as we become more and more obedient to God, “the return you get is sanctification and
its end, eternal life” (Rom. 6:22). He realizes that this is the source of our true joy. “For
the kingdom of God is not food and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the
Holy Spirit” (Rom. 14:17). As we grow in holiness we grow in conformity to the image of
Christ, and more and more of the beauty of his character is seen in our own lives. This
is the goal of perfect sanctification which we hope and long for, and which will be ours
when Christ returns. “And every one who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is
pure” (1 John 3:3).
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1 . Can you remember in your own experience the definite beginning to sanctification
that occurred when you became a Christian? Did you sense a clear break from the
ruling power and love of sin in your life? Do you really believe that you are even
now dead to the ruling power and love of sin in your life? How can this truth of the
Christian life be of help to you in specific areas of your life where you still need to
grow in sanctification?
2. As you look back over the last few years of your Christian life, can you see a pattern
of definite growth in sanctification? What are some things that you used to delight
in which no longer interest you? What are some things that you used to have no
interest in that now hold great interest for you?
3. As you have grown to greater maturity and holiness in the Christian life, have
you become more conscious of the weight of sin that remains in your heart? If
not, why has this not been so? Do you think that it would be helpful if you had
a greater consciousness of the sin that remains in your own life? If you had this,
what difference would it make in your own life?
4. How would it affect your life if you thought more about the fact that the Holy Spirit
is continually at work in you to increase your sanctification? In living the Christian
life, have you maintained a balance between your passive role and your active role
in sanctification, or have you tended to emphasize one aspect over the other, and
why? What might you do to correct this imbalance, if there is one in your life?
CHAPTER 38 • SANCTIFICATION
5. Have you thought previously that sanctification affects your intellect and the way
you think? What areas of your intellect still need quite a bit of growth in sancti-
fication? With regard to your emotions, in what areas do you know that God still
needs to work to bring about greater sanctification? Are there areas or aspects of
sanctification that need to be improved with respect to your physical body and its
obedience to God’s purposes?
6. Are there areas where you have struggled for years to grow in sanctification, but
with no progress at all in your life? Has this chapter helped you regain hope for
progress in those areas? (For Christians who have serious discouragement over lack
of progress in sanctification, it is very important to talk personally to a pastor or
other mature Christian about this situation, rather than letting it go on for a long
period of time.)
7. Overall, has this chapter been an encouragement or discouragement to you in your
Christian life?
SPECIAL TERMS
perfectionism
sanctification
sinless perfection
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter 1,
pp. 38-39. Complete bibliographical data may be found on pp. 1224-30.)
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1882-92
Litton, 330-45
1930
Thomas, 199-209,223-35
Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1847
Finney, 423-81
1875-76
Pope, 3:27-100
1892-94
Miley, 2:355 -84
1940
Wiley, 2:440-517; 3:7- 102
1960
Purkiser, 305-92, 428-41
1983
Carter, 1:521-69
Baptist
1767
Gill, 2:93-107, 141-51, 364-557
1887
Boyce, 409-25
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
760
1907
Strong, 869- 81
1917
Mullins, 417-32
1983-85
Erickson, 967-84
Dispensational
1947
Chafer, 3:355-63; 6:162 -298
1949
Thiessen, 283-89
1986
Ryrie, 300-306
Lutheran
1917-24
Pieper, 3:3-86
1934
Mueller, 384-435
Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1559
Calvin, 1:684- 725, 833 -49 (3.6-10, 19)
1724-58
Edwards, 2:173-85
1861
Heppe, 565-80
1871-73
Hodge, 3:213-465
1878
Dabney, 674-87
1887-1921
Warfield, SSW, 2:325-28; Perf., 3-464
1889
Shedd, 2b: 553 -60
1937-66
Murray, CW, 2:277-317; RAA, 141-51
1938
Berkhof, 527-44
1962
Buswell, 2:196-215
Renewal (or charismatic/Pentecostal)
1988-92
Williams, 2:83-117, 411-45
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
1. Roman Catholic: Traditional
1955 Ott, 254-69
2. Roman Catholic: Post-Vatican II
1980 McBrien, 2:903-1099
Other Works
Alexander, Donald L., ed. Christian Spirituality: Five Views of Sanctification. Downers
Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press, 1988.
Berkouwer, G. C. Faith and Sanctification. Trans, by John Vriend. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1952.
Bockmuehl, Klaus. “Sanctification.” In NDT, pp. 613 - 16.
Chafer, Lewis Sperry. He That Is Spiritual. Rev. ed. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1967.
Coppedge, Allan. The Biblical Principles of Discipleship. Grand Rapids: Francis Asbury
Press, 1989.
CHAPTER 38 • SANCTIFICATION
761
Downs, Perry G. Teaching for Spiritual Growth: An Introduction to Christian Education.
Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994.
Hoekema, Anthony A. “Sanctification .” In Saved by Grace . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans and
Exeter: Paternoster, 1989, pp. 192-233.
Murray, John. “Sanctification.” In Redemption Accomplished and Applied . Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1955, pp. 141-50.
Packer, J. I. Keep in Step With the Spirit. Old Tappan, N.J.: Revell, 1984.
Prior, K. The Way of Holiness. Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press, 1967.
Ryle, J. C. Holiness: Its Nature , Hindrances , Difficulties and Roots. Westwood, N.J.:
Revell, n.d.
White, R. E. O. “Sanctification.” In EDT, pp. 969-71.
Willard, Dallas. The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives. San
Francisco: Harper and Row, 1988.
Ziesler, J. A. The Meaning of Righteousness in Paul Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1972.
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
Romans 6:11 - 14: So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in
Christ lesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their pas-
sions. Do not yield your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but yield yourselves to
God as men who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instru-
ments of righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law
but under grace.
HYMN
“Take Time to Be Holy”
Take time to be holy, speak oft with thy Lord;
Abide in him always, and feed on his Word.
Make friends of God’s children; help those who are weak;
Forgetting in nothing his blessing to seek.
Take time to be holy, the world rushes on;
Spend much time in secret with Jesus alone.
By looking to Jesus, like him thou shalt be;
Thy friends in thy conduct his likeness shall see.
Take time to be holy, let him be thy guide,
And run not before him, whatever betide;
In joy or in sorrow, still follow thy Lord,
And, looking to Jesus, still trust in his Word.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
762
Take time to be holy, be calm in thy soul;
Each thought and each motive beneath his control;
Thus led by his Spirit to fountains of love,
Thou soon shalt be fitted for service above.
AUTHOR: WILLIAM D. LONGSTAFF, 1887
Alternate hymn: “Trust and Obey” (see p. 525)
Chapter
BAPTISM IN AND FILLING
WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT
Should we seek a “ baptism in the Holy Spirit”
after conversion? What does it mean to be
filled with the Holy Spirit?
Systematic theology books have not traditionally included a chapter on baptism in the
Holy Spirit or filling with the Holy Spirit as part of the study of the “order of salvation,”
the study of the various steps in which the benefits of salvation are applied to our lives. 1
But with the spread of Pentecostalism that began in 1901, the widespread influence of
the charismatic movement in the 1960’s and 1970’s, and the remarkable growth of Pen-
tecostal and charismatic 2 churches worldwide from 1970 to the present, the question of a
^ee chapter 32, pp. 670, for a list of the elements in the order
of salvation.
2 I am using the terms Pentecostal and charismatic in the
following way: Pentecostal refers to any denomination or group
that traces its historical origin back to the Pentecostal revival
that began in the United States in 1901 and that holds to the
doctrinal positions (a) that baptism in the Holy Spirit is ordi-
narily an event subsequent to conversion, and (b) that baptism
in the Holy Spirit is made evident by the sign of speaking in
tongues, and (c) that all the spiritual gifts mentioned in the
New Testament are to be sought and used today. Pentecostal
groups usually have their own distinct denominational struc-
tures, the most prominent of which is the Assemblies of God.
Charismatic refers to any groups (or people) that trace their
historical origin to the charismatic renewal movement of the
1960s and 1970s, seek to practice all the spiritual gifts men-
tioned in the New Testament (including prophecy, healing,
miracles, tongues, interpretation, and distinguishing between
spirits), and allow differing viewpoints on whether baptism
in the Holy Spirit is subsequent to conversion and whether
tongues is a sign of baptism in the Holy Spirit. Charismatics
will very often refrain from forming their own denomina-
tion, but will view themselves as a force for renewal within
existing Protestant and Roman Catholic churches. There is
no representative charismatic denomination in the United
States today, but the most prominent charismatic spokesman
is probably Pat Robertson with his Christian Broadcasting
Network, the television program “The 700 Club,” and Regent
University (formerly CBN University).
In the 1980s yet a third renewal movement arose, called
the “third wave” by missions professor C. Peter Wagner at
Fuller Seminary (he referred to the Pentecostal renewal as the
first wave of the Holy Spirit’s renewing work in the modern
church, and the charismatic movement as the second wave).
“Third wave” people encourage the equipping of all believers
to use New Testament spiritual gifts today, and say that the
proclamation of the gospel should ordinarily be accompa-
nied by “signs, wonders, and miracles,” according to the New
Testament pattern. They teach, however, that baptism in the
Holy Spirit happens to all Christians at conversion, and that
763
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
764
“baptism in the Holy Spirit” distinct from regeneration has come into increasing
prominence. I have put this chapter at this point in our study of the application of
redemption for two reasons: (1) A proper understanding of this question must assume
an understanding of regeneration, adoption, and sanctification, all of which have been
discussed in previous chapters. (2) All the previous chapters on the application of
redemption have discussed events that occur (or in the case of sanctification, that
begin) at the point at which a person becomes a Christian. But this question con-
cerns an event that occurs either at the point of conversion (according to one view)
or sometime after conversion (according to another view). Moreover, people on both
sides of the question agree that some kind of second experience has happened to many
people after their conversion, and therefore one very important question is how to
understand this experience in the light of Scripture and what scriptural categories
properly apply to it.
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
A. The Traditional Pentecostal Understanding
The topic of this chapter has become important today because many Christians say
that they have experienced a “baptism in the Holy Spirit” that came after they became
Christians and that brought great blessing in their lives. They claim that prayer and Bible
study have become much more meaningful and effective, that they have discovered new
joy in worship, and they often say that they have received new spiritual gifts (especially,
and most frequently, the gift of speaking in tongues).
This traditional Pentecostal or charismatic position is supported from Scripture in
the following way:
(1) Jesus’ disciples were born-again believers long before the day of Pentecost, perhaps
during Jesus’ life and ministry, but certainly by the time that Jesus, after his resurrection,
“breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’” (John 20:22).
(2) Jesus nevertheless commanded his disciples “not to depart from Jerusalem, but to
wait for the promise of the Father” (Acts 1:4), telling them, “Before many days you shall
be baptized with the Holy Spirit ” (Acts 1 : 5) . He told them, “You shall receive power when
the Holy Spirit has come upon you” (Acts 1:8). The disciples then obeyed Jesus’ com-
mand and waited in Jerusalem for the Holy Spirit to come upon them so that they would
receive new empowering for witness and ministry.
(3) When the disciples had waited for ten days, the day of Pentecost came, tongues of
fire rested above their heads, “And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to
speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance” (Acts 2:4). This clearly shows
subsequent experiences are better called “filling” with the Holy
Spirit. The most prominent representative of the “third wave”
is John Wimber, senior pastor of the Vineyard Christian Fel-
lowship in Anaheim, California, and leader of the Association
of Vineyard Churches. Wimber’s two most influential books,
Power Evangelism (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1986; rev.
ed., 1992) and Power Healing (San Francisco: Harper and Row,
1987), both co-authored by Kevin Springer, are widely recog-
nized as representative of distinctive “third wave” emphases.
The definitive reference work for these movements is
now Stanley M. Burgess and Gary B. McGee, eds., Diction-
ary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements (Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 1988).
CHAPTER 39 ■ BAPTISM IN AND FILLING WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT
that they received a baptism in (or with) 3 the Holy Spirit. Although the disciples were
born again long before Pentecost, at Pentecost they received a “baptism with the Holy
Spirit” (Acts 1:5 and 11:16 refer to it this way) that was subsequent to conversion and
resulted in great empowering for ministry as well as speaking in tongues. 4
(4) Christians today, like the apostles, should ask Jesus for a “baptism in the Holy
Spirit” and thus follow the pattern of the disciples’ lives. 5 If we receive this baptism in
the Holy Spirit, it will result in much more power for ministry for our own lives, just as
it did in the lives of the disciples, and will often (or always, according to some teachers)
result in speaking in tongues as well.
(5) Support for this pattern — in which people are first born again and then later are
baptized in the Holy Spirit — is seen in several other instances in the book of Acts. It is
seen, for example, in Acts 8, where the people of Samaria first became Christians when
they “believed Philip as he preached good news about the kingdom of God and the name
of Jesus Christ” (Acts 8:12), but only later received the Holy Spirit when the apostles Peter
and John came from Jerusalem and prayed for them (Acts 8:14- 17). 6
Another example is found in Acts 19, where Paul came and found “some disciples” at
Ephesus (Acts 19:1). But, “when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Spirit came
on them; and they spoke with tongues and prophesied” (Acts 19:6).
All of these examples (Acts 2, 8, sometimes 10, and 19) 7 are cited by Pentecostals
in order to show that a “baptism in the Holy Spirit” subsequent to conversion was a
very common occurrence for New Testament Christians. Therefore, they reason, if
it was common for Christians in Acts to have this second experience sometime after
conversion, should it not be common for us today as well?
We can analyze this issue of the baptism in the Holy Spirit by asking three questions:
(1) What does the phrase “baptism in the Holy Spirit” mean in the New Testament? (2)
3 It does not matter much whether we translate the Greek
phrase enpneumati as “in the Spirit” or “with the Spirit” because
both are acceptable translations, and people on all sides of this
topic seem to use those two expressions rather interchange-
ably. I have used “in the Holy Spirit” ordinarily throughout this
chapter, but the RSV translation which I quote here generally
prefers to use “with the Holy Spirit.” I do not make any distinc-
tion between these two phrases in the discussion of this chap-
ter. (But see below, pp. 767-68, for a discussion of the frequent
claim by Pentecostals that baptism by the Holy Spirit [as in 1
Cor. 12:13] is a different event than baptism in [or with] the
Holy Spirit.)
4 Most Pentecostal discussions of baptism in the Holy Spirit
include the view that speaking in tongues is a “sign” that one
has been baptized in the Holy Spirit, and that this sign will be
given to all who have been baptized in the Holy Spirit, even
though not all will later have the gift of speaking in tongues as
a continuing gift in their lives.
5 I personally heard such teaching on baptism in the Holy
Spirit as a first-year university student in 1967, and later pri-
vately prayed, as instructed, first repenting of all known sin
and once again yielding every area of my life to God, then
asking Jesus to baptize me in the Holy Spirit. Though my
understanding of that experience has since changed, so that
I would explain it in different terms (see below), the result in
my life was undoubtedly a positive and lasting one, including
a much deeper love for Christ and much greater effectiveness
in personal ministry.
6 Another example sometimes cited is that of Cornelius in
Acts 10. He was a devout man who prayed constantly to God
(Acts 10:2), but when Peter came and preached to him and his
household, Peter and those with him were amazed “because
the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the
Gentiles. For they heard them speaking in tongues and extol-
ling God” (Acts 10:45-46).
7 The case of Paul in Acts 9:17 is sometimes mentioned as
well, but it is not as clear-cut, since his violent persecution of
the church prior to that time indicates that he was not born
again before the Damascus Road experience. But some have
seen a similar pattern in the distinction between his conver-
sion on the Damascus Road and his receiving the Holy Spirit
at the hands of Ananias three days later.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
766
How should we understand the “second experiences” that came to born-again believers
in the book of Acts? (3) Are there other biblical expressions, such as “filling with the
Holy Spirit,” that are better suited to describe an empowering with the Holy Spirit that
comes after conversion?
B. What Does “Baptism in the Holy Spirit” Mean
in the New Testament?
There are only seven passages in the New Testament where we read of someone being
baptized in the Holy Spirit. (The English translations quoted here use the word with
rather than in.) 8 The seven passages follow:
In the first four verses, John the Baptist is speaking of Jesus and predicting that he will
baptize people in (or with) the Holy Spirit:
Matthew 3:11: “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming
after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry; he will
baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”
Mark 1:8: “I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy
Spirit ”
Luke 3:16: “I baptize you with water; but he who is mightier than I is coming,
the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie; he will baptize you with
the Holy Spirit and with fire.”
John 1:33: “He who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom
you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy
Spirit’”
It is hard to draw any conclusions from these four passages with respect to what bap-
tism with the Holy Spirit really is. We discover that Jesus is the one who will carry out
this baptism and he will baptize his followers. But no further specification of this bap-
tism is given.
The next two passages refer directly to Pentecost:
Acts 1:5: [Here Jesus says,] “John baptized with water, but before many days you
shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit”
Acts 11:16: [Here Peter refers back to the same words of Jesus that were quoted in
the previous verse. He says,] “I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said,
‘John baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit: ”
These two passages show us that whatever we may understand baptism in the Holy
Spirit to be, it certainly happened at the day of Pentecost as recorded in Acts 2, when the
Holy Spirit fell in great power on the disciples and those with them, and they spoke in
other tongues, and about three thousand people were converted (Acts 2:14).
8 See above, footnote 3.
CHAPTER 39 • BAPTISM IN AND FILLING WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT
767
It is important to realize that all six of these verses use almost exactly the same expres-
sion in Greek, with the only differences being some variation in word order or verb tense
to fit the sentence, and with one example having the preposition understood rather than
expressed explicitly. 9
The only remaining reference in the New Testament is in the Pauline epistles:
1 Corinthians 12:13 (NIV mg): “For we were all baptized in one Spirit into one
body — whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free — and we were all given the one
Spirit to drink ”
Now the question is whether 1 Corinthians 12:13 refers to the same activity as these
other six verses. In many English translations it appears to be different, for many trans-
lations are similar to the RSV, which says, “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into
one body.” Those who support the Pentecostal view of baptism in the Holy Spirit after
conversion are quite eager to see this verse as referring to something other than baptism
in the Holy Spirit, and they frequently emphasize the difference that comes out in the
English translations. In all the other six verses, Jesus is the one who baptizes people and
the Holy Spirit is the “element” (parallel to water in physical baptism) in which or with
which Jesus baptizes people. But here in 1 Corinthians 12:13 (so the Pentecostal expla-
nation goes) we have something quite different — here the person doing the baptizing
is not Jesus but the Holy Spirit. Therefore, they say, 1 Corinthians 12:13 should not be
taken into account when we ask what the New Testament means by “baptism in the Holy
Spirit.”
This point is very important to the Pentecostal position, because, if we admit that
1 Corinthians 12:13 refers to baptism in the Holy Spirit, then it is very hard to maintain
that it is an experience that comes after conversion. In this verse Paul says that this
baptism in/with/by the Holy Spirit made us members of the body of Christ — “We were
all baptized in one Spirit into one body” (1 Cor. 12:13 NIV mg). But if this really is a
“baptism in the Holy Spirit,” the same as the event that was referred to in the previous
six verses, then Paul is saying that it happened to all the Corinthians when they became
members of the body of Christ; that is, when they became Christians. For it was that baptism
that resulted in their being members of the body of Christ, the church. Such a conclusion
would be very difficult for the Pentecostal position that holds that baptism in the Holy
Spirit is something that occurs after conversion, not at the same time.
Is it possible to sustain the Pentecostal view that the other six verses refer to a baptism
by Jesus in which he baptizes us in (or with) the Holy Spirit, but that 1 Corinthians 12:13
refers to something different, to a baptism by the Holy Spirit? Although the distinction
seems to make sense from some English translations, it really cannot be supported by an
examination of the Greek text, for there the expression is almost identical to the expres-
sions we have seen in the other six verses. Paul says en henipneumati . . . ebaptisthemen
9 The expression used in all six passages is the verb baptizo dative noun alone can take the same sense as the preposition
(“baptize”) plus the prepositional phrase en pneumati hagio (“in en plus the dative noun. Matthew and Luke also add “and with
[ or with] the Holy Spirit” ) , except that Mark omits the preposi- fire.”
tion en. Even so, there is no difference in meaning, because the
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
768
(“in one Spirit ... we were baptized”). Apart from one small difference (he refers to
“one Spirit” rather than “the Holy Spirit”), 10 all the other elements are the same: the
verb is baptizo, and the prepositional phrase contains the same words ( en plus the dative
noun pneumati). If we translate this same Greek expression “baptize in the Holy Spirit”
(or “baptize with the Holy Spirit”) in the other six New Testament occurrences where
we find it, then it seems only proper that we translate it in the same way in this seventh
occurrence. And no matter how we translate, it seems hard to deny that the original
readers would have seen this phrase as referring to the same thing as the other six verses,
because for them the words were the same.
But why have modern English translations translated this verse to say, “By one Spirit
we were all baptized into one body,” thus giving apparent support to the Pentecostal
interpretation? We should first note that the NASB gives “in” as a marginal transla-
tion, and the NIV margin gives both “with” and “in” as alternatives. The reason these
translations have chosen the word “by” has apparently been a desire to avoid an appear-
ance of two locations for the baptism in the same sentence. The sentence already says
that this baptism was “into one body,” and perhaps the translators thought it seemed
awkward to say, “ in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.” But this should not
be seen as a great difficulty, for Paul says, referring to the Israelites, “all were baptized
into Moses in the cloud and in the sea” (1 Cor. 10:2) — a very closely parallel expression
where the cloud and the sea are the “elements” that surrounded or overwhelmed the
people of Israel and Moses means the new life of participation in the Mosaic covenant
and the fellowship of God’s people (led by Moses) that the Israelites found themselves
in after they had passed through the cloud and the sea. It is not that there were two
locations for the same baptism, but one was the element in which they were baptized
and the other was the location in which they found themselves after the baptism. This
is very similar to 1 Corinthians 12:13: the Holy Spirit was the element in which they
were baptized, and the body of Christ, the church, was the location in which they found
themselves after that baptism. 11 It thus seems appropriate to conclude that 1 Corinthi-
ans 12:13 also refers to baptism “in” or “with” the Holy Spirit, and is referring to the
same thing as the other six verses mentioned.
But this has a significant implication for us: it means that, as far as the apostle Paul
was concerned, baptism in the Holy Spirit occurred at conversion. He says that all the Cor-
10 In this context, in which he is talking repeatedly about the
Holy Spirit and spiritual gifts, there can be little doubt that he is
referring to the Holy Spirit.
11 In addition to the fact that this Greek phrase found in
1 Cor. 12:13 is translated to refer to baptism in the Holy Spirit
in all the other six occurrences, there is a grammatical argu-
ment that supports the translation “in one Spirit we were all
baptized into one body” in 1 Cor. 12:13: if Paul had wanted
to say that we were baptized by the Holy Spirit, he would have
used a different expression. To be baptized “by” someone in
the New Testament is always expressed by the preposition
hypo followed by a genitive noun. This is the way New Testa-
ment writers say that people were baptized in the Jordan River
“by” John the Baptist (Matt. 3:6; Mark 1:5; Luke 3:7) or that
Jesus was baptized “by” John (Matt. 3:13; Mark 1:9), or that
the Pharisees had not been baptized “by” John (Luke 7:30),
or that John the Baptist told Jesus, “I need to be baptized by
you” (Matt. 3:14). Therefore, if Paul had wanted to say that the
Corinthians had all been baptized by the Holy Spirit he would
have used hypo plus the genitive, not en plus the dative. (It is
common in the New Testament for the agent who performs
the action expressed by a passive verb to be named using hypo
plus the genitive.) Further support for the view that 1 Cor.
12:13 means “in (or with) one Spirit” is found in M. J. Harris,
“Prepositions and Theology in the Greek New Testament,” in
NIDNTT, vol. 3, p. 1210.
CHAPTER 39 * BAPTISM IN AND FILLING WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT
769
inthians were baptized in the Holy Spirit and the result was that they became members
of the body of Christ: “For we were all baptized in one Spirit into one body” (1 Cor. 12:13
NIV mg). “Baptism in the Holy Spirit,” therefore, must refer to the activity of the Holy
Spirit at the beginning of the Christian life when he gives us new spiritual life (in regen-
eration) and cleanses us and gives a clear break with the power and love of sin (the initial
stage of sanctification). In this way “baptism in the Holy Spirit” refers to all that the Holy
Spirit does at the beginning of our Christian lives. But this means that it cannot refer to
an experience after conversion, as the Pentecostal interpretation would have it. 12
But how, then, do we understand the references to baptism in the Holy Spirit in Acts
1:5 and 11:16, both of which refer to the day of Pentecost? Were these not instances where
the disciples, having previously been regenerated by the Holy Spirit, now experienced a
new empowering from the Holy Spirit that enabled them to minister effectively?
It is true that the disciples were “born again” long before Pentecost, and in fact prob-
ably long before Jesus breathed on them and told them to receive the Holy Spirit in John
20:22. 13 Jesus had said, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws
him” (John 6:44), but the disciples certainly had come to Jesus and had followed him
(even though their understanding of who he was increased gradually over time). Cer-
tainly when Peter said to Jesus, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matt.
16:16), it was evidence of some kind of regenerating work of the Holy Spirit in his heart.
Jesus told him, “Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in
12 Howard M. Ervin, Conversion-Initiation and the Bap-
tism in the Holy Spirit (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1984),
pp. 98-102, admits that 1 Cor. 12:13, however it is translated,
does refer to the beginning of the Christian life (he says it is
“initiatory,” p. 101), but then he says that the next phrase, “we
were made to drink of one Spirit” (his translation) refers to a
subsequent empowering for service. He also says that Paul’s use
of the phrase “baptism in the Holy Spirit” is different from the
sense the phrase takes in the other six occurrences in the New
Testament. Thus, he apparently grants the non-Pentecostal
interpretation of 1 Cor. 12:13, but still says that Paul uses the
same phrase with different meaning. Yet this argument does
not seem persuasive. It would be very unlikely if Luke, who was
Paul’s traveling companion throughout much of his mission-
ary activity, and who was probably with Paul in Rome when he
wrote the book of Acts (Acts 28:30-31), would use a phrase in a
different sense than Paul, or that Paul would use this phrase in
a different sense than the sense in which it was so prominently
used by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
Another attempt to avoid our conclusion on 1 Cor. 12:13 is
found in John P. Baker, Baptized in One Spirit (Plainfield, N.J.:
Logos Books, 1970), pp. 18-25, where he argues that 1 Cor.
12:13 does not mean that we were baptized into one body, but
that we were baptized “/or the one body of Christ” (p. 24) . But
Baker’s argument is not convincing, because the word “for” at
the beginning of v. 13 shows that it must be an argument that
supports v. 12, where Paul says that we are many members,
but one body. Yet in order for v. 13 to show that all Christians
are a part of one body, it is necessary for v. 13 to communicate
why we are all members of one body, and Paul does this by
showing that we are all baptized into one body. Baker’s view,
that this happens only to some “who are already members of
the body of Christ to enable them to function effectively” (p.
24), is not convincing in view of Paul’s statement that “all”
Christians were baptized into one body. Moreover, baptism for
the benefit of one body (which is essentially what Baker takes it
to mean) gives a very unusual sense to the preposition eis — if
Paul had meant this, we would have expected something like
heneka , “for the sake of,” or hyper plus the genitive, meaning
“in behalf, for the sake of.”
13 When Jesus breathed on his disciples and said to them,
“Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22), it probably was an
acted-out prophecy of what would happen to them at Pente-
cost. In this same context — in fact, in the verse immediately
preceding — Jesus had told them something that would not
happen until Pentecost: “As the Father has sent me, even so I
send you” (John 20:21). But even though he said this before he
had ascended into heaven, he did not really send them out to
preach the gospel until the Day of Pentecost had come. There-
fore his words were looking forward to what would happen
at Pentecost. It is best to understand the words in the next
sentence, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” in the same way — he
was speaking in advance of something that would happen
on the Day of Pentecost. On that day they would receive the
new covenant fullness and power of the Holy Spirit, a much
greater empowering of the Holy Spirit than what they had
experienced before.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
heaven” (Matt. 16:17). And Jesus had said to the Father regarding his disciples, “I have
given them the words which you gave me, and they have received them and know in truth
that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me I have guarded them,
and none of them is lost but the son of perdition, that the scripture might be fulfilled”
(John 17:8, 12). The disciples had “little faith” (Matt. 8:26) at times, but they did have
faith! Certainly they were regenerated long before the day of Pentecost. 14
But we must realize that the day of Pentecost is much more than an individual event
in the lives of Jesus’ disciples and those with them. The day of Pentecost was the point of
transition between the old covenant work and ministry of the Holy Spirit and the new
covenant work and ministry of the Holy Spirit. Of course the Holy Spirit was at work
throughout the Old Testament, hovering over the waters of the first day of creation (Gen.
1:2), empowering people for service to God and leadership and prophecy (Ex. 31:3; 35:31;
Deut. 34:9; Judg. 14:6; 1 Sam. 16:13; Ps. 51:11, et al.). But during that time the work of
the Holy Spirit in individual lives was, in general, a work of lesser power.
There are several indications of a less powerful and less extensive work of the Holy
Spirit in the old covenant: the Holy Spirit only came to a few people with significant
power for ministry (Num. 11:16- 17, for example), but Moses longed for the day when
the Holy Spirit would be poured out on all of Gods people: “Would that all the Lords
people were prophets, that the Lord would put his spirit upon them!” (Num. 11:29). The
equipping of the Holy Spirit for special ministries could be lost, as it was in the life of Saul
(1 Sam. 16:14), and as David feared that it might be in his own life (Ps. 51:11). In terms of
spiritual power in the lives of the people of God, there was little power over the dominion
of Satan, resulting in very little effective evangelism of the nations around Israel, and no
examples of ability to cast out demons. 15 The old covenant work of the Holy Spirit was
almost completely confined to the nation of Israel, but in the new covenant there is cre-
ated a new “dwelling place of God” (Eph. 2:22), the church, which unites both Gentiles
and Jews in the body of Christ.
Moreover, the Old Testament people of God looked forward to a “new covenant”
age when the work of the Holy Spirit would be much more powerful and much more
widespread (Num. 11:29; Jer. 31:31-33; Ezek. 36:26-27; Joel 2:28— 29). 16
When the New Testament opens, we see John the Baptist as the last of the Old Testa-
ment prophets. Jesus said, “Among those born of women there has risen no one greater
14 I do not mean to say that believers’ experience of regen-
eration in the old covenant was exactly the same as that of new
covenant believers. While considerations listed in the following
discussion indicate a less-powerful work of the Holy Spirit in
the old covenant, defining the nature of the differences is dif-
ficult, since Scripture gives us little explicit information about
it. But the fact that there was any saving faith at all in old cov-
enant believers requires us to think that there was some kind of
regenerating work of the Holy Spirit in them, enabling them to
believe. (See the discussion of regeneration in chapter 34.)
15 The closest thing to casting out demons in the Old
Testament is the situation where the evil spirit troubling
Saul departed from him whenever David played his lyre (1
Sam. 16:23), but this is hardly equivalent to the effective and
lasting casting out of demons of which we see in the New
Testament age.
16 Of course, there were examples in the Old Testament
where certain leaders were remarkably gifted by God and
empowered by the Holy Spirit — Moses, David, Daniel, many
of the writing prophets, and even Samson received unusual
empowering from the Holy Spirit for specific ministries. But
their experiences were not typical of the vast numbers of
God’s people who were saved by faith as they looked forward
to the promised Messiah’s coming, but who did not have the
outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the new covenant power that
we experience today.
CHAPTER 39 * BAPTISM IN AND FILLING WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT
than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he . . .
all the prophets and the law prophesied until John; and if you are willing to accept it, he
is Elijah who is to come” (Matt. 11:11 - 14). John knew that he baptized with water, but
Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit (Luke 3:16). John the Baptist, then, still was
living in an “old covenant” experience of the working of the Holy Spirit.
In the life of Jesus, we first see the new covenant power of the Holy Spirit at work. The
Holy Spirit descends on him at his baptism (Luke 3:21-22), and after his temptation
Jesus “returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee” (Luke 4:14). Then we begin to see
what this new covenant power of the Holy Spirit will look like, because Jesus casts out
demons with a word, heals all who are brought to him, and teaches with authority that
people had not heard before (see Luke 4:16-44, et al.).
The disciples, however, do not receive this full new covenant empowering for ministry
until the Day of Pentecost, for Jesus tells them to wait in Jerusalem, and promises, “ You
shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you” (Acts 1:8). This was a transi-
tion in the lives of the disciples as well (see John 7:39; 14:17; 16:7; Acts 2:16). The promise
of Joel that the Holy Spirit would come in new covenant fullness was fulfilled (Acts 2:16)
as Jesus returned to heaven and then was given authority to pour out the Holy Spirit in
new fullness and power (Acts 2:33).
What was the result in the lives of the disciples? These believers, who had had an old-
covenant less-powerful experience of the Holy Spirit in their lives, received on the Day of
Pentecost a more-powerful new- covenant experience of the Holy Spirit working in their
lives. 17 They received much greater “power” (Acts 1:8), power for living the Christian life
and for carrying out Christian ministry.
This transition from an old covenant experience of the Holy Spirit to a new covenant
experience of the Holy Spirit can be seen in figure 39.1. 18
In this diagram, the thinner line at the bottom represents the less-powerful work of
the Holy Spirit in individuals’ lives during the old covenant. The thicker line that begins
at Pentecost shows the more-powerful work of the Holy Spirit in people’s lives after that
time. The lines for “this age” and “the age to come” overlap now because the powers of
the age to come have broken into this present evil age, so that Christians live during an
“overlap of the ages.” The dotted lines prior to Pentecost indicate that in the life of Jesus
the more-powerful work of the Holy Spirit had already begun in a way that anticipated
(and even surpassed) what would come at Pentecost. 19
This new covenant power gave the disciples more effectiveness in their witness and
their ministry (Acts 1:8; Eph. 4:8, 11-13), much greater power for victory over the
17 Ervin, Conversion-Initiation, pp. 14, 15-19, objects that
the new covenant did not begin at Pentecost but earlier at the
time of Jesus’ death. This is certainly true, but it misses the
point. We are not arguing that the new covenant itself began
at the day of Pentecost, but the new covenant experience of the
Holy Spirit began at Pentecost, because it was there that Jesus
poured out the Holy Spirit in new covenant fullness and power
(Acts 2:33; cf. 1:4-5).
Ervin also objects that the disciples at Pentecost received
“power-in-mission” from the Holy Spirit, not entrance into
the new covenant (pp. 17-18). But here Ervin has put forth a
false dichotomy: it is not either/or, but both/and: at Pentecost
the disciples both entered into a new covenant experience of
the Holy Spirit and (of course) received a new empowering for
ministry with that experience of the Holy Spirit.
18 I have adapted this diagram from George Ladd, A Theol-
ogy of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974),
pp. 68-69.
19 Because of their association with Jesus, the disciples also
received some foretaste of the post-Pentecostal power of the
Holy Spirit when they healed the sick and cast out demons
(cf. Luke 9:1; 10:1, 8, 17-20, and many other verses).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
772
influence of sin in the lives of all believers (note the emphasis on the power of Christ’s
resurrection at work within us in Rom. 6:11-14; 8:13-14; Gal. 2:20; Phil. 3:10), and
power for victory over Satan and demonic forces that would attack believers (2 Cor.
10:3-4; Eph. I:19-21;6:10-18;ljohn4:4). This new covenant power of the Holy Spirit
also resulted in a wide and hitherto unknown distribution of gifts for ministry to all
believers (Acts 2:16-18; 1 Cor. 12:7, 11; 1 Peter 4:10; cf. Num. 11:17, 24-29). These gifts
also had corporate implications because they were intended not to be used individualisti-
cally but for the corporate building up of the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:7; 14:12). It also
meant that the gospel was no longer effectively limited to the Jews only, but that all races
and all nations would hear the gospel in power and would be united into the church, to
the glory of God (Eph. 2:11 -3:10). 20 The Day of Pentecost was certainly a remarkable
time of transition in the whole history of redemption as recorded in Scripture. It was a
remarkable day in the history of the world, because on that day the Holy Spirit began to
function among Gods people with new covenant power.
Pentecost The Age to Come
Christ's Return
This Age Old Covenant Experience
of the Holy Spirit
New Covenant Experience
of the Holy Spirit
AT PENTECOST BELIEVERS EXPERIENCED A TRANSITION FROM AN OLD
COVENANT EXPERIENCE OFTHE HOLY SPIRITTO A MORE POWERFUL, NEW
COVENANT EXPERIENCE OFTHE HOLY SPIRIT
Figure 39. 1
But this fact helps us understand what happened to the disciples at Pentecost. They
received this remarkable new empowering from the Holy Spirit because they were living
at the time of the transition between the old covenant work of the Holy Spirit and the new
covenant work of the Holy Spirit. Though it was a “second experience” of the Holy Spirit,
coming as it did long after their conversion, it is not to be taken as a pattern for us, for
we are not living at a time of transition in the work of the Holy Spirit. In their case,
believers with an old covenant empowering from the Holy Spirit became believers with
a new covenant empowering from the Holy Spirit. But we today do not first become
20 When the Holy Spirit came in power he ordinarily came to 9: 17- 18). A new community, filled with love for one another,
groups of people rather than to isolated individuals (so Acts 2:4; was the evident result of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in
8:17; 10:44; 19: 6; but the conversion of Saul is different: see Acts this way (see Acts 2:41-47).
CHAPTER 39 • BAPTISM IN AND FILLING WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT
773
believers with a weaker, old covenant work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts and wait
until some later time to receive a new covenant work of the Holy Spirit. Rather, we are
in the same position as those who became Christians in the church at Corinth: when we
become Christians we are all “ baptized in one Spirit into one body” (1 Cor. 12:13) — just
as the Corinthians were, and just as were the new believers in many churches who were
converted when Paul traveled on his missionary journeys.
In conclusion, the disciples certainly did experience “a baptism in the Holy Spirit”
after conversion on the Day of Pentecost, but this happened because they were living at
a unique point in history, and this event in their lives is therefore not a pattern that we
are to seek to imitate.
What shall we say about the phrase “baptism in the Holy Spirit”? It is a phrase that
the New Testament authors use to speak of coming into the new covenant power of the
Holy Spirit. It happened at Pentecost for the disciples, but it happened at conversion for
the Corinthians and for us. 21
It is not a phrase the New Testament authors would use to speak of any post-
conversion experience of empowering by the Holy Spirit.
C. How Should We Understand the “Second Experiences” in Acts?
But even if we have correctly understood the experience of the disciples at Pentecost as
recorded in Acts 2, are there not other examples of people who had a “second experience”
of empowering of the Holy Spirit after conversion, such as those in Acts 8 (at Samaria),
Acts 10 (Cornelius’ household), and Acts 19 (the Ephesian disciples)?
These are not really convincing examples to prove the Pentecostal doctrine of bap-
tism in the Holy Spirit either. First, the expression “baptism in the Holy Spirit” is not
ordinarily used to refer to any of these events, 22 and this should give us some hesitation
in applying this phrase to them. But more importantly, a closer look at each case shows
more clearly what was happening in these events.
In Acts 8:4-25 the Samaritan people “believed Philip as he preached good news about
the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ” and “they were baptized, both men
and women” (Acts 8:12). Some have argued that this was not genuine saving faith on the
part of the Samaritans. 23 However, there is no indication in the text that Philip had a
deficient understanding of the gospel (he had been prominent in the Jerusalem church)
21 My student James Renihan has argued (in a lengthy paper)
that baptism in the Holy Spirit, while occurring at the same
time as conversion, should nevertheless be considered a dis-
tinct element in the “order of salvation” (the list of things that
happen to us in experiencing salvation; see chapter 32, p. 670).
He notes that baptism in the Holy Spirit is not exactly the same
as any of the other elements in the order of salvation (such as
regeneration or conversion), and may also be called “receiving
the Holy Spirit” (see Acts 8:15-16; 19:2, 6; Rom. 8:9, 11; Gal.
3:2). Renehans idea is clearly not the charismatic doctrine of
a baptism in the Holy Spirit subsequent to conversion (for he
would say it always accompanies genuine conversion and always
occurs at the same time as conversion). The suggestion is an
interesting one and, while I have not presently adopted it in this
chapter, I think it deserves further consideration. It would not
be inconsistent with my overall argument in this chapter.
22 The only exception is Acts 11:15-17. While this pas-
sage does not explicitly call the falling of the Holy Spirit on
Cornelius* household a “baptism in the Holy Spirit,” when
Peter says, “the Holy Spirit fell on them just as on us at the
beginning ,” and then recalls Jesus’ words about baptism in the
Holy Spirit, he clearly implies that the members of Cornelius’s
household were baptized in the Holy Spirit when he preached
to them (see Acts 10:44-48).
23 This is the argument of James Dunn, Baptism in the Holy
Spirit (London: SCM, 1970), pp. 55-72.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
774
or that Philip himself thought that their faith in Christ was inadequate, for he allowed
them to be baptized (Acts 8:12).
A better understanding of this event would be that God, in his providence, sover-
eignly waited to give the new covenant empowering of the Holy Spirit to the Samari-
tans directly through the hands of the apostles (Acts 8:14 — 17) 24 so that it might be
evident to the highest leadership in the Jerusalem church that the Samaritans were not
second-class citizens but full members of the church. This was important because of
the historical animosity between Jews and Samaritans (“Jews have no dealings with
Samaritans,” John 4:9), and because Jesus had specified that the spread of the gospel to
Samaria would be the next major step after it had been preached in Jerusalem and the
region of Judea that surrounded Jerusalem: “You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem
and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Thus, the event in
Acts 8 was a kind of “Samaritan Pentecost,” a special outpouring of the Holy Spirit on
the people of Samaria, who were a mixed race of Jewish and Gentile ancestry, so that it
might be evident to all that the full new covenant blessings and power of the Holy Spirit
had come to this group of people as well, and were not confined to Jews only. Because
this is a special event in the history of redemption, as the pattern of Acts 1:8 is worked
out in the book of Acts, it is not a pattern for us to repeat today. It is simply part of the
transition between the old covenant experience of the Holy Spirit and the new covenant
experience of the Holy Spirit.
The situation in Acts 10 is less complicated, because it is not even clear that Cornelius
was a genuine believer before Peter came and preached the gospel to him. Certainly he
had not trusted in Christ for salvation. He is rather a Gentile who was one of the first
examples of the way in which the gospel would go “to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). 25
Certainly Cornelius had not first believed in Christ’s death and resurrection to save him
and then later come into a second experience after his conversion.
In Acts 19, once again we encounter a situation of some people who had not really
heard the gospel of salvation through Christ. They had been baptized into the baptism of
John the Baptist (Acts 19:3), so they were probably people who had heard John the Bap-
tist preach, or had talked to others who had heard John the Baptist preach, and had been
baptized “into Johns baptism” (Acts 19:3) as a sign that they were repenting of their sins
and preparing for the Messiah who was to come. They certainly had not heard of Christ s
death and resurrection, for they had not even heard that there was a Holy Spirit (Acts
19:2) ! — a fact that no one who was present at Pentecost or who had heard the gospel after
Pentecost could have failed to know. It is likely that they had not even heard that Jesus
had come and lived and died, because Paul had to explain to them, “John baptized with
the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after
him, that is, Jesus ” (Acts 19:4). Therefore these “disciples” in Ephesus did not have new
covenant understanding or new covenant faith, and they certainly did not have a new
24 In this section I am largely following the careful dis-
cussion of John Stott, Baptism and Fulness, 2d ed. (Leices-
ter and Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press, 1976), pp.
31-34.
25 Even if we did regard him as someone who first had a
kind of old covenant faith in the Jewish Messiah who was to
come, this would only show that he is one more example of
someone who first had an old covenant experience of the Holy
Spirit and then came into a new covenant experience of the
Holy Spirit.
CHAPTER 39 • BAPTISM IN AND FILLING WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT
775
covenant empowering of the Holy Spirit — they were “disciples” only in the sense of fol-
lowers of John the Baptist who were still waiting for the Messiah. When they heard of him
they believed in him, and then received the power of the Holy Spirit that was appropriate
to the gospel of the risen Lord Jesus Christ.
Because of this, these disciples at Ephesus are certainly not a pattern for us today
either, for we do not first have faith in a Messiah that we are waiting for, and then
later learn that Jesus has come and lived and died and risen again. We come into an
understanding of the gospel of Christ immediately, and we, like the Corinthians, enter
immediately into the new covenant experience of the power of the Holy Spirit. 26
It seems therefore that there are no New Testament texts that encourage us to seek for
a second experience of “baptism in the Holy Spirit” that comes after conversion.
D. What Terms Shall We Use to Refer to an Empowering
by the Holy Spirit That Comes After Conversion?
The previous sections have argued that “baptism in the Holy Spirit” is not the term
the New Testament authors would use to speak of a post-conversion work of the Spirit,
and that the examples of “second experiences” of receiving the Holy Spirit in the book of
Acts are not patterns for us to imitate in our Christian lives. But the question remains,
“What is actually happening to the millions of people who claim that they have received
this ‘baptism in the Holy Spirit’ and that it has brought much blessing to their lives?
Could it be that this has been a genuine work of the Holy Spirit but that the biblical cat-
egories and biblical examples used to illustrate it have been incorrect? Might it be that
there are other biblical expressions and biblical teachings that point to this kind of work
of the Holy Spirit after conversion and help us understand it more accurately?” I think
there are, but before we look at these, it is appropriate to comment on the importance of
having a correct understanding at this point.
1. Harm Comes to the Church From Teaching Two-Class Christianity. At various times
in the history of the church Christians have attempted to divide the church into two
categories of believers. This is in effect what happens with the Pentecostal doctrine of
baptism in the Holy Spirit. It might be pictured as in figure 39.2, which shows the world
divided into Christians and non- Christians, and then shows Christians divided into two
categories, ordinary believers and Spirit-baptized believers.
But such a division of Christians into two categories is not a unique understand-
ing that is found only in Pentecostal teaching in the twentieth century. In fact, much
Pentecostal teaching came out of earlier holiness groups that had taught that Christians
26 Regarding Acts 19:1-7, Ervin, Conversion-Initiation ,
pp. 55-59, objects that these disciples were first baptized and
then, when Paul laid his hands on them, they were empowered
with the Holy Spirit. We may admit that this is true, but the
two events were so closely connected in time that it is hard
to make a clear separation between them, and they certainly
do not fit the common Pentecostal pattern of instruction and
prayer, sometimes weeks or months or years after conversion,
seeking a subsequent baptism in the Holy Spirit. If we had asked
them later if their baptism in the Holy Spirit was “subsequent”
to their conversion, they would probably have said that it was
at the same time, so closely connected were these events in the
actual historical sequence.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
776
could either be ordinary believers or “sanctified” believers. Other groups have divided
Christians using different categories, such as ordinary believers and those who are “Spirit
filled,” or ordinary believers and those who are “disciples,” or “carnal” and “spiritual”
Christians. In fact, the Roman Catholic Church has long had not two but three catego-
ries: ordinary believers, priests, and saints. All of these divisions into different categories
of Christians can be seen in figure 39.3. 27
Christians
Spirit-baptized Christians
Ordinary Christians
Non-Christians
CHRISTIANS DIVIDED INTO TWO CATEGORIES:
ORDINARY AND SPIRIT-BAPTIZED
Figure 39.2
Christians
Spirit-filled
Christians
Spiritual
Christians
" Sanctified "
Christians
"Disciples"
Saints
Priests
Ordinary
Christians
Carnal
Christians
Ordinary
Christians
Ordinary
Christians
Ordinary
Christians
Non-
Christians
■■
OTHER WAYS PEOPLE HAVE CLASSIFIED CHRISTIANS SO AS
TO DIVIDE THEM INTO TWO (OR THREE) CATEGORIES
Figure 39.3
27 I have not included in this diagram another division that is and practice, in Reformed circles: the division between ordi-
sometimes reflected, not in any official teaching, but in attitude nary Christians and those who are “truly Reformed.”
CHAPTER 39 * BAPTISM IN AND FILLING WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT
Although those who teach the classical Pentecostal view of baptism in the Holy Spirit
may deny that they are attempting to divide Christians into two categories, such a divi-
sion is implicit every time they ask whether someone has been baptized in the Holy Spirit
or not. Such a question strongly suggests that there are two groups of Christians, those
who have had this experience of “baptism in the Holy Spirit” and those who have not.
What is the problem with viewing Christians as existing in two categories like this? The
problem is that it contributes to a “we-they” mentality in churches, and leads to jealousy,
pride, and divisiveness. No matter how much these people who have received this special
empowering of the Holy Spirit try to be thoughtful and considerate of those who have not,
if they genuinely love their fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, and if this has been a very
helpful experience in their own Christian lives, they cannot help but give the impression
that they would like others to share this experience as well. Even if they are not proud in
their hearts (and it seems to me that most are not) with respect to this experience, such a
conviction that there is a second category of Christians will inevitably give an impression
of pride or spiritual superiority. Yet there will very likely be a sense of jealousy on the part
of those who have not had such an experience. In this way, a view of two groups within the
church is fostered, and the repeated charge of divisiveness that is made against the charis-
matic movement is given some credibility. In fact, divisions often do occur in churches.
The major objection to this position is that the New Testament itself teaches no such
two-level or two-class Christianity. Nowhere in the Epistles do we read of Paul or Peter
telling a church that is having problems, “You all need to be baptized in the Holy Spirit.”
Nowhere do we hear of the risen Lord lesus speaking to the troubled and weak churches
in Revelation 2-3, “Ask me to baptize you in the Holy Spirit.” It is hard to avoid the
conclusion that the two -level or two -class view taught by all of these groups throughout
history does not have a solid foundation in the New Testament itself.
2. There Are Many Degrees of Empowering, Fellowship With God, and Personal
Christian Maturity. Is there a better model for understanding the varying degrees of
maturity and power and fellowship with God that Christians experience? If we are will-
ing to eliminate the categories that make us think of Christians in one group or another,
a better model is possible, as represented in figure 39.4.
This chart shows the world as divided into non-Christians and Christians, but among
Christians there are not categories into which we can place believers and divide them into
set groups. Rather, there are Christians at all points along a scale of increasing Christian
maturity (sanctification), increasing closeness of fellowship in their walk with God (an
aspect of adoption), and greater experiences of the power of the Holy Spirit at work in
their lives and ministries.
The Christian life should be one of growth in all of these areas as we progress through-
out life. For many people that growth will be gradual and progressive, and will extend
over all the years of their lives. We could represent it by the arrow in figure 39.5. 28
28 To be more precise we need to recognize that we can grow example, Christians can grow in power but not in holiness (as
in some aspects of the Christian life without growing in others, the Corinthian church had done) , or people can grow in knowl-
and a single chart is therefore inadequate to show all of this. For edge but not in power, or knowledge but not in holiness of life
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
778
• • •
Christians
•if iff i
!Vif IV
Wt
Non-
Christians
Christian
Growth
A BETTER PICTURE: CHRISTIANS HAVE EXPERIENCED
VARYING DEGREES OF GROWTH, BUT THEY SHOULD NOT
BE DIVIDED INTO TWO DISTINCT CATEGORIES
Figure 39 A
FOR MOST CHRISTIANS GROWTH WILL BE GRADUAL AND
PROGRESSIVE AND WILL EXTEND OVER THEIR WHOLE LIVES
Figure 39.5
(something that tragically happens to some — but certainly not
all — students in theological seminaries, and to some pastors
who place excessive emphasis on academic pursuits). Or a per-
son can grow in personal fellowship with God but not in knowl-
edge of Scripture (something that happens with an extensive
“pietistic” emphasis). Or someone can grow in holiness of life
but not in power or use of spiritual gifts. All sorts of combina-
tions like this are possible, but we would need several charts
to show them in a schematic way. For the sake of simplicity I
have simply represented “Christian growth” in general on this
chart.
CHAPTER 39 • BAPTISM IN AND FILLING WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT
779
a. How Should We Understand Contemporary Experience? What then has happened
to people who say they have experienced a “baptism in the Holy Spirit” that has brought
great blessing to their lives? We must understand first what is commonly taught about the
need to prepare for baptism in the Holy Spirit. Very often people will be taught that they
should confess all known sins, repent of any remaining sin in their lives, trust Christ to
forgive those sins, commit every area of their lives to the Lord’s service, yield themselves
fully to him, and believe that Christ is going to empower them in a new way and equip
them with new gifts for ministry. Then after that preparation, they are encouraged to
ask Jesus in prayer to baptize them in the Holy Spirit. But what does this preparation do?
It is a guaranteed prescription for significant growth in the Christian life! Such confes-
sion, repentance, renewed commitment, and heightened faith and expectation, if they
are genuine, can only bring positive results in a person’s life. If any Christian is sincere
in these steps of preparation to receive baptism in the Holy Spirit, there will certainly be
growth in sanctification and deeper fellowship with God. In addition to that, we may
expect that at many of these times the Holy Spirit will graciously bring a measure of the
additional fullness and empowering that sincere Christians are seeking, even though
their theological understanding and vocabulary may be imperfect in the asking. If this
happens, they may well realize increased power for ministry and growth in spiritual gifts
as well. We could say that a person has moved from point A to point B in figure 39.6 and
has made one very large step forward in the Christian life.
Christians
C
! B
yri
•
Non-
• N
Christians
A SINGLE EXPERIENCE MAY RESULT IN A LARGE
STEP OF GROWTH IN THE CHRISTIAN LIFE
Figure 39.6
Of course prayer and Bible study and worship will seem more meaningful. Of course
there will be more fruitfulness in evangelism and other kinds of ministry. But it is
important to recognize that someone who moves from point A to point B on the chart
is not now in a separate category of Christians, such as a group of those who have been
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
780
“baptized in the Holy Spirit” and who are therefore different from those who have not
had such an experience. There might be another Christian in the same church who
has never had such a large step of growth but who has nonetheless been making steady
progress for the last forty years of his or her Christian life and has come to point C on
the chart above. Though that person has never had a single experience that Pentecostals
would call a “baptism in the Holy Spirit,” he or she is still much farther along the path
of Christian growth than the younger Christian who has recently been “baptized in the
Holy Spirit” (according to Pentecostal terminology) and moved from point A to point B.
Although the Christian who moved from point A to point B is not farther along in the
Christian life than another person who is at point C, the person who moved to point B is
certainly farther along than he or she was before , and this is certainly a positive result in
his or her life. Thus, with this understanding of the Christian life, we have no divisions
of Christians into two categories.
Before we leave this chart, one more observation should be made: in many cases the
charismatic movement has brought teaching on the baptism of the Holy Spirit into more
liberal churches where, for many years, there has not been a clear proclamation of the
gospel of salvation by faith in Christ alone, and where people have not been taught that
they can believe the Bible completely as Gods Word to us. In such cases, many of the
people in those churches have never experienced saving faith — they are at point N on the
chart above, actually non- Christians and not born again . 29 Now when a representative
of a charismatic renewal comes to these churches and tells them that they can experi-
ence new vitality in their Christian lives, and then tells them that the preparation is to
repent of all known sins, ask Christ for forgiveness of those sins and trust him to forgive
them, and commit their lives totally to Christ as their Lord, they eagerly respond to those
directions. Then they pray and ask Jesus to baptize them in the Holy Spirit. The actual
result is that they move from point N on the chart to point A or perhaps even point B,
because of their sincerity and deep eagerness to draw closer to God. While they think
that they have been baptized by the Holy Spirit as a second experience in their Christian
lives, what has in fact happened is that they have become Christians for the first time.
(They have been “baptized in the Holy Spirit” in the true New Testament sense!) The
next day it is almost impossible to keep them silent, they are so excited. Suddenly, read-
ing the Bible has become meaningful. Suddenly prayer has become real. Suddenly they
know the presence of God in their lives. Suddenly worship has become an experience of
deep joy, and often they have begun to experience spiritual gifts that they had not known
before. It is no wonder that the charismatic renewal has brought such excitement (and
often much controversy) to many Roman Catholic parishes and to many mainline, more
liberal Protestant denominations. Though we may differ with the way this teaching is
actually presented, no one should fault the good results that have come about as a result
of it in these churches.
b. What Terms Should We Use Today? Now we can understand why our use of terms to
describe this experience and the category of understanding we put it in are so important.
29 However, in many cases, both in some Protestant churches they received Christ and became Christians at their baptism
and in Roman Catholic churches, people have been told that when they were infants.
CHAPTER 39 - BAPTISM IN AND FILLING WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT
781
If we use the traditional Pentecostal terminology of “baptism of the Holy Spirit,” then we
almost inevitably end up with two-category Christianity, for this is seen as a common
experience that can and indeed should happen to Christians at one point in time, and, once
it has happened, does not need to be repeated. It is seen as a single experience of empower-
ing for ministry that is distinct from the experience of becoming a Christian, and people
either have received that experience or they have not. Especially when the experience is
described in terms of what happened to the disciples at Pentecost in Acts 2 (which was
clearly a one-time experience for them), the Samaritans in Acts 8, and the Ephesian dis-
ciples in Acts 19, it is clearly implied that this is a one-time event that empowers people for
ministry but that also puts them in a separate category or group than the one they were
in before this experience. The use of the term “the baptism in the Holy Spirit” inevitably
implies two groups of Christians.
But if we are correct in understanding the experience that has come to millions of people
in the charismatic renewal as a large step of growth in their Christian lives, then some other
term than “baptism in the Holy Spirit” would seem to be more appropriate. There might
be several terms that we could use, so long as they allow for repetition, varying degrees
of intensity, and further development beyond that one experience, and so long as they do
not suggest that all truly obedient Christians should have the same experience. 30 We have
already used one expression, “a large step of growth in several aspects of the Christian life.”
Because this phrase speaks of “a large step of growth” it cannot be misunderstood to refer
to a single experience that puts Christians in a new category. And because it is referred to as
a large step of growth, it clearly implies that others may experience such growth in smaller
steps over a longer period of time but reach the same point in the Christian life. 31
Another term that may be helpful is “a new empowering for ministry .” It is certainly true
that many who have received such a charismatic experience do find new power for min-
istry in their Christian lives, including the ability to use spiritual gifts that had not been
theirs before. However, the problem with this phrase is that it does not say anything about
the deepened fellowship with God, the greater effectiveness in prayer and Bible study, and
the new joy in worship that often also result from this experience.
c. What Is “Being Filled With the Spirit”? Yet an even more commonly used term in
the New Testament is “being filled with the Holy Spirit .” Because of its frequent use in
contexts that speak of Christian growth and ministry, this seems to me to be the best term
to use to describe genuine “second experiences” today (or third or fourth experiences,
etc.). Paul tells the Ephesians, “Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be
filled with the Spirit” (Eph. 5:18). He uses a present tense imperative verb that could more
explicitly be translated, “Be continually being filled with the Holy Spirit,” thus implying
that this is something that should repeatedly be happening to Christians. Such fullness
of the Holy Spirit will result in renewed worship and thanksgiving (Eph. 5:19-20), and in
renewed relationships to others, especially those in authority over us or those under our
authority (Eph. 5:21-6:9). In addition, since the Holy Spirit is the Spirit who sanctifies
30 The same criteria could be used to find replacement misunderstanding,
terms for some of the other “two-category” views mentioned 31 Paul does say that we “are to grow up in every way into
above, or else to explain the terms that are used so as to avoid him who is the head, into Christ” (Eph. 4:15).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
782
us, such a filling will often result in increased sanctification. Furthermore, since the Holy
Spirit is the one who empowers us for Christian service and gives us spiritual gifts, such
filling will often result in increased power for ministry and increased effectiveness and
perhaps diversity in the use of spiritual gifts.
We see examples of repeated filling with the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts. In Acts 2:4,
the disciples and those with them were “all filled with the Holy Spirit” Later, when Peter
was standing before the Sanhedrin, we read, “Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to
them . . (Acts 4:8). But a little later, when Peter and the other apostles had returned to
the church to tell what had happened (Acts 4:23) they joined together in prayer. After they
had prayed they were again filled with the Holy Spirit, a sequence of events that Luke makes
clear: “ After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all
filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly” (Acts 4:31 NIV). Even though
Peter had been filled with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 2:4) and had later been filled
with the Holy Spirit before speaking to the Sanhedrin (Acts 4:8), he was once again filled
with the Holy Spirit after the group of Christians he was meeting with had prayed.
Therefore, it is appropriate to understand filling with the Holy Spirit not as a one-
time event but as an event that can occur over and over again in a Christian’s life. It may
involve a momentary empowering for a specific ministry (such as apparently happened
in Acts 4:8; 7:55), but it may also refer to a long-term characteristic of a persons life (see
Acts 6:3; 11:24). In either case such filling can occur many times in a person’s life: even
though Stephen, as an early deacon (or apostolic assistant), was a man “full of the Spirit
and of wisdom” (Acts 6:3, 5), when he was being stoned he apparently received a fresh
new filling of the Holy Spirit in great power (Acts 7:55).
Someone might object that a person who is already “full” of the Holy Spirit cannot
become more full — if a glass is full of water no more water can be put into it. But a water
glass is a poor analogy for us as real people, for God is able to cause us to grow and to
be able to contain much more of the Holy Spirit’s fullness and power. A better analogy
might be a balloon, which can be “full” of air even though it has very little air in it. When
more air is blown in, the balloon expands and in a sense it is “more full.” So it is with us:
we can be filled with the Holy Spirit and at the same time be able to receive much more
of the Holy Spirit as well. It was only Jesus himself to whom the Father gave the Spirit
without measure (John 3:34).
The divisiveness that comes with the term “ baptism in the Holy Spirit ” could easily
be avoided by using any of the alternative terms mentioned in this section. People could
be thankful for “a new fullness of the Holy Spirit” or “a new empowering for ministry”
or “a significant step in growth” in some aspect of another Christian’s life. There would
be no separating into “we” and “they,” for we would recognize that we are all part of one
body with no separate categories. 32 In fact, many charismatics and even some traditional
Pentecostals today are using the term “baptism in the Holy Spirit” far less frequently,
preferring to use other terms such as “being filled with the Holy Spirit” instead. 33
32 It is my personal opinion that most of the divisiveness that of two groups of Christians that come with the term “baptism
has come with the influence of charismatic renewal in many in the Holy Spirit.”
churches has not come because of spiritual gifts but because of 33 John Wimber, who does not like to identify himself as a
a misunderstanding of what is happening and the implications Pentecostal or a charismatic, says with much wisdom, “I have
CHAPTER 39 • BAPTISM IN AND FILLING WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT
Moreover, many people who have had no single dramatic experience (such as what
Pentecostals have called a baptism in the Holy Spirit) have nonetheless begun to experi-
ence new freedom and joy in worship (often with the advent of modern worship or praise
songs in their churches), and to use a wider variety of spiritual gifts with effectiveness
and edification for themselves and their churches (including gifts such as healing, proph-
ecy, working of miracles, discernment of spirits, and the ability to exercise authority
over demonic forces with prayer and a word of rebuke spoken directly to the evil spirits).
Sometimes the gift of speaking in tongues and the gift of interpretation have been used
as well, but in other cases they have not. All of this is to say that the differences between
Pentecostals and charismatics on the one hand, and more traditional and mainstream
evangelical Christians on the other hand, seem to me to be breaking down more and
more, and there are fewer and fewer differences between them.
Someone may object that it is specifically this experience of praying for a baptism
in the Holy Spirit that catapults people into a new level of power in ministry and
effectiveness in use of spiritual gifts. Since this experience has been so helpful in the
lives of millions of people, should we so quickly dismiss it? In response, it must be
said that, if the terminology “baptism in the Holy Spirit” is changed for something
more representative of New Testament teaching, there should be no objection at all to
people coming into churches, and to encouraging people to prepare their hearts for
spiritual renewal by sincere repentance and renewed commitment to Christ and by
believing that the Holy Spirit can work much more powerfully in their lives. 34 There
is nothing wrong with teaching people to pray and to seek this greater infilling of the
Holy Spirit, or to expect and ask the Lord for an outpouring of more spiritual gifts
in their lives, for the benefit of the body of Christ (see 1 Cor. 12:31; 14:1, 12). In fact,
most evangelical Christians in every denomination genuinely long for greater power
in ministry, greater joy in worship, and deeper fellowship with God. Many would
also welcome increased understanding of spiritual gifts, and encouragement to grow
in the use of them. If Pentecostal and charismatic Christians would be willing to
teach on these things without the additional baggage of two-level Christianity that is
implied by the term “baptism in the Holy Spirit,” they might find a new era of greatly
increased effectiveness in bringing teaching on these other areas of the Christian life
to evangelicals generally.
discovered that the argument concerning the baptism of the
Spirit usually comes down to a question of labels. Good medi-
cine may be incorrectly labeled, which is probably true in this
case. The Pentecostals’ experience of God is better than their
explanation of it” (John Wimber with Kevin Springer, Power
Evangelism , p. 145). In recent years I have noticed in personal
conversation with professors at institutions affiliated with the
charismatic movement that there is an increasing tendency to
talk about filling with the Holy Spirit rather than baptism in the
Holy Spirit to represent what has happened to those within the
charismatic movement.
34 My student Jack Mattern, though not himself a charis-
matic, has told me that in over a decade of working with stu-
dents on university campuses, he has found a great hunger
among Christians to know how they may be filled with the
Holy Spirit. He rightly points out that effective teaching on this
area must include the need (1) to yield our lives fully to God
(Rom. 12:1; Gal. 2:20), (2) to depend fully on God for power
to live the Christian life (Rom. 8:13; Gal. 2:20; 3:2-3), and (3)
to obey the Lord’s commands in our lives (1 John 2:6). These
elements are similar to the steps of preparation mentioned
above in the discussion of common charismatic teaching. In
any case, to these steps could certainly be added a prayer that
the Holy Spirit would fill us, in accordance with the will of
God as expressed in Eph. 5:18. There should be no objection
to teaching Christians to pray daily in accordance with these
principles.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
3. Being Filled With the Holy Spirit Does Not Always Result in Speaking in Tongues.
One remai ning point needs to be made with respect to the experience of being filled with
the Holy Spirit. Because there were several cases in Acts where people received the new
covenant power of the Holy Spirit and began to speak with tongues at the same time (Acts
2:4; 10:46; 19:6; probably also implied in 8:17- 19 because ofthe parallel with the experi-
ence of the disciples in Acts 2), Pentecostal teaching has commonly maintained that the
outward sign of baptism in the Holy Spirit is speaking in tongues (that is, speaking in
languages that are not understood by and have not been learned by the person speaking,
whether known human languages or other kinds of angelic or heavenly or miraculously
given languages). 35
But it is important to realize that there are many cases where being filled with the
Holy Spirit did not result in speaking in tongues. When Jesus was filled with the Spirit in
Luke 4:1, the result was strength to overcome the temptations of Satan in the wilderness.
When the temptations were ended, and Jesus “returned in the power of the Spirit into
Galilee” (Luke 4:14), the results were miracles of healing, casting out of demons, and
teaching with authority. When Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, she spoke a word
of blessing to Mary (Luke 1:41 -45). When Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit, he
prophesied (Luke 1:67-79). Other results of being filled with the Holy Spirit were pow-
erful preaching ofthe gospel (Acts 4:31), (perhaps) wisdom and Christian maturity and
sound judgment (Acts 6:3), powerful preaching and testimony when on trial (Acts 4:8), a
vision of heaven (Acts 7:55), and (apparently) faith and maturity of life (Acts 11:24). Sev-
eral of these cases may also imply the fullness of the Holy Spirit to empower some kind of
ministry, especially in the context of the book of Acts, where the empowering of the Holy
Spirit is frequently seen to result in miracles, preaching, and works of great power. 36
Therefore, while an experience of being filled with the Holy Spirit may result in the
gift of speaking in tongues, or in the use of some other gifts that had not previously been
experienced, it also may come without the gift of speaking in tongues. In fact, many
Christians throughout history have experienced powerful infillings of the Holy Spirit
that have not been accompanied by speaking in tongues. With regard to this gift as well
as all other gifts, we must simply say that the Holy Spirit “apportions each one individu-
ally as he wills” (1 Cor. 12:11).
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. Before reading this chapter, what was your understanding of “baptism in the Holy
Spirit”? How has your understanding changed, if at all?
2. Has your own Christian life included one or more events that you could call “a
large step of growth” in some area or another in the Christian life? Or has it rather
been one of small but continuing steps in sanctification, in fellowship with God,
and in use of spiritual gifts and power in ministry?
even from his mother’s womb” (Luke 1:15), but “the hand of
the Lord was with him” (Luke 1:66), and “the child grew and
became strong in spirit” (Luke 1:80).
35 See chapter 53, pp. 1069-79, for a discussion of speaking
in tongues.
36 Scripture does not specify what result there was in the
life of John the Baptist, who was “filled with the Holy Spirit,
CHAPTER 39 * BAPTISM IN AND FILLING WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT
785
3. Have you known people who have claimed they received a “baptism in the Holy
Spirit” after conversion? In your evaluation, has the result in their lives been mostly
positive, or mostly negative, or has it been rather mixed? If you have had such an
experience yourself, do you think that understanding it as a one-time “baptism
in the Holy Spirit” was essential to the experience, or could the same results have
come in your Christian life if it had been called “being filled with the Holy Spirit”?
Do you think it would be right to seek for an experience of filling with the Holy
Spirit in your own life now? How might someone go about doing this?
4. We all realize that it is possible to overemphasize something good in the Chris-
tian life to such an extent that our lives become unbalanced and not as effective
in ministry as they might be. If we think of the various ways in which we can
grow in the Christian life (knowledge of the Word and sound doctrine, prayer,
love for God, love for other Christians and for non-Christians, trust in God each
day, worship, holiness of life, use of spiritual gifts, effective power of the Holy
Spirit in our witness and ministry, daily fellowship with God, etc.), in what areas
do you think you need to ask God for more growth in your own life? Would it be
appropriate to ask him for a new fullness of the Holy Spirit to accompany growth
in those areas?
5. With regard to this topic of baptism in or being filled with the Holy Spirit, do you
think that evangelical churches generally have been moving toward more divisive-
ness or more unity on this issue?
SPECIAL TERMS
baptism by the Holy Spirit
baptism in the Holy Spirit
baptism with the Holy Spirit
being filled with the Holy Spirit
Pentecost
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter
1, pp. 38-39. Complete bibliographical data maybe found on pp. 1224-30.) Note: Very
few systematic theologies have included explicit treatment of this topic, since it has only
become a controversial issue in this century.)
Sections In Evangelical Systematic Theologies
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1983 Carter, 1:435-47
3. Baptist
1983 - 85 Erickson, 879 - 80
new covenant experience of the
Holy Spirit
old covenant experience of the
Holy Spirit
two-class Christianity
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
786
4. Dispensational
1947 Chafer, 6:138-61
1986 Ryrie, 362-66
6. Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1962 Buswell, 2:208- 12
7. Renewal (or charismatic/Pentecostal)
1988-92 Williams, 2:177-79, 181-207, 271-321
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
(no explicit treatment)
Other Works
Bennett, Dennis and Rita. The Holy Spirit and You. Plainfield, N.J.: Logos, 1971.
Bruner, Frederick Dale. A Theology of the Holy Spirit: The Pentecostal Experience and the
New Testament Witness . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970.
Dunn, James D. G. Baptism in the Holy Spirit. London: SCM, 1970.
Ervin, Howard M. Conversion-Initiation and the Baptism in the Holy Spirit: A Critique
of James D. G. Dunn , “ Baptism in the Holy Spirit .” Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson,
1984.
. Spirit Baptism. Peabody, Mass.: Hendriksen, 1987.
Gaffin, Richard. Perspectives on Pentecost. Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed,
1979.
Green, Michael. Baptism: Its Purpose , Practice and Power. Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity
Press, 1987, pp. 127-41.
. “The Spirit’s Baptism.” In I Believe in the Holy Spirit. London: Hodder and
Stoughton, and Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975, pp. 123-47.
Hoekema, Anthony A. Holy Spirit Baptism. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, (1972).
Lloyd-Jones, Martyn. Joy Unspeakable: Power and Renewal in the Holy Spirit. Ed. by
Christopher Catherwood. Wheaton, 111.: Shaw, 1984.
McGee, Gary B., ed. Initial Evidence. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1991.
Packer, J. I. “Baptism in the Spirit.” In NDT, pp. 73-74.
. Keep in Step With the Spirit. Old Tappan, N.J.: Revell, and Leicester: Inter- Varsity
Press, 1984.
Stott, John. Baptism and Fulness. Leicester and Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press,
1976.
Unger, Merrill F. The Baptizing Work of the Holy Spirit. Wheaton, 111.: Van Kampen Press,
1953.
White, R. E. O. “Baptism of the Spirit.” In EDT, pp. 121-22.
CHAPTER 39 • BAPTISM IN AND FILLING WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT
787
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
1 Corinthians 12:12-13: For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the
members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For by [or “in”] one
Spirit we were all baptized into one body — Jews or Greeks, slaves or free — and all were
made to drink of one Spirit.
HYMN
“Spirit of God, Descend Upon My Heart”
Spirit of God, descend upon my heart;
Wean it from earth, through all its pulses move;
Stoop to my weakness, mighty as thou art,
And make me love thee as I ought to love.
Hast thou not bid us love thee, God and King?
All, all thine own, soul, heart, and strength and mind.
I see thy cross — there teach my heart to cling:
O let me seek thee, and O let me find.
Teach me to feel that thou art always nigh;
Teach me the struggles of the soul to bear,
To check the rising doubt, the rebel sigh;
Teach me the patience of unanswered prayer.
Teach me to love thee as thine angels love,
One holy passion filling all my frame;
The baptism of the heav’n descended dove
My heart an altar, and thy love the flame.
AUTHOR: GEORGE CROLY, 1854
Alternative hymn: “Spirit of the Living God”
Chapter
THE PERSEVERANCE OF
THE SAINTS (REMAINING
A CHRISTIAN)
Can true Christians lose their salvation?
How can we know if we are truly born again?
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
Our previous discussion has dealt with many aspects of the full salvation that Christ
has earned for us and that the Holy Spirit now applies to us. But how do we know that
we shall continue to be Christians throughout our lives? Is there anything that will keep
us from falling away from Christ, anything to guarantee that we will remain Christians
until we die and that we will in fact live with God in heaven forever? Or might it be that
we will turn away from Christ and lose the blessings of our salvation? The topic of the
perseverance of the saints speaks to these questions. The perseverance of the saints means
■ that all those who are truly born again will be kept by God’s power and will persevere as
Christians until the end of their lives , and that only those who persevere until the end have
been truly born again .
This definition has two parts to it. It indicates first that there is assurance to be given
to those who are truly born again, for it reminds them that God’s power will keep them
as Christians until they die, and they will surely live with Christ in heaven forever. On
the other hand, the second half of the definition makes it clear that continuing in the
Christian life is one of the evidences that a person is truly born again. It is important to
keep this aspect of the doctrine in mind as well, lest false assurance be given to people
who were never really believers in the first place.
It should be noted that this question is one on which evangelical Christians have long
had significant disagreement. Many within the Wesleyan/Arminian tradition have held
that it is possible for someone who is truly born again to lose his or her salvation, while
Reformed Christians have held that that is not possible for someone who is truly born
788
CHAPTER40 ■ THE PERSEVERANCE OF THE SAINTS
789
again. 1 Most Baptists have followed the Reformed tradition at this point; however, they
have frequently used the term “ eternal security” or the “ eternal security of the believer”
rather than the term “perseverance of the saints”
A. All Who Are Truly Born Again Will Persevere to the End
There are many passages that teach that those who are truly born again, who are
genuinely Christians, will continue in the Christian life until death and will then go to
be with Christ in heaven. Jesus says,
I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who
sent me; and this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of
all that he has given me, but raise it up at the last day. For this is the will of my
Father, that every one who sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal
life; and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 6:38-40)
Here Jesus says that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life. He says that he
will raise that person up at the last day — which, in this context of believing in the Son
and having eternal life, clearly means that Jesus will raise that person up to eternal life
with him (not just raise him up to be judged and condemned). It seems hard to avoid
the conclusion that everyone who truly believes in Christ will remain a Christian up to
the day of final resurrection into the blessings of life in the presence of God. 2 Moreover,
this text emphasizes that Jesus does the will of the Father, which is that he should “lose
nothing of all that he has given me” (John 6:39). Once again, those given to the Son by
the Father will not be lost.
Another passage emphasizing this truth is John 10:27-29, in which Jesus says:
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; and I give them
eternal life, and they shall never perish , and no one shall snatch them out of my
hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is
able to snatch them out of the Father s hand.
Here Jesus says that those who follow him, those who are his sheep, are given eternal
life. He further says that “no one shall snatch them out of my hand” (v. 28). Now some
The doctrine of the perseverance of the saints is represented
by “P” in the acronym TULIP, which is often used to summarize
the “five points of Calvinism .” (See full list at p. 679, n. 11.)
2 Grant R. Osborne, “Exegetical Notes on Calvinist Texts,”
in Grace Unlimited , pp. 170-71, does not give an alternative
explanation for Jesus’ statement, “I will raise him up at the
last day,” when he deals with this passage. But he does say that
in this context v. 35 emphasizes the fact that eternal life is
dependent on the individual person “coming and believing”
in Christ (p. 171) and that the present tense verbs used for
“believe” in these passages imply not merely an initial decision
of faith, but rather continuing in that state.
I regret having to differ with my friend and colleague on
this question, but there is something to be said in response:
while no one would deny that it is necessary for people them-
selves to believe in Christ for eternal life, and while it is also
true that Jesus here speaks not just of initial saving faith but of
a faith that continues over time, the verse does not go so far as
to specify that “everyone who believes continuously until his
or her death will have eternal life,” but rather simply says that
“he who is presently in a state of believing in Christ” will have
eternal life and Jesus will raise him up at the last day. The verse
speaks about all who presently are in a state of believing in
Christ, and it says that all of them will be raised up by Christ
at the last day. No further objections to this specific verse are
given in Osborne’s second essay, “Soteriology in the Gospel of
John,” in The Grace of God, the Will of Man, p. 248.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
790
have objected to this that even though no one else can take Christians out of Christ’s
hand, we might remove ourselves from Christ’s hand. But that seems to be pedantic
quibbling over words — does not “no one” also include the person who is in Christ’s
hand? Moreover, we know that our own hearts are far from trustworthy. Therefore if the
possibility remained that we could remove ourself from Christ’s hand, the passage would
hardly give the assurance that Jesus intends by it.
But more importantly, the most forceful phrase in the passage is “they shall never
perish ” (v. 28). The Greek construction ( ou me plus aorist subjunctive) is especially
emphatic and might be translated more explicitly, “and they shall certainly not perish
forever.” This emphasizes that those who are Jesus’ “sheep” and who follow him, and
to whom he has given eternal life, shall never lose their salvation or be separated from
Christ — they shall “never perish.” 3
There are several other passages that say those who believe have “eternal life.” One
example is John 3:36: “He who believes in the Son has eternal life ” (cf. also John 5:24;
6:47; 10:28; 1 John 5:13). Now if this is truly eternal life that believers have, then it is life
that lasts forever with God. It is a gift of God that comes with salvation (it is put in con-
trast to condemnation and eternal judgment in John 3:16- 17, 36; 10:28). Arminians have
objected that “eternal life” is simply a quality of life, a type of life in relationship with
God, which one can have for a time and then lose. But this objection does not seem to be
convincing in view of the clear nuance of unending time involved in the adjective eternal
(Gk. aioniosy “eternal, without end”). 4 Certainly there is a special quality about this life,
but the emphasis in the adjective eternal is on the fact that it is the opposite of death; it
is the opposite of judgment and separation from God; it is life that goes on forever in the
presence of God. And he who believes in the Son has this “eternal life” (John 3:36).
Evidence in Paul’s writings and the other New Testament epistles also indicates that
those who are truly born again will persevere to the end. There remains “no condemna-
tion for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1); therefore, it would be unjust for God
to give any kind of eternal punishment to those who are Christians — no condemnation
remains for them, for the entire penalty for their sins has been paid.
Then in Romans 8:30, Paul emphasizes the clear connection between God’s eternal
purposes in predestination and his working out of those purposes in life, together with
3 The Greek word used here for “perish” is apollymi, the seem to provide a reason why we should not understand these
same term John uses in John 3:16 to say that “whoever believes words in an ordinary sense, indicating that one who believes
in him should not perish but have eternal life.” in Christ will certainly never fall away.
Grant Osborne, in “Exegetical Notes on Calvinist Texts,” Of course, those who believe in the doctrine of the perse-
p. 172, says that this verse must not be interpreted apart from verance of the saints (such as myself) would affirm that the
the teaching about the vine and the branches in John 15:1-7, way God keeps us safe is by causing us to continue to believe
but he gives no alternative explanation for the phrase “they in Christ (see discussion below), so to say that Scripture also
shall never perish,” and gives no reason why we should fail to emphasizes the necessity of continuing in faith is not to object
understand it to mean that these people will certainly have to the doctrine of perseverance of the saints as it has been
life with God forever in heaven. In his subsequent article, expressed by Reformed theologians frequently in the history
“Soteriology in the Gospel of John,” Osborne again mentions of the church. In other words, there is a way to believe in both
John 10:28, but gives no alternative explanation for it other sets of texts without concluding that people who are truly
than to say that this passage emphasizes God’s sovereignty, born again can lose their salvation,
but other passages in John emphasize the faith-response that 4 BAGD, p. 28.
works together with God’s sovereignty. These articles do not
CHAPTER 40 - THE PERSEVERANCE OF THE SAINTS
his final realization of those purposes in “glorifying” or giving final resurrection bodies
to those whom he has brought into union with Christ: “And those whom he predestined
he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified
he also glorified.” Here Paul sees the future event of glorification as such a certainty in
Gods settled purpose that he can speak of it as if it were already accomplished (“he also
glorified”). This is true of all those who are called and justified — that is, all those who
truly become Christians.
Further evidence that God keeps those who are born again safe for eternity is the
“seal” that God places upon us. This “seal” is the Holy Spirit within us, who also acts
as God’s “guarantee” that we will receive the inheritance promised to us: “In him you
also, who have heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and have believed in
him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, which is the guarantee of our inheritance
until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory” (Eph. 1:13-14). The Greek
word translated “guarantee” in this passage ( arrabon ) is a legal and commercial term that
means “first installment, deposit, down payment, pledge” and represents “a payment
which obligates the contracting party to make further payments.” 5 When God gave us
the Holy Spirit within, he committed himself to give all the further blessings of eternal
life and a great reward in heaven with him. This is why Paul can say that the Holy Spirit
is the “ guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it” (Eph. 1:14). All who
have the Holy Spirit within them, all who are truly born again, have God’s unchanging
promise and guarantee that the inheritance of eternal life in heaven will certainly be
theirs. God’s own faithfulness is pledged to bring it about. 6
Another example of assurance that believers will persevere to the end is found in
Paul’s statement to the Philippians: “I am sure that he who began a good work in you
will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6). It is true that the word
“you” here is plural (Gk. hymas), and thus he is referring to Christians in the Philip-
pian church generally, but he is still talking about the specific believers to whom he is
writing, and saying that God’s good work that began in them will continue and will be
completed at the day Christ returns. 7 Peter tells his readers that they are those “who by
God’s power are guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time”
5 Ibid., p. 109.
6 Osborne, “Exegetical Notes on Calvinist Texts,” p. 181,
answers this verse by saying that Paul also teaches personal
responsibility, since “the Christian is warned not to ‘grieve*
the Spirit (cf. 1 Thess. 4:8)” and “the danger of apostasy is
real, and he dare not ‘grieve* the Spirit ” But once again this
objection provides no alternative interpretation to the verse
at hand, but simply refers to other verses that teach personal
responsibility, a fact that a Reformed theologian would also
be eager to affirm.
Arminian theologians frequently assume that if they
affirm human responsibility and the need for continuing in
faith they have thereby negated the idea that God*s sover-
eign keeping and protection is absolutely certain and eternal
life is guaranteed. But they often do this without providing
any other convincing interpretations for the texts cited to
demonstrate the doctrine of perseverance of the saints, or any
explanation that would show why we should not take these
words as absolute guarantees that those who are born again
will certainly persevere to the end. Rather than assuming that
passages on human responsibility negate the idea of God’s
sovereign protection, it seems better to adopt the Reformed
position that says that God’s sovereign protection is consis-
tent with human responsibility, because it works through
human responsibility and guarantees that we will respond by
maintaining the faith that is necessary to persevere.
7 Osborne rightly rejects the idea that this refers only to the
fact that the church will continue. He says, “Paul does intend
that the promise extend to the individual. He will be kept by
God with a view to the final salvation, but this does not obvi-
ate the need for perseverance” (“Exegetical Notes on Calvinist
Texts,” p. 182).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
792
(1 Peter 1:5). The word guarded (Gk. phroured) can mean both “kept from escaping” and
“protected from attack,” and perhaps both kinds of guarding are intended here: God is
preserving believers from escaping out of his kingdom, and he is protecting them from
external attacks.
The present participle that Peter uses gives the sense “You are continually being
guarded.” 8 He stresses that this is by Gods power. Yet Gods power does not work apart
from the personal faith of those being guarded, but through their faith. (“Faith,” pistis ,
is regularly a personal activity of individual believers in Peter’s epistles; see 1 Peter 1:7,
9, 21; 5:9; 2 Peter 1:1, 5; and commonly in the New Testament.) The parallel examples of
God working “through” someone or something in Peter’s writings (1 Peter 1:3, 23; 2 Peter
1:4; and probably also 1 Peter 1:12; 2:14; 3:1) suggest that the believer’s personal faith or
trust in God is the means God uses to guard his people. Thus we might give the sense of
the verse by saying that “God is continually using his power to guard his people by means
of their faith,” a statement that seems to imply that God’s power in fact energizes and
continually sustains individual, personal faith. 9
This guarding is not for a temporary goal but for a salvation ready to be revealed in
the last time. “Salvation” is used here not of past justification or of present sanctification
(speaking in theological categories) but of the future full possession of all the blessings
of our redemption — of the final, complete fulfillment of our salvation (cf. Rom. 13:11;
1 Peter 2:2). Though already prepared or “ready,” it will not be “revealed” by God to
mankind generally until the “last time,” the time of final judgment.
This last phrase makes it difficult if not impossible to see any end to God’s guard-
ing activity. If God’s guarding has as its purpose the preservation of believers until they
receive their full, heavenly salvation, then it is safe to conclude that God will accomplish
that purpose and they will in fact attain that final salvation. Ultimately their attain-
ment of final salvation depends on God’s power. Nevertheless, God’s power continually
works “through” their faith. Do they wish to know whether God is guarding them? If
they continue to trust God through Christ, God is working and guarding them, and he
should be thanked.
This emphasis on God’s guarding in combination with our faith provides a natural
transition to the second half of the doctrine of perseverance.
B. Only Those Who Persevere to the End Have Been
Truly Born Again
While Scripture repeatedly emphasizes that those who are truly born again will per-
severe to the end and will certainly have eternal life in heaven with God, there are other
passages that speak of the necessity of continuing in faith throughout life. They make
8 The following three paragraphs are taken from construction meaning “as a result of” which are suggested in,
W. Grudem, The First Epistle of Peter (Leicester: Inter-Varsity BAGD, p. 180, IV, are all ambiguous, and Kelly himself gives
Press, and Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), pp. 58-59. no examples: see J. N. D. Kelly, A Commentary on the Epis-
9 The translation by J. N. D. Kelly, “as a result of . . . faith,” ties of Peter and Jude t Black’s New Testament Commentaries
is an extremely unlikely rendering of the very common [London: Black, 1969], p. 52).
construction dia with the genitive (the few examples of this
CHAPTER40 • THE PERSEVERANCE OF THE SAINTS
793
us realize that what Peter said in 1 Peter 1:5 is true, namely, that God does not guard us
apart from our faith, but only by working through our faith so that he enables us to con-
tinue to believe in him. In this way, those who continue to trust in Christ gain assurance
that God is working in them and guarding them.
One example of this kind of passage is John 8:31-32: “Jesus then said to the Jews who
had believed in him, 4 If you continue in my word , you are truly my disciples, and you will
know the truth, and the truth will make you free/ ” Jesus is here giving a warning that
one evidence of genuine faith is continuing in his word, that is, continuing to believe
what he says and living a life of obedience to his commands. Similarly, Jesus says, “He
who endures to the end will be saved” (Matt. 10:22), as a means of warning people not to
fall away in times of persecution.
Paul says to the Colossian Christians that Christ has reconciled them to God, “in
order to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him, provided that you
continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel which
you heard” (Col. 1:22-23). It is only natural that Paul and the other New Testament
writers would speak this way, for they are addressing groups of people who profess to be
Christians, without being able to know the actual state of every person’s heart. There may
have been people at Colossae who had joined in the fellowship of the church, and perhaps
even professed that they had faith in Christ and had been baptized into membership of
the church, but who never had true saving faith. How is Paul to distinguish such people
from true believers? How can he avoid giving them false assurance, assurance that they
will be saved eternally when in fact they will not, unless they come to true repentance
and faith? Paul knows that those whose faith is not real will eventually fall away from
participation in the fellowship of the church. Therefore he tells his readers that they will
ultimately be saved, “provided that you continue in thefaith yy (Col. 1:23). Those who con-
tinue show thereby that they are genuine believers. But those who do not continue in the
faith show that there was no genuine faith in their hearts in the first place.
A similar emphasis is seen in Hebrews 3 : 14 (NASB) : “For we have become partakers of
Christ, if we holdfast the beginning of our assurance firm to the end” This verse provides
an excellent perspective on the doctrine of perseverance. How do we know if “we have
become partakers of Christ”? How do we know if this being joined to Christ has hap-
pened to us at some time in the past? 10 One way in which we know that we have come to
genuine faith in Christ is if we continue in faith until the end of our lives.
Attention to the context of Hebrews 3:14 will keep us from using this and other
similar passages in a pastorally inappropriate way. We must remember that there are
other evidences elsewhere in Scripture that give Christians assurance of salvation, 11
so we should not think that assurance that we belong to Christ is impossible until we die .
However, continuing in faith is the one means of assurance that is named here by the
author of Hebrews. He mentions this to warn his readers that they should not fall away
from Christ, because he is writing to a situation where such a warning is needed. The
10 The author uses the perfect tense verb gegonamen, “we 11 See the list of evidences of salvation given in section D,
have become” (at some time in the past, with results that pp. 803-6, below,
continue into the present).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
794
beginning of that section, just two verses earlier, said, “Take care, brethren, lest there be
in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God”
(Heb. 3:12). In fact, in all of the passages where continuing to believe in Christ to the
end of our lives is mentioned as one indication of genuine faith, the purpose is never to
make those who are presently trusting in Christ worry that some time in the future they
might fall away (and we should never use these passages that way either, for that would
be to give wrongful cause for worry in a way that Scripture does not intend). Rather, the
purpose is always to warn those who are thinking of falling away or have fallen away that if
they do this it is a strong indication that they were never saved in the first place. Thus, the
necessity for continuing in faith should just be used as a warning against falling away, a
warning that those who fall away give evidence that their faith was never real.
John clearly states that when people fall away from fellowship with the church and
from belief in Christ they thereby show that their faith was not real in the first place and
that they were never part of the true body of Christ. Speaking of people who have left
the fellowship of believers, John says, “They went out from us, but they were not of us;
for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out, that it
might be plain that they all are not of us” (1 John 2:19). John says that those who have
departed showed by their actions that they “were not of us” — that they were not truly
born again.
C. Those Who Finally Fall Away May Give
Many External Signs of Conversion
Is it always clear which people in the church have genuine saving faith and which
have only an intellectual persuasion of the truth of the gospel but no genuine faith in
their hearts? It is not always easy to tell, and Scripture mentions in several places that
unbelievers in fellowship with the visible church can give some external signs or indica-
tions that make them look or sound like genuine believers. For example, Judas, who
betrayed Christ, must have acted almost exactly like the other disciples during the three
years he was with Jesus. So convincing was his conformity to the behavior pattern of the
other disciples, that at the end of three years of Jesus’ ministry, when he said that one of
his disciples would betray him, they did not all turn and suspect Judas, but they rather
“began to say to him one after another, ‘Is it I?’ ” (Matt. 26:22; cf. Mark 14:19; Luke 22:23;
John 13:22). However, Jesus himself knew that there was no genuine faith in Judas’ heart,
because he said at one point, “Did I not choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil?”
(John 6:70). John later wrote in his gospel that “Jesus knew from the first who those were
that did not believe, and who it was that would betray him” (John 6:64). But the disciples
themselves did not know.
Paul also speaks of “false brethren secretly brought in” (Gal. 2:4), and says that in his
journeys he has been “in danger from false brethren ’ (2 Cor. 11:26). He also says that the
servants of Satan “disguise themselves as servants of righteousness” (2 Cor. 11:15). This
does not mean that all unbelievers in the church who nevertheless give some signs of true
conversion are servants of Satan secretly undermining the work of the church, for some
may be in process of considering the claims of the gospel and moving toward real faith,
CHAPTER 40 • THE PERSEVERANCE OF THE SAINTS
795
others may have heard only an inadequate explanation of the gospel message, and others
may not have come under genuine conviction of the Holy Spirit yet. But Paul’s statements
do mean that some unbelievers in the church will be false brothers and sisters sent to
disrupt the fellowship, while others will simply be unbelievers who will eventually come
to genuine saving faith. In both cases, however, they give several external signs that make
them look like genuine believers.
We can see this also in Jesus’ statement about what will happen at the last
judgment:
Not every one who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” shall enter the kingdom of heaven,
but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many
will say to me, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out
demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?” And then
will I declare to them, “7 never knew you; depart from me, you evildoers.” (Matt.
7:21-23)
Although these people prophesied and cast out demons and did “many mighty works”
in Jesus’ name, the ability to do such works did not guarantee that they were Christians.
Jesus says, “I never knew you.” He does not say, “I knew you at one time but I no longer
know you,” nor “I knew you at one time but you strayed away from me,” but rather, “I
never knew you.” They never were genuine believers.
A similar teaching is found in the parable of the sower in Mark 4. Jesus says, “Other
seed fell on rocky ground, where it had not much soil, and immediately it sprang up, since
it had no depth of soil; and when the sun rose it was scorched, and since it had no root
it withered away” (Mark 4: 5 -6) .Jesus explains that the seed sown upon rocky ground
represents people who “when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy; and
they have no root in themselves , but endure for a while; then, when tribulation or perse-
cution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away” (Mark 4:16- 17). The
fact that they “have no root in themselves” indicates that there is no source of life within
these plants; similarly, the people represented by them have no genuine life of their
own within. They have an appearance of conversion and they apparently have become
Christians because they receive the word “with joy,” but when difficulty comes, they are
nowhere to be found — their apparent conversion was not genuine and there was no real
saving faith in their hearts.
The importance of continuing in faith is also affirmed in the parable of Jesus as the
vine, in which Christians are portrayed as branches (John 15:1 -7).Jesus says:
I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch of mine
that bears no fruit, he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he
prunes, that it may bear more fruit If a man does not abide in me, he is
cast forth as a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into
the fire and burned. (John 15:1-2, 6)
Arminians have argued that the branches that do not bear fruit are still true branches
on the vine — Jesus refers to “Every branch of mine that bears no fruit” (v. 2). Therefore
the branches that are gathered and thrown into the fire and burned must refer to true
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
796
believers that were once part of the vine but fell away and became subject to eternal judg-
ment. But that is not a necessary implication of Jesus’ teaching at this point. The imagery
of the vine used in this parable is limited in how much detail it can teach. In fact, if Jesus
had wanted to teach that there were true and false believers associated with him, and if
he wanted to use the analogy of a vine and branches, then the only way he could refer to
people who do not have genuine life in themselves would be to speak of branches that
bear no fruit (somewhat after the analogy of the seeds that fell on rocky ground and had
“no root in themselves” in Mark 4:17). Here in John 15 the branches that do not bear
fruit, though they are in some way connected to Jesus and give an outward appearance
x of being genuine branches, nonetheless give indication of their true state by the fact that
they bear no fruit. This is similarly indicated by the fact that the person “does not abide”
in Christ (John 15:6) and is cast off as a branch and withers. If we try to press the anal-
ogy any further, by saying, for example, that all branches on a vine really are alive or
they would not be there in the first place, then we are simply trying to press the imagery
beyond what it is able to teach — and in that case there would be nothing in the analogy
that could represent false believers in any case. The point of the imagery is simply that
those who bear fruit thereby give evidence that they are abiding in Christ; those who do
not, are not abiding in him.
Finally, there are two passages in Hebrews that also affirm that those who finally fall
away may give many external signs of conversion and may look in many ways like Chris-
tians. The first of these, Hebrews 6:4-6, has frequently been used by Arminians as proof
that believers can lose their salvation. But on closer inspection such an interpretation is
not convincing. The author writes,
For it is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been
enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of
the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers
of the age to come, if they then commit apostasy, since they crucify the Son of
God on their own account and hold him up to contempt. (Heb. 6:4-6)
The author continues with an example from agriculture:
For land which has drunk the rain that often falls upon it, and brings forth
vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from
God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed;
its end is to be burned. (Heb. 6:7-8)
In this agricultural metaphor, those who receive final judgment are compared to land
that bears no vegetation or useful fruit, but rather bears thorns and thistles. When we
recall the other metaphors in Scripture where good fruit is a sign of true spiritual life and
fruitlessness is a sign of false believers (for example, Matt. 3:8- 10; 7:15-20; 12:33-35),
we already have an indication that the author is speaking of people whose most trustwor-
thy evidence of their spiritual condition (the fruit they bear) is negative, suggesting that
the author is talking about people who are not genuinely Christians.
Some have objected that the long description of things that have happened to these
people who fall away means that they must have been genuinely born again. But that is
CHAPTER 40 * THE PERSEVERANCE OF THE SAINTS
797
not a convincing objection when we look at the individual terms used. The author says
they have “once been enlightened ” (Heb. 6:4). But this enlightening simply means that
they came to understand the truths of the gospel, not that they responded to those truths
with genuine saving faith. 12
Similarly, the word once that is used to speak of those who “have once been enlight-
ened” is the Greek term hapax , which is used, for example, in Philippians 4: 16 of the Phi-
lippians’ sending Paul a gift “once and again,” and in Hebrews 9:7 of entrance in the Holy
of Holies “ once a year.” Therefore, this word does not mean that something happened
“once” and can never be repeated, but simply that it happened once, without specifying
whether it will be repeated or not. 13
The text further says that these people “have tasted the heavenly gift” and that they
“have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come” (Heb.
6:4-5). Inherent in the idea of tasting is the fact that the tasting is temporary and one
might or might not decide to accept the thing that is tasted. For example, the same Greek
word ( geuomai ) is used in Matthew 27:34 to say that those crucifying Jesus “offered him
wine to drink, mingled with gall; but when he tasted it, he would not drink it.” The word
is also used in a figurative sense meaning “come to know something.” 14 If we understand
it in this figurative sense, as it must be understood here since the passage is not talking
about tasting literal food, then it means that these people have come to understand the
heavenly gift (which probably means here that they had experienced some of the power
of the Holy Spirit at work) and to know something of the Word of God and the powers
of the age to come. It does not necessarily mean that they had (or did not have) genu-
ine saving faith, but may simply mean that they came to understand it and have some
experience of spiritual power. 15
12 The word enlightened translates the Greek term photizo,
which refers to learning in general, not necessarily a learning
that results in salvation — it is used in John 1:9 of “enlighten-
ing” every man that comes into the world, in 1 Cor. 4:5 of the
enlightening that comes at the final judgment, and in Eph. 1:18
of the enlightening that accompanies growth in the Christian
life. The word is not a “technical term” that means that the
people in question were saved.
After completing the following discussion of Hebrews
6:4-6, 1 wrote a much more extensive study, with additional
analysis, supporting data, and interaction with other litera-
ture: see Wayne Grudem, “Perseverance of the Saints: A Case
Study From Heb. 6:4-6 and the Other Warning Passages of
Hebrews,” in Still Sovereign, ed. Tom Schreiner and Bruce
Ware (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000).
13 This is not the same word as ephapax , which is more
regularly used in the New Testament of nonrepeatable events
(Rom. 6:10; Heb. 7:27; 9:12; 10:10).
l4 BAGD, p. 157. They mention other examples of geuomai
(“taste”), such as Herodotus 6.5, where the people of Miletus
had “tasted of freedom,” but it was certainly not their own
possession. They also cite Dio Chrysostom, 32.72, where he
speaks of the people of Alexandria in a time when they “had
a taste of warfare” in an encounter with Roman troops who
were simply harassing them and not actually engaging in
genuine war. Josephus, The Jewish War, 2.158, speaks about
the theological views of the Essenes “whereby they irresistibly
attract all who have once tasted their philosophy.” Here again
Josephus makes it clear that those who have “once tasted” have
not yet made the Essene philosophy their own, but are simply
very strongly attracted to it. By analogy, in Heb. 6 those who
have “tasted” the heavenly gift and the word of God and the
powers of the age to come may be strongly attracted to these
things, or they may not be, but mere tasting does not mean
that they have made it their own — quite the contrary, if all
the author can say of them is that they have “tasted” these
things, it suggests that they have not made what they tasted
to be their own.
15 The word tasted is also used in Heb. 2:9 to say that
Jesus “tasted death,” indicating that he came to know it by
experience (but “tasted” is an apt word because he did not
remain dead). The same could be true of those who had
some experience of heavenly gifts, as can be true even of
unbelievers (cf. Matt. 7:22; 1 Cor. 7:14; 2 Peter 2:20-22).
In Heb. 6:4-5 these people’s experience of the Holy Spir-
it’s power and of the Word of God was of course a genuine
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
798
The text also further says that these people “have become partakers of the Holy Spirit”
(Heb. 6:4). The question here is the exact meaning of the word metochoSy which is here
translated “partaker.” It is not always clear to English-speaking readers that this term
has a range of meaning and may imply very close participation and attachment, or may
only imply a loose association with the other person or persons named. For example, the
context shows that in Hebrews 3:14 to become a “partaker” of Christ means to have a
very close participation with him in a saving relationship. 16 On the other hand, metochos
can also be used in a much looser sense, simply to refer to associates or companions. We
read that when the disciples took in a great catch of fish so that their nets were breaking,
“they beckoned to their partners in the other boat to come and help them” (Luke 5:7).
Here it simply refers to those who were companions or partners with Peter and the other
disciples in their fishing work. 17 Ephesians 5:7 uses a closely related word ( symmetochos,
a compound of metochos and the preposition syn [“with”]) when Paul warns Christians
about the sinful acts of unbelievers and says, “do not associate with them” (Eph. 5:7).
He is not concerned that their total nature will be transformed by the unbelievers, but
simply that they will associate with them and have their own witness compromised and
their own lives influenced to some degree by them.
By analogy, Hebrews 6:4-6 speaks of people who have been “associated with ” the
Holy Spirit, and thereby had their lives influenced by him, but it need not imply that
they had a redeeming work of the Holy Spirit in their lives, or that they were regener-
ated. By similar analogy with the example of the fishing companions in Luke 5:7, Peter
and the disciples could be associated with them and even to some degree influenced by
them without having a thoroughgoing change of life caused by that association. The very
word metochos allows for a range of influence from fairly weak to fairly strong, for it only
means “one who participates with or shares with or accompanies in some activity.” This
was apparently what had happened to these people spoken of in Hebrews 6, who had been
associated with the church and as such associated with the work of the Holy Spirit, and
no doubt had been influenced by him in some ways in their lives. 18
experience (just as Jesus genuinely died), but that by itself does
not show that the people had an experience of regeneration.
16 The same Greek word metochos is used in Heb. 3:14, even
though the English text of the RSV says “We share in Christ.”
17 Heb. 1:9 also uses the same word to speak of “comrades”
(RSV) or “companions” (NIV, NASB).
18 The other uses of metochos in Hebrews (3:1 and 12:8)
do suggest closer association or participation, but even 12:8,
which talks about people becoming partakers in discipline,
certainly allows for the fact that some may receive that dis-
cipline but not be transformed by it. In any case, the evi-
dence is not strong enough to make us think that the author
of Hebrews used this word as a “technical term” that always
referred to a saving kind of participation (it did not in Heb.
1 :9 and 12:8), and our understanding of the sense of the word
must be governed by an examination of the range of meaning
it can take in the Greek literature of the New Testament and
in other literature that shares a similar vocabulary with the
writers of the New Testament.
The usage of the Septuagint is also instructive with respect
to this word, since in several instances it only refers to compan-
ionship, not any kind of regenerating or life-changing experi-
ence with God or with the Holy Spirit. For instance, in 1 Sam.
20:30, Saul accuses Jonathan of being a “partner” with David.
In Ps. 119:63, the psalmist says he is a “companion” of all those
who fear God. Eccl. 4:10 says that two are better than one, for
if they fall, the one will lift up his “partner.” Prov. 28:24, in
the translations of Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotian, uses
this word to say that a man who rejects his father or mother is a
“companion” of ungodly men. Examples of somewhat stronger
association are seen in Esth. 8:13; Prov. 29:10; Hos. 4:17; 3 Macc.
3:21. The conclusion of this examination of the term meto-
chos is that, while it can be used of very close association with
saving results in a person’s life, it can also be used simply of
CHAPTER 40 • THE PERSEVERANCE OF THE SAINTS
799
Finally, the text says that it is impossible “to restore again to repentance ” people who
have experienced these things and have then committed apostasy. Some have argued that
if this is a repentance to which they need to be restored again, then it must be genuine
repentance. But this is not necessarily the case. First, we must realize that “repentance”
(Gk. metanoia) does not need to refer to inward heart repentance unto salvation. For
example, Hebrews 12:17 uses this word to speak of a change of mind that Esau sought
concerning the sale of his birthright, and refers to it as “repentance” (metanoia). This
would not have been a repentance for salvation, but simply a change of mind and an
undoing of the transaction regarding his birthright. (Note also the example of Judas’
repentance in Matt. 27:3 — howbeit with a different Greek word.)
The cognate verb “to repent” (Gk. metanoeo) is sometimes used to refer not to saving
repentance, but just to sorrow for individual offenses in Luke 17:3-4: “If your brother
sins, rebuke him, and if he repents forgive him; and if he sins against you seven times in
the day, and turns to you seven times, and says, T repent,’ you must forgive him.” We con-
clude that “repentance” simply means a sorrow for actions that have been done or for sins
that have been committed. Whether or not it is a genuine saving repentance, a “repen-
tance unto salvation,” may not be always evident right away. The author of Hebrews is
not concerned to specify whether it is a genuine repentance or not. He is simply saying
that if someone has a sorrow for sin and comes to understand the gospel and experiences
these various blessings of the Holy Spirit’s work (no doubt in fellowship with the church),
and then turns away, it will not be possible to restore such a person again to a place of
sorrow for sin. But this does not necessarily imply that the repentance was genuine saving
repentance in the first place.
At this point we may ask what kind of person is described by all of these terms. These
are no doubt people who have been affiliated closely with the fellowship of the church.
They have had some sorrow for sin (repentance). They have clearly understood the gos-
pel (they have been enlightened). They have come to appreciate the attractiveness of the
Christian life and the change that comes about in people’s lives because of becoming a
Christian, and they have probably had answers to prayer in their own lives and felt the
power of the Holy Spirit at work, perhaps even using some spiritual gifts in the manner
of the unbelievers in Matthew 7:22 (they have become “associated with” the work of the
Holy Spirit or have become “partakers” of the Holy Spirit and have tasted the heavenly
gift and the powers of the age of come). They have been exposed to the true preaching
of the Word and have appreciated much of its teachings (they have tasted the goodness
of the Word of God).
But then in spite of all this, if they “commit apostasy” and “crucify the Son of God
on their own account and hold him up to contempt” (Heb. 6:6), then they are willfully
rejecting all of these blessings and turning decidedly against them. Perhaps all of us
associating or participating with someone else. Therefore the many mighty works in Jesus’ name in Matt. 7:22 are good
term itself does not require that the people in Heb. 6:4-6 had examples of people who certainly did have some sharing in
saving participation with the Holy Spirit or had been regener- the work of the Holy Spirit or who had become “partakers”
ated. It simply means they had in some ways been associated of the Holy Spirit in this sense, but had not been saved: Jesus
with and influenced by the Holy Spirit. says, “I never knew you” (Matt. 7:23).
The people who prophesied and cast out demons and did
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
800
have known in our own churches people who (sometimes by their own profession) have
long been affiliated with the fellowship of the church but are not themselves born-again
Christians. They have thought about the gospel for years and have continued to resist
the wooing of the Holy Spirit in their lives, perhaps through an unwillingness to give up
lordship of their lives to Jesus and preferring to cling to it themselves.
Now the author tells us that if these people willfully turn away from all of these tempo-
rary blessings , then it will be impossible to restore them again to any kind of repentance
or sorrow for sin. Their hearts will be hardened and their consciences calloused. What
more could be done to bring them to salvation? If we tell them Scripture is true they
will say that they know it but they have decided to reject it. If we tell them God answers
prayer and changes lives they will respond that they know that as well, but they want
nothing of it. If we tell them that the Holy Spirit is powerful to work in peoples lives
and the gift of eternal life is good beyond description, they will say that they understand
that, but they want nothing of it. Their repeated familiarity with the things of God and
their experience of many influences of the Holy Spirit has simply served to harden them
against conversion.
Now the author of Hebrews knows that there are some in the community to which
he writes who are in danger of falling away in just this way (see Heb. 2:3; 3:8, 12, 14- 15;
4:1, 7, 11; 10:26, 29, 35-36, 38-39; 12:3, 15-17). He wants to warn them that, though
they have participated in the fellowship of the church and experienced a number of God’s
blessings in their lives, yet if they fall away after all that, there is no salvation for them.
This does not imply that he thinks that true Christians could fall away — Hebrews 3:14
implies quite the opposite. But he wants them to gain assurance of salvation through
their continuing in faith, and thereby implies that if they fall away it would show that
they never were Christ’s people in the first place (see Heb. 3:6: “We are his house if we
hold fast our confidence and pride in our hope”).
Therefore the author wants to give a severe warning to those in danger of slipping
away from their Christian profession. He wants to use the strongest language possible
to say, “Here is how far a person can come in experiencing temporary blessings and still
not really be saved.” He is warning them to watch out, because depending on temporary
blessings and experiences is not enough. To do this he talks not of any true change of
heart or any good fruit produced, but simply about the temporary blessings and expe-
riences that have come to these persons and have given them some understanding of
Christianity.
For this reason he immediately passes from this description of those who commit
apostasy to a further analogy that shows that these people who fell away never had any
genuine fruit in their lives. As we explained above, verses 7-8 speak of these people in
terms of “ thorns and thistles the kind of crop that is brought forth on land that has no
worthwhile life in itself even though it receives repeated blessings from God (in terms
of the analogy, even though rain frequently falls upon it). We should notice here that
people who commit apostasy are not compared to a field that once bore good fruit and
now does not, but that they are like land that never bore good fruit, but only thorns and
thistles. The land may look good before the crops start to come up, but the fruit gives the
genuine evidence, and it is bad.
CHAPTER 40 * THE PERSEVERANCE OF THE SAINTS
Strong support for this interpretation of Hebrews 6:4-8 is found in the verse
immediately following. Though the author has been speaking very harshly about the
possibility of falling away, he then returns to speak to the situation of the great major-
ity of the hearers, whom he thinks to be genuine Christians. He says, “Though we
speak thus, yet in your case , beloved, we feel sure of better things that belong to salvation”
(Heb. 6:9). But the question is “better things” than what? The plural “better things”
forms an appropriate contrast to the “good things” that have been mentioned in verses
4-6: the author is convinced that most of his readers have experienced better things
than simply the partial and temporary influences of the Holy Spirit and the church
talked about in verses 4-6.
In fact, the author talks about these things by saying (literally) that they are “bet-
ter things, also belonging to salvation” (Gk. kai echomena soterias ). 19 These are not
only the temporary blessings talked about in verses 4-6, but these are better things,
things having not only temporary influence, but “also belonging to salvation.” In this
way the Greek word kai (“also”) shows that salvation is something that was not part of
the things mentioned in verses 4-6 above. Therefore this word kai , which is not explic-
itly translated in the RSV or NIV (but the NASB comes close), 20 provides a crucial key
for understanding the passage. If the author had meant to say that the people mentioned
in verses 4-6 were truly saved, then it is very difficult to understand why he would say
in verse 9 that he is convinced of better things for them, things that belong to salvation,
or that have salvation in addition to those things mentioned above. He thus shows that
he can use a brief phrase to say that people “have salvation” if he wishes to do so (he does
not need to pile up many phrases), and he shows, moreover, that the people whom he
speaks of in verses 4-6 are not saved. 21
What exactly are these “better things”? In addition to salvation mentioned in verse 9,
they are things that give real evidence of salvation — genuine fruit in their lives (v. 10),
full assurance of hope (v. 11), and saving faith, of the type exhibited by those who inherit
the promises (v. 12). In this way he reassures those who are genuine believers — those
who show fruit in their lives and show love for other Christians, who show hope and
genuine faith that is continuing at the present time, and who are not about to fall away.
He wants to reassure these readers (who are certainly the great majority of the ones to
whom he writes) while still issuing a strong warning to those among them who may be
in danger of falling away.
l9 BAGD, p. 334, III, translates the middle participle of echo
as “hold oneself fast, cling to,” and lists Heb. 6:9 as the only New
Testament example of this form used “of inner belonging and
close association” (cf. IS/, p. 750, C: “hold oneself fast, cling
closely”). However, even if we translated the middle voice in
the same way as the active, the phrase would mean, “things also
having salvation,” and my argument in this section would not
be affected.
20 The NASB translates, “ and things that accompany
salvation.”
21 Someone might object that the phrase “better things”
does not contrast with the temporary blessings in vv. 4-6, but
with the judgment mentioned that is coming to the thorns
and thistles who are about to be “burned” in v. 8. But it is
unlikely that the author would refer to not being cursed sim-
ply as “better things.” The comparative “better” ( kreisson )
is used thirteen times in Hebrews, and it regularly contrasts
something better with something good (better covenant, better
sacrifice, etc.); similarly, here it suggests a comparison with
things that are already good (such as the blessings in w. 4-6),
much more than it suggests a contrast with the horrible fate of
eternal judgment in v. 8.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
802
A similar teaching is found in Hebrews 10:26-31. There the author says, “If we delib-
erately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice
for sins is left” (v. 26 NIV). A person who rejects Christ's salvation and “has treated as an
unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him” (v. 29 NIV) deserves eternal
punishment. This again is a strong warning against falling away, but it should not be
taken as proof that someone who has truly been born again can lose his or her salva-
tion. When the author talks about the blood of the covenant “that sanctified him,” the
word sanctified is used simply to refer to “external sanctification, like that of the ancient
Israelites, by outward connection with Gods people.” 22 The passage does not talk about
someone who is genuinely saved, but someone who has received some beneficial moral
influence through contact with the church. 23
One other passage in John’s writings has been claimed to teach the possibility of loss
of salvation. In Revelation 3:5, Jesus says, “He who conquers shall be clad thus in white
garments, and I will not blot his name out of the book of life” Some have claimed that
when Jesus says this he implies that it is possible that he would blot out the names of
some people from the book of life, people who had already had their names written in it
and were thus already saved. But the fact that Jesus emphatically states that he will not
do something should not be taken as teaching that he will do that same thing in other
cases! The same kind of Greek construction 24 is used to give an emphatic negation in
John 10:28, where Jesus says, “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish” This
does not mean that there are some of Jesus’ sheep who do not hear his voice and follow
him and who will perish; it is simply affirming that his sheep certainly will not perish.
Similarly, when God says, “I will never fail you nor forsake you” (Heb. 13:5), it does not
imply that he will leave or forsake others; it just emphatically states that he will not leave
nor forsake his people. Or, in even a closer parallel, in Matthew 12:32, Jesus says, “Who-
ever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to
come” This does not imply that some sins will be forgiven in the age to come (as Roman
Catholics claim in support for the doctrine of purgatory) 25 — that is simply an error in
reasoning: to say that something will not happen in the age to come does not imply that
it might happen in the age to come! In the same way, Revelation 3:5 is just a strong assur-
ance that those who are clad in the white garments and who have remained faithful to
Christ will not have their names blotted out of the book of life. 26
22 A. H. Strong, Systematic Theology ; p. 884. Strong mentions
an appropriate parallel use of the verb “sanctify” in 1 Cor. 7:14,
which speaks about the unbelieving husband being “sanctified”
by the believing wife (1 Cor. 7:14, where the same Greek word,
hagiazo , is used). Outward ceremonial sanctification is also
referred in Heb. 9:13; cf. Matt. 23:17, 19.
23 Ex. 24:7-8 speaks of the blood of the covenant that set
apart the people as God’s people even though not all were truly
born again. In the context of Heb. 10, such imagery, taken
from the Old Testament process of sanctifying a people so
that they could come before God to worship, is an appropriate
background.
24 The construction uses ou me plus the aorist subjunctive
to express emphatic negation.
25 See discussion of the doctrine of purgatory in chapter
41, pp. 817-19.
26 A different kind of book is probably in view in Ex. 32:33,
where God says to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against me,
him will I blot out of my book.” Here the New Testament
idea of the “book of life” is not mentioned. Rather, the image
is one of God keeping a record of those currently dwelling
among his people, much as an earthly king would do. To
“blot out” someone’s name from such a book would imply
that the person had died. Using this imagery, Ex. 32:33 is
best understood to mean that God will take the life of any-
one who sins against him (see v. 35). Eternal destiny is not
in view in this passage.
CHAPTER 40 * THE PERSEVERANCE OF THE SAINTS
803
Finally, one passage from the Old Testament is sometimes used to argue that people can
lose their salvation: the story of the Holy Spirit departing from King Saul. But Saul should
not be taken as an example of someone who lost his salvation, for when “the Spirit of the
Lord departed from Saul” (1 Sam. 16:14), it was immediately after Samuel had anointed
David king and “the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward”
(1 Sam. 16:13). In fact, the Spirit of the Lord coming upon David is reported in the imme-
diately previous sentence to the one in which we read that the Spirit departed from Saul.
This close connection means that Scripture is not here talking about a total loss of all
work of the Holy Spirit in Saul’s life, but simply about the withdrawing of the Holy Spirit’s
function of empowering Saul as king. 27 But that does not mean that Saul was eternally
condemned. It is simply very hard to tell from the pages of the Old Testament whether
Saul, throughout his life, was (a) an unregenerate man who had leadership capabilities and
was used by God as a demonstration of the fact that someone worthy to be king in the eyes
of the world was not thereby suited to be king over the Lord’s people, or (b) a regenerate
man with poor understanding and a life that increasingly strayed from the Lord.
D. What Can Give a Believer Genuine Assurance?
If it is true, as explained in the previous section, that those who are unbelievers and
who finally fall away may give many external signs of conversion, then what will serve as
evidence of genuine conversion? What can give real assurance to a real believer? We can
list three categories of questions that a person could ask of himself or herself.
1. Do I Have a Present Trust in Christ for Salvation? Paul tells the Colossians that they
will be saved on the last day, “provided that you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast,
not shifting from the hope of the gospel which you heard” (Col. 1:23). The author of
Hebrews says, “We share in Christ, if only we hold our first confidence firm to the end”
(Heb. 3:14) and encourages his readers to be imitators of those “who through faith and
patience inherit the promises” (Heb. 6:12). In fact, the most famous verse in the entire
Bible uses a present tense verb that may be translated, “whoever continues believing in
him” may have eternal life (see John 3:16).
Therefore a person should ask himself or herself, “Do I today have trust in Christ to
forgive my sins and take me without blame into heaven forever? Do I have confidence
in my heart that he has saved me? If I were to die tonight and stand before God’s judg-
ment seat, and if he were to ask me why he should let me into heaven, would I begin to
think of my good deeds and depend on them, or would I without hesitation say that I am
depending on the merits of Christ and am confident that he is a sufficient Savior?”
This emphasis on present faith in Christ stands in contrast to the practice of some
church “testimonies” where people repeatedly recite details of a conversion experience
that may have happened 20 or 30 years ago. If a testimony of saving faith is genuine, it
should be a testimony of faith that is active this very day.
27 We should give a similar interpretation to Davids prayer removed from him, and that the presence and power of God
in Ps. 51 : 1 1 : “Take not your holy Spirit from me.” David is pray- on his life would not depart; he is not praying against a loss of
ing that the Holy Spirit’s anointing for kingship would not be eternal salvation.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
804
2. Is There Evidence of a Regenerating Work of the Holy Spirit in My Heart? The
evidence of the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts comes in many different forms.
Although we should not put confidence in the demonstration of miraculous works (Matt.
7:22), or long hours and years of work at some local church (which may simply be build-
ing with “wood, hay, straw” [in terms of 1 Cor. 3:12] to further one’s own ego or power
- over others, or to attempt to earn merit with God), there are many other evidences of a
real work of the Holy Spirit in one’s heart.
First, there is a subjective testimony of the Holy Spirit within our hearts bearing wit-
ness that we are God’s children (Rom. 8:15- 16; 1 John 4:13). This testimony will usually
be accompanied by a sense of being led by the Holy Spirit in paths of obedience to God’s
i will (Rom. 8:14).
In addition, if the Holy Spirit is genuinely at work in our lives, he will be produc-
ing the kind of character traits that Paul calls “the fruit of the Spirit” (Gal. 5:22). He
lists several attitudes and character traits that are produced by the Holy Spirit: “love,
joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Gal.
5:22-23). Of course, the question is not, “Do I perfectly exemplify all of these charac-
teristics in my life?” but rather, “Are these things a general characteristic of my life? Do
I sense these attitudes in my heart? Do others (especially those closest to me) see these
traits exhibited in my life? Have I been growing in them over a period of years?” There
is no suggestion in the New Testament that any non- Christian, any unregenerate person,
can convincingly fake these character traits, especially for those who know the person
most closely.
Related to this kind of fruit is another kind of fruit — the results of one’s life and
ministry as they have influence on others and on the church. There are some people
who profess to be Christians but whose influence on others is to discourage them, to
drag them down, to injure their faith, and to provoke controversy and divisiveness. The
result of their life and ministry is not to build up others and to build up the church, but
to tear it down. On the other hand, there are those who seem to edify others in every
conversation, every prayer, and every work of ministry they put their hand to. Jesus said,
regarding false prophets, “You will know them by their fruits Every sound tree bears
good fruit, but the bad tree bears evil fruit. . . . Thus you will know them by their fruits”
(Matt. 7:16-20).
Another evidence of work of the Holy Spirit is continuing to believe and accept the
sound teaching of the church. Those who begin to deny major doctrines of the faith give
serious negative indications concerning their salvation: “No one who denies the Son has
the Father If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you will abide
in the Son and in the Father” (1 John 2:23-24). John also says, “Whoever knows God
listens to us, and he who is not of God does not listen to us” (1 John 4:6). Since the New
Testament writings are the current replacement for the apostles like John, we might also
say that whoever knows God will continue to read and to delight in God’s Word, and
will continue to believe it fully. Those who do not believe and delight in God’s Word give
evidence that they are not “of God.”
Another evidence of genuine salvation is a continuing present relationship with Jesus
Christ. Jesus says, “Abide in me, and I in you” and, “If you abide in me, and my words
CHAPTER 40 • THE PERSEVERANCE OF THE SAINTS
805
abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you” (John 15:4, 7). This ,
abiding in Christ will include not only day-by-day trust in him in various situations, but
also certainly regular fellowship with him in prayer and worship.
Finally, a major area of evidence that we are genuine believers is found in a life of
obedience to God’s commands. John says, “He who says ‘I know him’ but disobeys his
commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps his word, in him
truly love for God is perfected. By this we may be sure that we are in him: he who says
he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked” (1 John 2:4-6). A
perfect life is not necessary, of course. John is rather saying that in general our lives ought
to be ones of imitation of Christ and likeness to him in what we do and say. If we have
genuine saving faith, there will be clear results in obedience in our lives (see also 1 John
3:9-10, 24; 5:18). Thus James can say, “Faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead” and “I
by my works will show you my faith” (James 2:17-18). One large area of obedience to
God includes love for fellow Christians. “He who loves his brother abides in the light”
(1 John 2:10). “We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the
brethren. He who does not love abides in death” (1 John 3:14; cf. 3:17; 4:7). One evidence
of this love is continuing in Christian fellowship (1 John 2:19), and another is giving to
a brother in need (1 John 3:17; cf. Matt. 25:31 -46).
3. Do I See a Long-Term Pattern of Growth in My Christian Life? The first two areas
of assurance dealt with present faith and present evidence of the Holy Spirit at work in
our lives. But Peter gives one more kind of test that we can use to ask whether we are
genuinely believers. He tells us that there are some character traits which, if we keep
on increasing in them, will guarantee that we will “never fall” (2 Peter 1:10). He tells
his readers to add to their faith “virtue . . . knowledge . . . self-control . . . steadfastness
. . . godliness . . . brotherly affection . . . love” (2 Peter 1:5-7). Then he says that these
things are to belong to his readers and to continually “abound” in their lives (2 Peter
1:8). He adds that they are to “be the more zealous to confirm your call and election”
and says then that “if you do this (literally, “these things,” referring to the character traits
mentioned in vv. 5-7) you will never fall” (2 Peter 1:10).
The way that we confirm our call and election, then, is to continue to grow in “these
things.” This implies that our assurance of salvation can be something that increases over
time in our lives. Every year that we add to these character traits in our lives, we gain
greater and greater assurance of our salvation. Thus, though young believers can have
a quite strong confidence in their salvation, that assurance can increase to even deeper
certainty over the years in which they grow toward Christian maturity. 28 If they continue
to add these things they will confirm their call and election and will “never fall.”
The result of these three questions that we can ask ourselves should be to give
strong assurance to those who are genuinely believers. In this way the doctrine of the
perseverance of the saints will be a tremendously comforting doctrine. No one who
28 Cf. 1 Tim. 3:13, which says, that those who have “served
well” as deacons gain “great assurance in their faith in Christ
Jesus” (NIV).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
806
has such assurance should wonder, “Will I be able to persevere to the end of my life and
therefore be saved?” Everyone who gains assurance through such a self-examination
should rather think, “I am truly born again; therefore, I will certainly persevere to the
end, because I am being guarded ‘by Gods power’ working through my faith (1 Peter
1:5) and therefore I will never be lost. Jesus will raise me up at the last day and I will
enter into his kingdom forever” (John 6:40).
On the other hand, this doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, if rightly under-
stood, should cause genuine worry, and even fear, in the hearts of any who are “backslid-
ing” or straying away from Christ. Such persons must clearly be warned that only those
who persevere to the end have been truly born again. If they fall away from their profes-
sion of faith in Christ and life of obedience to him, they may not really be saved — in
fact, the evidence that they are giving is that they are not saved , and they never really were
saved. Once they stop trusting in Christ and obeying him (I am speaking in terms of
; outward evidence) they have no genuine assurance of salvation, and they should con-
sider themselves unsaved, and turn to Christ in repentance and ask him for forgiveness
of their sins.
At this point, in terms of pastoral care with those who have strayed away from their
Christian profession, we should realize that Calvinists and Arminians (those who believe
in the perseverance of the saints and those who think that Christians can lose their
salvation) will both counsel a “backslider” in the same way . According to the Arminian
this person was a Christian at one time but is no longer a Christian. According to the
Calvinist, such a person never really was a Christian in the first place and is not one now.
But in both cases the biblical counsel given would be the same: “You do not appear to be
a Christian now — you must repent of your sins and trust in Christ for your salvation!”
Though the Calvinist and Arminian would differ on their interpretation of the previous
history, they would agree on what should be done in the present. 29
But here we see why the phrase eternal security can be quite misleading. In some evan-
gelical churches, instead of teaching the full and balanced presentation of the doctrine of
the perseverance of the saints, pastors have sometimes taught a watered-down version,
which in effect tells people that all who have once made a profession of faith and been
baptized are “eternally secure.” The result is that some people who are not genuinely
converted at all may “come forward” at the end of an evangelistic sermon to profess faith
in Christ, and may be baptized shortly after that, but then they leave the fellowship of the
church and live a life no different from the one they lived before they gained this “eternal
security ” In this way people are given false assurance and are being cruelly deceived into
thinking they are going to heaven when in fact they are not. 30
29 Of course, both the Calvinist and the Arminian would
allow for the possibility that the “backslidden” person is truly
born again and had just fallen into sin and doubt. But both
would agree that it is pastorally wise to assume that the per-
son is not a Christian until some evidence of present faith is
forthcoming.
30 Of course, not all who use the phrase eternal security
make mistakes of this sort, but the phrase is certainly open to
such misunderstanding.
CHAPTER 40 • THE PERSEVERANCE OF THE SAINTS
807
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. Do you have assurance that you are truly born again? What evidence do you see in
your own life to give you that assurance? Do you think that God wants true believ-
ers to go on throughout life worrying about whether they are really born again, or
to have firm assurance that they are his people? (See 1 John 5:13.) Have you seen
a pattern of growth in your Christian life over time? Are you trusting in your own
power to keep on believing in Christ, or in Gods power to keep your faith active
and alive?
2. If you have doubts about whether you are truly born again, what is it in your life
that is giving reason for those doubts? What would Scripture encourage you to do
to resolve those doubts (see 2 Peter 1:5-11; also Matt. 11:28-30; John 6:37)? Do
you think that Jesus now knows about your doubts and understands them? What
do you think he would like you to do now to gain greater assurance of salvation?
3. Have you known people, perhaps in your church, whose “fruit” is always destruc-
tive or divisive or harmful to the ministry of the church and the faith of others?
Do they have very much influence, perhaps even positions of leadership in the
church? Do you think that an evaluation of the fruit of ones life and influence on
others should be a qualification for church leadership? Is it possible that people
would profess agreement with every true Christian doctrine and still not be born
again? What are some more reliable evidences of genuine conversion other than
intellectual adherence to sound doctrine?
SPECIAL TERMS
assurance of salvation
eternal security
perseverance of the saints
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter 1,
pp. 38-39. Complete bibliographical data maybe found on pp. 1224-30.)
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1882-92 Litton, 345-51
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1847 Finney, 544-619
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
808
1875-76
Pope, 3:100-147
1892 -94
Miley, 2:268 - 70, 339-54
1960
Purkiser, 298-304
3. Baptist
1767
Gill, 2:151-78
1887
Boyce, 425-37
1907
Strong, 881-86
1917
Mullins, 432 -38
1983-85
Erickson, 985-97
4. Dispensational
1947
Chafer, 3:267-355
1949
Thiessen, 290-95
1986
Ryrie, 328-34
5. Lutheran
1917-24
Pieper, 3:89- 100
1934
Mueller, 436-40
6. Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1559
Calvin, 2:968 -76 (3.24.4-
1724- 58
Edwards, 596-604
1861
Heppe, 581-89
1871-73
Hodge, 3:104-13
1878
Dabney, 687-713
1937- 66
Murray, JtAA,151 -60
1938
Berkhof, 545-54
7. Renewal (or charismatic/Pentecostal)
1988-92
Williams, 2:119-36
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
(no explicit treatment)
Other Works
Berkouwer, G. C. Faith and Perseverance . Trans, by Robert D. Knudsen. Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1958.
Carson, D. A. “Reflections on Christian Assurance.” In WT/5 4 (1992), pp. 1-29.
Demarest, B. A. “Assurance.” In EDT, pp. 91-92.
Grudem, Wayne. “The Perseverance of the Saints: A Case Study From Heb. 6:4-6 and
the Other Warning Passages of Hebrews.” In Still Sovereign . Ed. Tom Schreiner and
Bruce Ware. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000.
Guthrie, William. The Christian's Great Interest. London: Banner of Truth, 1969. See esp.
Part I, The Trial of a Saving Interest in Christ , which was first published as a separate
book in 1658.
Hoekema, Anthony A. “The Perseverance of True Believers ” In Saved by Grace. Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, and Exeter: Paternoster, 1989, pp. 234-56.
CHAPTER 40 • THE PERSEVERANCE OF THE SAINTS
809
Kearsley, R. “Perseverance” In NDT, pp. 506-7.
Marshall, I. H. Kept by the Power of God. Minneapolis: Bethany, 1969.
McKnight, Scot. “The Warning Passages of Hebrews,” TrinJ 13, n.s. (1992), pp. 21-59.
Murray, John. “Perseverance.” In Redemption Accomplished and Applied . Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1955, pp. 151-60.
Shank, Robert. Life in the Son. 2d ed. Minneapolis: Bethany, 1989.
White, R. E. O. “Perseverance.” In EDT, pp. 844-45.
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
John 10:27-28: My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; and I
give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of
my hand.
HYMN
“Call Jehovah Thy Salvation”
(Use tune of “Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus”)
Call Jehovah thy salvation, rest beneath th’ Almighty’s shade,
In his secret habitation dwell, and never be dismayed:
There no tumult shall alarm thee, thou shalt dread no hidden snare:
Guile nor violence can harm thee, in eternal safeguard there.
From the sword at noonday wasting, from the noisome pestilence,
In the depth of midnight blasting, God shall be thy sure defence:
He shall charge his angel legions watch and ward o’er thee to keep;
Though thou walk through hostile regions, though in desert
wilds thou sleep.
Since, with pure and firm affection thou on God hast set thy love,
With the wings of his protection he will shield thee from above:
Thou shalt call on him in trouble, he will hearken, he will save;
Here for grief reward thee double, crown with life beyond
the grave.
AUTHOR: JAMES MONTGOMERY, 1822
Chapter
DEATH AND THE
INTERMEDIATE STATE
What is the purpose of death in the Christian life?
What happens to our bodies and souls
when we die?
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
A. Why Do Christians Die?
Our treatment of the application of redemption must include a consideration of death
and the question of how Christians should view their own death and the death of oth-
ers. We also must ask what happens to us between the time that we die and the time that
Christ returns to give us new resurrection bodies.
1. Death Is Not a Punishment for Christians. Paul tells us clearly that there is “no
condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1). All the penalty for our
sins has been paid. Therefore, even though we know that Christians die, we should not
view the death of Christians as a punishment from God or in any way a result of a pen-
alty due to us for our sins. 1 It is true that the penalty for sin is death, but that penalty
no longer applies to us — not in terms of physical death, and not in terms of spiritual
death or separation from God. All of that has been paid for by Christ. Therefore there
must be another reason than punishment for our sins if we are to understand why
Christians die.
L Even the death of some Corinthian Christians who had
been abusing the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor. 11:30) is viewed by Paul
as a disciplining or chastening process, not as a result of con-
demnation: he says, “When we are judged by the Lord, we are
being disciplined so that we will not be condemned with the
world” (v. 32 NIV).
(In this discussion I am using the word punishment to
mean retribution from God which is intended to do us harm,
and discipline to mean hardship through which God intends
to do us good.)
810
CHAPTER 41 - DEATH AND THE INTERMEDIATE STATE
811
2. Death Is the Final Outcome of Living in a Fallen World. In his great wisdom, God
decided that he would not apply to us the benefits of Christ’s redemptive work all at once.
Rather, he has chosen to apply the benefits of salvation to us gradually over time (as we
have seen in chapters 33-40). Similarly, he has not chosen to remove all evil from the
world immediately, but to wait until the final judgment and the establishment of the new
heaven and new earth (see chapters 56 and 57). In short, we still live in a fallen world and
our experience of salvation is still incomplete.
The last aspect of the fallen world to be removed will be death. Paul says:
Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after
destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until
he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
(1 Cor. 15:24-26)
When Christ returns,
then shall come to pass the saying that is written:
“Death is swallowed up in victory.”
“O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?” (1 Cor. 15:54-55)
But until that time death remains a reality even in the lives of Christians. Although
death does not come to us as a penalty for our individual sins (for that has been paid by
Christ), it does come to us as a result of living in a fallen world, where the effects of sin
have not all been removed. Related to the experience of death are other results of the fall
that harm our physical bodies and signal the presence of death in the world — Christians
as well as non- Christians experience aging, illnesses, injuries, and natural disasters (such
as floods, violent storms, and earthquakes). Although God often answers prayers to
deliver Christians (and also non-Christians) from some of these effects of the fall for a
time (and thereby indicates the nature of his coming kingdom), nevertheless, Christians
eventually experience all of these things to some measure, and, until Christ returns, all
of us will grow old and die. The “last enemy” has not yet been destroyed. And God has
chosen to allow us to experience death before we gain all the benefits of salvation that
have been earned for us.
3. God Uses the Experience of Death to Complete Our Sanctification. Throughout our
Christian lives we know that we never have to pay any penalty for sin, for that has all been
taken by Christ (Rom. 8:1). Therefore, when we do experience pain and suffering in this
life, we should never think it is because God is punishing us (for our harm). Sometimes
suffering is simply a result of living in a sinful, fallen world, and sometimes it is because
God is disciplining us (for our good), but in all cases we are assured by Romans 8:28 that
“God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are
called according to His purpose” (NASB).
The positive purpose for God’s discipline is clear in Hebrews 12, where we read:
The Lord disciplines him whom he loves He disciplines us for our good, that
we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
812
} than pleasant; later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who
have been trained by it. (Heb. 12:6, 10-11)
Not all discipline is in order to correct us from sins that we have committed; it can also
be allowed by God to strengthen us in order that we may gain greater ability to trust God
i and resist sin in the challenging path of obedience. We see this clearly in the life of Jesus,
who, though he was without sin, yet “learned obedience through what he suffered ” (Heb.
5: 8). 2 He was made perfect t( through suffering ” (Heb. 2:10). Therefore we should see all
the hardship and suffering that comes to us in life as something that God brings to us to
do us good, strengthening our trust in him and our obedience, and ultimately increasing
our ability to glorify him.
Consequently, we should view the aging and weakness and sometimes sickness leading
up to death as another kind of discipline that God allows us to go through in order that
through this process our sanctification might be furthered and ultimately completed when
we go to be in the Lord’s presence. The challenge that Jesus gives to the church in Smyrna
could really be given to every believer: “Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown
of life” (Rev. 2:10). Paul says his goal in life is that he may become like Christ: “that I may
know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like
him in his death ” (Phil. 3:10). Paul thought about the way in which Jesus died, and made
it his goal to exemplify the same characteristics in his life when it came time for him to
die — that in whatever circumstances he found himself, he, like Christ, would continue
obeying God, trusting God, forgiving others, and caring for the needs of those around
him, thus in every way bringing glory to God even in his death. Therefore when in prison,
without knowing whether he would die there or come out alive, he could still say, “it is my
eager expectation and hope that I shall not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage
now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death ” (Phil. 1:20).
The understanding that death is not in any way a punishment for sin, but simply
something God brings us through in order to make us more like Christ, should be a great
encouragement to us. It should take away from us the fear of death that haunts the minds
of unbelievers (cf. Heb. 2:15). Nevertheless, although God will bring good to us through
the process of death, we must still remember that death is not natural; it is not right; and
in a world created by God it is something that ought not to be. It is an enemy, something
that Christ will finally destroy (1 Cor. 15:26).
4. Our Experience of Death Completes Our Union With Christ. Another reason why
God allows us to experience death, rather than taking us immediately to heaven when we
become Christians, is that through death we imitate Christ in what he did and thereby
experience closer union with him. Paul can say that we are fellow heirs with Christ “pro-
vided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Rom. 8:17).
And Peter tells his readers not to be surprised at the fiery testing that comes on them,
but encourages them, “rejoice in so far as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also
rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed” (1 Peter 4:13). As we noted above, such
2 For a discussion of how Jesus learned obedience through
what he suffered, see chapter 26, p. 534.
CHAPTER41 * DEATH AND THE INTERMEDIATE STATE
813
union with Christ in suffering includes union with him in death as well (see Phil. 3:10).
Jesus is the “pioneer and perfecter of our faith” (Heb. 12:2), and we follow after him as
we run the race of life. Peter writes, “Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example,
that you should follow in his steps” (1 Peter 2:21).
5. Our Obedience to God Is More Important Than Preserving Our Own Lives. If God
uses the experience of death to deepen our trust in him and to strengthen our obedience
to him, then it is important that we remember that the world’s goal of preserving one’s own
physical life at all costs is not the highest goal for a Christian: obedience to God and faith-
fulness to him in every circumstance is far more important. This is why Paul could say, “I
am ready not only to be imprisoned but even to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord
Jesus” (Acts 21:13; cf. 25:11). He told the Ephesian elders, “I do not account my life of any
value nor as precious to myself, if only I may accomplish my course and the ministry which
I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God” (Acts 20:24).
It was this conviction — that obedience to God is far more important than the preser-
vation of life — that gave Paul courage to go back into the city of Lystra after he had just
been stoned and left for dead (Acts 14:20), and then return there again shortly thereaf-
ter (Acts 14:21-22). He endured many sufferings and dangers (2 Cor. 11:23-27), often
risking his life, in order to obey Christ fully. Therefore he could say at the end of his life,
with a note of great triumph, “The time of my departure has come. I have fought the good
fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Tim. 4:6-7). This same convic-
tion empowered Old Testament saints to accept martyrdom rather than sin: “Some were
tortured, refusing to accept release, that they might rise again to a better life” (literally,
“that they might obtain a better resurrection,” Heb. 11:35). This conviction also gave
Peter and the other apostles courage, when facing the threat of death, to say, “We must
obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). Certainly this was the point of Jesus’ command
to the church at Smyrna, “Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life”
(Rev. 2:10). We also read that there will be rejoicing in heaven when the faithful saints
have conquered the devil “by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony,
for they loved not their lives even unto death ” (Rev. 12:11).
The persuasion that we may honor the Lord even in our death, and that faithfulness to
him is far more important than preserving our lives, has given courage and motivation
to martyrs throughout the history of the church. When faced with a choice of preserving
their own lives and sinning, or giving up their own lives and being faithful, they chose to
give up their own lives — “they loved not their lives even unto death” (Rev. 12:11). Even
in times where there is little persecution and little likelihood of martyrdom, it would be
good for us to fix this truth in our minds once for all, for if we are willing to give up even
our lives for faithfulness to God, we shall find it much easier to give up everything else
for the sake of Christ as well.
B. How Should We Think of Our Own Death
and the Death of Others?
1. Our Own Death. The New Testament encourages us to view our own death not with
fear but with joy at the prospect of going to be with Christ. Paul says, “We would rather
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
814
be away from the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8). When he is in prison,
not knowing whether he will be executed or released, he can say:
For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain . If it is to be life in the flesh, that
means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard
pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ , for that is far
better. (Phil. 1:21-23)
We also read John's word in Revelation, “And I heard a voice from heaven saying, ‘Write
this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord henceforth.' ‘Blessed indeed,’ says the
Spirit, ‘that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them!”' (Rev. 14:13).
Believers need have no fear of death, therefore, for Scripture reassures us that not even
“death” will “separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:38-39;
cf. Ps. 23:4). In fact, Jesus died in order that he might “deliver all those who through fear
of death were subject to lifelong bondage” (Heb. 2 : 15) . 3 This verse reminds us that a clear
testimony to our lack of fear of death will provide a strong witness for Christians in an
age that tries to avoid talking about death and has no answer for it.
2. The Death of Christian Friends and Relatives. While we can look forward to our
own death with a joyful expectation of being in Christ’s presence, our attitude will be
somewhat different when we experience the death of Christian friends and relatives. In
these cases we will experience genuine sorrow — but mixed with joy that they have gone
to be with the Lord.
It is not wrong to express real sorrow at the loss of fellowship with loved ones who have
died, and sorrow also for the suffering and hardship that they may have gone through
prior to death. Sometimes Christians think it shows lack of faith if they mourn deeply
for a brother or sister Christian who has died. But Scripture does not support that view,
because when Stephen was stoned, we read that “Devout men buried Stephen, and made
great lamentation over him ” (Acts 8:2). If there ever was certainty that someone went to
be with the Lord, it occurred in the case of Stephen. As he died, he said, “Behold, I see the
heavens opened, and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God” (Acts 7:56). Then
when he was dying, he prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit,” and, “Lord, do not hold this
sin against them” (Acts 7:59-60). And this occurred in Jerusalem, with all the apostles
still present, those apostles who had seen Jesus himself after he had been raised from the
dead. There was no lack of faith on anyone's part that Stephen was in heaven experiencing
great joy in the presence of the Lord. Yet in spite of this, “Devout men buried Stephen, and
made great lamentation over him ” (Acts 8:2). Their sorrow showed the genuine grief that
they felt at the loss of fellowship with someone whom they loved, and it was not wrong to
express this sorrow — it was right. Even Jesus, at the tomb of Lazarus, “wept” (John 11:35),
experiencing sorrow at the fact that Lazarus had died, that his sisters and others were expe-
riencing such grief, and also, no doubt, at the fact that there was death in the world at all,
for ultimately it is unnatural and ought not to be in a world created by God.
3 Berkhof is certainly correct to say that the burial of Jesus also to remove the terrors of the grave for the redeemed and to
“did not merely serve to prove that Jesus was really dead, but sanctify the grave for them” (Systematic Theology p. 340).
CHAPTER41 • DEATH AND THE INTERMEDIATE STATE
815
The Ephesian elders, whom Paul had taught personally for three years, later "wept and
embraced Paul and kissed him, sorrowing most of all because of the word he had spoken,
that they should see his face no more” (Acts 20:37-38). And Paul himself, in the same
letter in which he expressed such a desire to depart from this life and be with Christ,
said that if Epaphroditus had died, he himself would have had “sorrow upon sorrow ”
(Phil. 2:27). Moreover, King David, the man after God’s own heart, the man who in his
psalms frequently spoke of living forever with God, nonetheless had great sorrow when
he learned that Saul and Jonathan had died (2 Sam. 1:11-27).
Nevertheless, the sorrow that we feel is clearly mingled with hope and joy. Paul does
not tell the Thessalonians that they should not grieve at all concerning their loved ones
who have died, but he writes, “that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope”
(1 Thess. 4:13) — they should not grieve in the same way, with the same bitter despair,
that unbelievers have. But certainly they should grieve. He assures them that Christ “died
for us so that whether we wake or sleep we might live with him” (1 Thess. 5:10), and
thereby encourages them that those who have died have gone to be with the Lord. That is
why Scripture can say, “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord henceforth . . . that they
may rest from their labors” (Rev. 14:13). In fact, Scripture even tells us, “Precious in the
sight of the Lord is the death of his saints” (Ps. 116:15).
Therefore, though we have genuine sorrow when Christian friends and relatives die,
we also can say with Scripture, “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your
sting? . . . Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ”
(1 Cor. 1 5:55-57). Though we mourn, our mourning should be mixed with worship of
God and thanksgiving for the life of the loved one who has died. Worship is especially
important at this time, as we see in the examples of David and of Job. When David’s child ^
died, he stopped praying for the child’s health, and worshiped God: “Then David arose
from the earth, and washed, and anointed himself, and changed his clothes; and he went
into the house of the Lord, and worshiped ” (2 Sam. 12:20).
Similarly, when Job heard of the death of his ten children,
Then Job arose, and rent his robe, and shaved his head, and fell upon the ground,
and worshiped. And he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked
shall I return; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name
of the Lord.” (Job 1:20-21)
3. The Death of Unbelievers. When unbelievers die, the sorrow we feel is not mingled
with the joy of assurance that they have gone to be with the Lord forever. This sorrow,
especially regarding those we have been close to, is very deep and real. Paul himself, when
thinking about some of his Jewish brothers who had rejected Christ, said, “I am speaking
the truth in Christ, I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit,
that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart For I could wish that I myself
were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen by race”
(Rom. 9:1-3).
Yet it also must be said that we often do not have absolute certainty that a person has
persisted in refusal to trust in Christ all the way to the point of death. The knowledge of
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
816
one’s impending death often will bring about genuine heart searching on the part of the
dying person, and sometimes words of Scripture or words of Christian testimony that
have been heard long ago will be recalled and the person may come to genuine repentance
and faith. Certainly, we do not have any assurance that this has happened unless there is
explicit evidence for it, but it is also good to realize that in many cases we have only prob-
able but not absolute knowledge that those whom we have known as unbelievers have per-
sisted in their unbelief until the point of death. In some cases we simply do not know.
Nevertheless, after a non- Christian has died, it would be wrong to give any indica-
tion to others that we think that person has gone to heaven. This would simply be to give
misleading information and false assurance, and to diminish the urgency of the need for
those who are still alive to trust in Christ. It is much better, as we have opportunity, to
focus on the fact that the sorrow that we feel at the loss of someone whom we love causes
us to reflect on our own life and destiny as well. In fact, the times when we are able to talk
as a friend to the loved ones of an unbeliever who has died are often times when the Lord
will open up opportunities to talk about the gospel with those who are still living.
Moreover, it is often very helpful in such circumstances to speak with genuine thank-
fulness about the good qualities that we have noticed and been encouraged by in the life
of the person who has died. 4 A good example of that is seen in David’s reaction when
King Saul died. Even though Saul had become an evil king and had pursued David and
tried to kill him many times, once Saul had died, David spoke freely and publicly about
the good things Saul had done:
Your glory, O Israel, is slain upon your high places! How are the mighty
fallen! . . . Saul and Jonathan . . . they were swifter than eagles, they were stron-
ger than lions. You daughters of Israel, weep over Saul, who clothed you daintily
in scarlet, who put ornaments of gold upon your apparel. How are the mighty
fallen in the midst of battle! (2 Sam. 1:19— 25) 5
C. What Happens When People Die?
1. The Souls of Believers Go Immediately Into God’s Presence. Death is a temporary
cessation of bodily life and a separation of the soul from the body. Once a believer has
died, though his or her physical body remains on the earth and is buried, at the moment
of death the soul (or spirit) of that believer goes immediately into the presence of God
with rejoicing. When Paul thinks about death he says, “We would rather be away from
the body and at home with the Lord ” (2 Cor. 5:8). To be away from the body is to be at
home with the Lord. He also says that his desire is “to depart and be with Christ , for that
is far better” (Phil. 1:23). And Jesus said to the thief who was dying on the cross next to
4 It is right to thank God for the benefits of common grace
in the lives of unbelievers; see the discussion of common grace
in chapter 31.
5 Even this requires honesty and mature judgment, how-
ever, for if we are called upon to perform a funeral service
for someone whose life has been widely known as evil and
destructive, we do not want to give people the impression that
what a person does in this life makes no difference, or that
we are ignorant of the noticeably bad qualities of such a per-
son, or we will lose credibility with those who hear us. As an
example of the inevitable reaction of people to the death of
someone clearly evil, such as Adolf Hitler, note Prov. 11:10,
“When the wicked perish there are shouts of gladness.”
CHAPTER 41 • DEATH AND THE INTERMEDIATE STATE
817
him, ‘Today you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43). 6 7 The author of Hebrews says
that when Christians come together to worship they come not only into the presence of
God in heaven, but also into the presence of “the spirits of just men made perfect” (Heb.
12:23)7 However, as we shall see in more detail in the next chapter, God will not leave
our dead bodies in the earth forever, for when Christ returns the souls of believers will
be reunited with their bodies, their bodies will be raised from the dead, and they will
live with Christ eternally.
a. The Bible Does Not Teach the Doctrine of Purgatory: The fact that the souls of believ-
ers go immediately into God’s presence means that there is no such thing as purgatory. In
Roman Catholic teaching, purgatory is the place where the souls of believers go to be
further purified from sin until they are ready to be admitted into heaven. According to
this view, the sufferings of purgatory are given to God in substitute for the punishment
for sins that believers should have received in time, but did not. Speaking of purgatory,
Ott says:
Suffrages operate in such a matter that the satisfactory value of the good works
is offered to God in substitution for the temporal punishment for sins which
the poor souls still have to render. It operates by way of remission of temporal
punishments due to sins. 8
But this doctrine is not taught in Scripture, and it is in fact contrary to the verses quoted
immediately above. The Roman Catholic Church has found support for this doctrine, not
in the pages of canonical Scripture as we defined it in chapter 3 above, and as Protestants
have accepted it since the Reformation, but in the writings of the Apocrypha, 9 particularly in
2 Maccabees 12:42-45:
[Judas Maccabeus, the leader of the Jewish forces] also took a collection, man
by man, to the amount of 2,000 drachmas of silver, and sent it to Jerusalem to
provide for a sin offering. In doing this he acted very well and honorably, tak-
ing into account the resurrection. For if he were not expecting that those who
had fallen would rise again, it would have been superfluous and foolish to pray
for the dead. But if he was looking to the splendid reward that is laid up for
those who fall asleep in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought. Therefore
he made atonement for the dead , that they might be delivered from their sin.
6 Paradise is simply another name for heaven: see chapter lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).
27, pp. 592-93. The larger principle is that as long as we remain in this life
7 It must be said, however, that the fact that we go to be we are to be faithful to Christ in serving him and in prayer, for
with Christ immediately when we die should not be taken as he calls us to be “faithful unto death” (Rev. 2:10). And though
an encouragement to anyone to think that suicide would be Paul, in thinking about his own personal desires, wanted to go
right. God says, “You shall not murder” (Ex. 20:13 NIV), and to be with Christ, he realized that for the sake of the Philip-
that means that we must not murder ourselves any more than pians and for others that he ministered to, to stay alive would
we should murder others. be “more necessary” on their behalf (Phil. 1:24).
On the other hand, there are many faithful Christians who 8 Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, p. 322.
in wartime or shipwrecks or other trying circumstances have 9 See chapter 3, pp. 57-60, for a discussion of the rea-
laid down their own lives for the sake of others, thus fulfilling sons why the Apocrypha should not be accepted as part of
Jesus’ teaching, “Greater love has no man than this, that a man Scripture.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
818
Here it is clear that prayer for the dead is approved, and also making an offering to
God to deliver the dead from their sin. But in response it must be said that this literature
; is not equal to Scripture in authority, and should not be taken as an authoritative source
of doctrine. Moreover, it contradicts the clear statements about departing and being
with Christ quoted above, and thereby opposes the clear teaching of New Testament
Scripture. Furthermore, when it talks about the offering of Judas making “atonement
[Gk. ex ilasmos (‘propitiation’)] for the dead” it contradicts the explicit teaching of the
New Testament that Christ alone made atonement for us. Finally, this passage in 2 Mac-
cabees is difficult to square even with Roman Catholic teaching, because it teaches that
soldiers who had died in the mortal sin of idolatry (which cannot be forgiven, accord-
ing to Catholic teaching) should have prayers and sacrifices offered for them with the
possibility that they will be delivered from their suffering.
Roman Catholic theology finds support for the doctrine of purgatory primarily in
the passage from 2 Maccabees quoted above, and in the teaching of the tradition of
the church. 10 Other passages cited by Ott in support of the doctrine of purgatory are
2 Timothy 1:18; Matthew 5:26; 1 Corinthians 3:15; and Matthew 12:32. In 2 Timothy
1:18, Paul says, concerning Onesiphorus, “When he arrived in Rome he searched for me
eagerly and found me — may the Lord grant him to find mercy from the Lord on that
Day — and you well know all the service he rendered at Ephesus” (2 Tim. 1:17-18). The
claim of those who find support for the doctrine of purgatory is that “Onesiphorus . . .
apparently was no longer among the living at the time of the Second Epistle to Timo-
thy.” 11 This seems to be based on the fact that Paul refers not to Onesiphorus himself
but “the household of Onesiphorus” (2 Tim. 1:16); however, that phrase does not prove
that Onesiphorus had died, but only that Paul was wishing blessings not only on him
but on his entire household. This would not be unusual since Onesiphorus had served in
Ephesus where Paul had worked for three years (2 Tim. 1:18; cf. 4:19). To build support
for purgatory on the idea that Onesiphorus had already died is simply to build it on an
assumption that cannot be supported with clear evidence. (It is not unusual for Paul to
express a wish that some Christians would be blessed in the Day of Judgment — see 1
Thess. 5:23.)
In Matthew 12:32, Jesus says, “Whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be
forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.” Ott says that this sentence “leaves open
the possibility that sins are forgiven not only in this world but in the world to come.” 12
However, this is simply an error in reasoning: to say that something will not happen in
the age to come does not imply that it might happen in the age to come! 13 What is needed
to prove the doctrine of purgatory is not a negative statement such as this but a positive
statement that says that people suffer for the purpose of continuing purification after
they die. But Scripture nowhere says this.
In 1 Corinthians 3:15 Paul says that on the Day of Judgment, the work that everyone
has done will be judged and tested by fire, and then says, “If any man's work is burned
10 Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, pp. 321-22,
482-85.
“Ibid., p. 321.
12 Ibid„ p. 483.
13 This is a similar mistake to the one made by those who
argue that, since Jesus says he will not blot someone’s name out
of the book of life (Rev. 3:5), it implies that he might blot the
names of others out of the book of life (see chapter 40, p. 802).
CHAPTER 41 ■ DEATH AND THE INTERMEDIATE STATE
819
up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.” But
this does not speak of a person being burned or suffering punishment, but simply of his
work as being tested by fire — that which is good will be like gold, silver, and precious
stones that will last forever (v. 12). Moreover, Ott himself admits that this is something
that occurs not during this age but during the day of “the general judgment,” 14 and
this further indicates that it can hardly be used as a convincing argument for purga-
tory. Finally, in Matthew 5:26, after warning people to make friends quickly with their
accusers while they are going to the court, lest the accuser hand them to the judge and
the judge to the guard and they be put in prison, Jesus then says, “You will never get out
till you have paid the last penny.” Ott understands this as a parable teaching a “time-
limited condition of punishment in the other world.” 15 But surely there is no indication
in context that this is a parable — Jesus is giving practical teaching about reconciliation
of human conflicts and the avoidance of situations that naturally lead to anger and
personal injury (see Matt. 5:21-26). Other passages of Scripture that have sometimes
been referred to in support of the doctrine of purgatory 16 simply do not speak directly
about this idea at all, and can all easily be understood in terms of punishment and
deliverance from distress in this life, or of a life of eternal blessing with God in heaven
in the life to come.
An even more serious problem with this doctrine is that it teaches that we must add
something to the redemptive work of Christ, and that his redemptive work for us was not
enough to pay the penalty for all our sins. But this is certainly contrary to the teaching of
Scripture. 17 Moreover, in a pastoral sense, the doctrine of purgatory robs believers of the
great comfort that should be theirs in knowing that those who have died have immedi-
ately gone into the presence of the Lord, and knowing that they also, when they die, will
“depart and be with Christ, for that is far better” (Phil. 1:23).
b. The Bible Does Not Teach the Doctrine of “Soul Sleep”: The fact that souls of believ-
ers go immediately into Gods presence also means that the doctrine of soul sleep is incor-
rect. This doctrine teaches that when believers die they go into a state of unconscious
existence, and the next thing that they are conscious of will be when Christ returns and
raises them to eternal life. This doctrine has been taught occasionally by one person or
another in the history of the church, including some Anabaptists at the Reformation,
and some of the Irvingites in England in the nineteenth century. In fact, one of John
Calvin’s first writings was a tract against this doctrine, a doctrine that has never found
wide acceptance in the church.
Support for the doctrine of soul sleep has generally been found in the fact that Scrip-
ture several times speaks of the state of death as “sleep” or “falling asleep” (Matt. 9:24;
27:52; John 11:11; Acts 7:60; 13:36; 1 Cor. 15:6, 18, 20, 51; 1 Thess. 4:13; 5:10). Moreover,
certain passages seem to teach that the dead do not have a conscious existence (see Pss.
6:5; 115:17 [but see v. 18!]; Eccl. 9:10; Isa. 38:19). But when Scripture represents death
14 Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma , p. 483. 1 Cor. 15:29.
15 Ibid. p. 484. 17 See chapter 27, pp. 577 - 78, on the fact that Christ’s death
16 Berkhof mentions that Roman Catholics have sometimes completely paid the penalty for all our sins,
referred to Isa. 4:4; Mic. 7:8; Zech. 9:11; Mai. 3:2-3; and
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
820
as “sleep” it is simply a metaphorical expression used to indicate that death is only tem-
porary for Christians, just as sleep is temporary. This is clearly seen, for example, when
Jesus tells his disciples about the death of Lazarus. He says, “Our friend Lazarus has
fallen asleep, but I go to awake him out of sleep” (John 11:11). We should notice that
Jesus does not here say, “The soul of Lazarus is sleeping,” nor, in fact, does any passage
in Scripture say that the soul of a person is sleeping or unconscious (a statement that
would be necessary to prove the doctrine of soul sleep). Rather Jesus simply says that
Lazarus has fallen asleep. Then John explains, “Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but
they thought that he meant taking rest in sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, ‘Lazarus is
dead’ ” (John 11:12- 13). The other passages that speak about people sleeping when they
die are likewise to be interpreted as simply a metaphorical expression to teach that death
is temporary.
As for the passages that indicate that the dead do not praise God, or that there is a
ceasing of conscious activity when people die, these are all to be understood from the
perspective of life in this world. From our perspective it appears that once people die,
they do not engage in these activities any longer. But Psalm 115 presents the full biblical
perspective on this viewpoint. It says, “The dead do not praise the Lord, nor do any that
go down into silence.” But then it continues in the very next verse with a contrast indicat-
ing that those who believe in God will bless the Lord forever: “But we will bless the Lord
from this time forth and for evermore. Praise the Lord!” (Ps. 115:17-18).
Finally, the passages quoted above demonstrating that the souls of believers go imme-
diately into God’s presence and enjoy fellowship with him there (2 Cor. 5:8; Phil. 1:23;
Luke 23:43; and Heb. 12:23) all indicate that there is conscious existence and fellowship
with God immediately after death for the believer. Jesus did not say, “Today you will no
longer have consciousness of anything that is going on,” but, “Today you will be with me
in Paradise ” (Luke 23:43). Certainly the conception of paradise understood at that time
was not one of unconscious existence but one of great blessing and joy in the presence
of God. 18 Paul did not say, “My desire is to depart and be unconscious for a long period
of time,” but rather, “My desire is to depart and be with Christ” (Phil. 1:23) — and he
certainly knew that Christ was not an unconscious, sleeping Savior, but one who was
actively living and reigning in heaven. To be with Christ was to enjoy the blessing of fel-
lowship in his presence, and that is why to depart and be with him was “far better” (Phil.
1:23). That is why he says, “We would rather be away from the body and at home with
the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8).
The fact that Hebrews 12:1 says, “We are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses,”
just after an entire chapter spent on the discussion of the faith of Old Testament saints
who had died (Heb. 11), and the fact that the author encourages us to run the race of
life with perseverance because we are surrounded by this great cloud of witnesses, both
suggest that those who have died and gone before have some awareness of what is going
on in the earth. Scripture says very little about this, probably because it does not want us
to speak to those who have died or to pray to them or to contact them in any way (note
18 See the other uses of the word Paradise in 2 Cor. 12:3 and is and lives and reigns; see also the discussion of this word in
Rev. 2:7, where the word clearly refers to heaven itself where God chapter 27, p. 593.
CHAPTER 41 • DEATH AND THE INTERMEDIATE STATE
Saul’sgreatsin in this in 1 Sam. 28:7-25). Nonetheless, Hebrews 12:1 -2 does give us this
slight hint, probably as an encouragement to us to continue also to be faithful to God as
were those who have died and gone to heaven before us. Similarly, at the end of Hebrews
12, the author tells us that when we worship we come into the presence of God in heaven,
and we come not to “the spirits of just men who are sleeping in an unconscious state” but
“to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the first-born who are
enrolled in heaven, and to a judge who is God of all, and to the spirits of just men made
perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant” (Heb. 12:22— 24). 19
Revelation 6:9—11 and 7:9—10 also clearly show the souls or spirits of those who have
died and who have gone to heaven praying and worshiping, for they cry out with a loud
voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our
blood on those who dwell upon the earth?” (Rev. 6:10), and they are seen “standing
before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in
their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits
upon the throne, and to the Lamb!’ ” (Rev. 7:9— 10). All of these passages deny the doc-
trine of soul sleep, for they make it clear that the souls of believers experience conscious
fellowship with God in heaven immediately upon death.
c. Did Old Testament Believers Enter Immediately Into God’s Presence? Some have said
that, although the souls of believers since Christ’s resurrection go immediately into God’s
presence in heaven, the souls of believers who died before Christ’s resurrection did not
enjoy the blessings of heaven but went into a place of waiting for Christ’s work of redemp-
tion to be complete. Sometimes this is called the limbus patrum, or simply limbo. 20 This
view has been especially common in Roman Catholic theology, but it has also been held
by some Lutherans. Some of the support for this doctrine comes from a particular view
of the idea of Christ’s descent into hell, which we discussed in an earlier chapter. 21
Not many Scripture references talk about the state of Old Testament believers after
they had died, but those that give us any indication of their state all point in the direction
of immediate conscious enjoyment in the presence of God, not of a time of waiting away
from God’s presence. “Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him” (Gen.
5:24; cf. Heb. 11:5). Elijah was not taken to a place on the border of hell, but he “went up
by a whirlwind into heaven” (2 Kings 2:11; cf. Matt. 17:3, where Moses and Elijah appear,
talking with Jesus). And David is confident that he will “dwell in the house of the Lord for
ever” (Ps. 23:6; cf. 16:10-11; 17:15; 115:18). Moreover, when Jesus answers the Sadducees,
he reminds them that God says, “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the
19 The phrase “the communion of saints” in the Apostles’
Creed refers to the fact that we have in some sense a communion
or fellowship with those who have died and gone before into
heaven, an idea that is affirmed in Heb. 12:23. This does not
imply that we can be aware of them, but simply that when we
worship we join in worship that is already going on in heaven
(see chapter 51, pp. 1006-8, on the fact that our worship now is
also worship in heaven).
20 Strictly speaking, Roman Catholic theologians have held
that there are two limbos, a place where unbaptized infants go
when they die called limbus infantum, and a place where Old
Testament believers went when they died called limbus patrum.
The Latin word limbus means “border”; these were thought
to be places on the border of hell where people were excluded
from the presence of God but also did not experience conscious
suffering. There is no explicit support in Scripture for either
doctrine.
21 For a discussion of the idea that Christ descended into
hell when he died, see chapter 27, pp. 586-94.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
822
God of Jacob” and then says, “He is not God of the dead, but of the living” (Matt. 22:32),
thus implying that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were living even at that very moment, and
that God was their God. Moreover, in the story of the rich man and Lazarus, Jesus does
not say that Lazarus is unconscious, but reports Abraham as saying about Lazarus, “Now
he is comforted here” (Luke 16:25). Abraham himself is portrayed as dwelling consciously
in a place that is very desirable — that the rich man longed to go to — certainly not a place
on the fringe of hell. It is important to notice that since this is before Christ’s resurrection,
Lazarus was in the same situation as the Old Testament saints.
Therefore it seems likely that Old Testament believers also entered immediately into
heaven and enjoyed a time of fellowship with God upon their death. However, it may well
have been true that additional rich blessings and much greater rejoicing came to them
when Christ returned to heaven at his ascension. But this does not mean that they were
transported to heaven for the first time, or that that was the first time they enjoyed the
blessing of God’s presence.
d. Should We Pray for the Dead? Finally, the fact that the souls of believers go immedi-
ately into God’s presence means that we should not pray for the dead. Although this idea
is taught in 2 Maccabees 12:42-45 (see above), it is nowhere taught in the Bible itself.
Moreover, there is no indication that this was the practice of any Christians at the time
of the New Testament, nor should it have been. Once believers die they enter into God’s
presence and they are in a state of perfect happiness with him. What good would it do
to pray for them anymore? Final heavenly reward will be based on deeds done in this
life, as Scripture repeatedly testifies (1 Cor. 3:12-15; 2 Cor. 5:10, et al.). 22 Further, the
souls of unbelievers who die go to a place of punishment and eternal separation from the
presence of God. It would do no good to pray for them either, since their final destiny
has been settled by their sin and their rebellion against God in this life. To pray for the
dead therefore is simply to pray for something that God has told us has already been
decided. 23 Moreover, to teach that we should pray for the dead, or to encourage others
to do so, would be to encourage false hope that the destinies of people might be changed
after they die, something which Scripture nowhere encourages us to think. It may lead
people to much useless anxiety and much time essentially wasted in prayers that will have
absolutely no results, and will thereby divert attention from prayers that could be made
for events for this life and could have great effect in advancing the work of the kingdom.
We should spend time praying according to God’s will.
2. The Souls of Unbelievers Go Immediately to Eternal Punishment. Scripture never
encourages us to think that people will have a second chance to trust in Christ after
death. In fact, the situation is quite the contrary. Jesus’ story about the rich man and
22 See chapter 56, pp. 1143-45, on degrees of reward 12:20; cf. v. 23). David realized that once the child had died
in heaven. his task of praying for him was done. When I speak of “pray-
23 Further indication that it is not right to pray for the dead ing for the dead” in this section, I mean praying that God
is seen in the fact that David prayed intensely for his little son would change their status or destiny. Of course there is noth-
before that son died, but after he had died, David rose from ing wrong with thanking God for the lives of people after they
prayer and washed and changed his clothes and “went into have died,
the house of the Lord and worshiped . . . and he ate” (2 Sam.
CHAPTER 41 • DEATH AND THE INTERMEDIATE STATE
Lazarus gives no hope that people can cross from hell to heaven after they have died:
though the rich man in hell called out, “Father Abraham, have mercy upon me, and send
Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in anguish in
this flame,” Abraham replied to him, “Between us and you a great chasm has been fixed,
in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross
from there to ms ” (Luke 16:24-26).
The book of Hebrews connects death with the consequence of judgment in close
sequence: “just as it is appointed for men to die once, and after that comes judgment . . .”
(Heb. 9:27). Moreover, Scripture never represents the final judgment as depending on ;
anything done after we die, but only on what has happened in this life (Matt. 25:31 -46;
Rom. 2:5- 10; cf. 2 Cor. 5:10). Some have argued for a second chance to believe in the
gospel on the basis of Christ’s preaching to the spirits in prison in 1 Peter 3:18-20 and
the preaching of the gospel “even to the dead” in 1 Peter 4:6, but those are inadequate
interpretations of the verses in question, and, on closer inspection, do not support such
a view. 24
We should also realize that the idea that there will be a second chance to accept Christ
after death is based on the assumption that everyone deserves a chance to accept Christ
and that eternal punishment only comes to those who consciously decide to reject him.
But certainly that idea is not supported by Scripture: we all are sinners by nature and
choice, and no one actually deserves any of God’s grace or deserves any opportunity to
hear the gospel of Christ — those come only because of God’s unmerited favor. Con-
demnation comes not only because of a willful rejection of Christ, but also because of
the sins that we have committed and the rebellion against God that those sins represent
(see John 3:18).
The idea that people have a second chance to accept Christ after death would also
destroy most motivation for evangelism and missionary activity today, and is not
consistent with the intense missionary zeal that was felt by the New Testament church as a
whole, and that was especially exemplified in the missionary travels of the apostle Paul.
The fact that there is conscious punishment for unbelievers after they die and that
this punishment goes on forever is certainly a difficult doctrine for us to contemplate.
But the passages teaching it appear so clear that it seems that we must affirm it if we
are to affirm what Scripture teaches. Jesus says that at the day of final judgment he
will say to those at his left hand, “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire
prepared for the devil and his angels,” and he says that “they will go away into eternal
punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” (Matt. 25:41, 46). 25
These passages show that we cannot accept as faithful to Scripture the doctrine of
annihilationism. This is a doctrine that says that unbelievers, either immediately upon
death, or else after suffering for a period of time, will simply cease to exist — God will
“annihilate” them and they will no longer be. Although the idea initially sounds attrac-
tive to us, and it avoids the emotional difficulty connected with affirming eternal con-
scious punishment for the wicked, such an idea is not explicitly affirmed in any passages
823
24 See the discussion of these verses in chapter 27, 25 See chapter 56, pp. 1140-57, for a discussion of the final
pp. 589-94; see also W. Grudem, The First Epistle of Peter, judgment and the doctrine of hell,
pp. 155-62, 170-72, 203-39.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
824
of Scripture, and seems so clearly to be contradicted by those passages that connect the
eternal blessing of the righteous with the eternal punishment of the wicked (Matt. 25:46)
and that talk about punishment extending to the wicked day and night forever (Rev.
14:11; 20:10). 26
Although unbelievers pass into a state of eternal punishment immediately upon death,
their bodies will not be raised until the day of final judgment. On that day, their bod-
ies will be raised and reunited with their souls, and they will stand before God’s throne
for final judgment to be pronounced upon them in the body (see Matt. 25:31 -46; John
5:28-29; Acts 24:15; and Rev. 20:12, 15). 27
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. Have you thought very much about the possibility of your own death? Has there
been an element of fear connected with those thoughts? What, if anything, do you
fear about death? Do you think that these fears have come from the influence of
the world around you or from Scripture? How would the teachings of Scripture
encourage you to deal with these fears?
2. Has this chapter changed your feelings about your own death in any way? Can you
honestly contemplate it now as something that will bring you nearer to Christ and
increase your own trust in God and faithfulness to him? How would you express
your hopes regarding your own death?
3. Do you think you would have the courage to refuse to sin even if it meant being
thrown to the lions in a Roman coliseum, or burned at the stake during the Ref-
ormation, or thrown in prison for years in some foreign country today? Do you
think the Christian martyrs throughout history had thought that they would
have enough courage when put to the test? What happened to them to equip
them for this suffering (read 1 Cor. 10:13)? If you can obtain a copy, you may
wish to read the account of the martyrdom of Polycarp, a stirring testimony of
faith in God and of God’s faithfulness in the second century A.D. 28 Have you
settled in your own mind that obedience to Christ is more important than pre-
serving your own life? What would make you hesitant to believe this or act on
this conviction?
4. If you have experienced the death of a believer who was close to you, do you think
that your reaction to that death was one of sorrow mingled with joy? How has this
chapter influenced the way you feel about that situation, if at all?
26 See chapter 56, pp. 1149-53, for a more extended discus-
sion of annihilationism.
27 See below, chapter 56, pp. 1140-46.
28 0ne version of The Martyrdom of Polycarp is available in
The Apostolic Fathers, 2 vols., ed. Kirsopp Lake, Loeb Classical
Library (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1913),
pp. 307-45. It is also available in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed.
A. Roberts and J. Donaldson (10 vols.; Grand Rapids: Eerd-
mans, 1979 [reprint]).
CHAPTER 41 * DEATH AND THE INTERMEDIATE STATE
825
5. Have you previously believed in the doctrine of purgatory? If you no longer believe
in it now, can you describe the way the doctrine made you feel, and the way you
now feel emotionally about the fact that that doctrine is not true and there is no
such place as purgatory?
6. If death itself is viewed as part of the process of sanctification, then how should
we view the process of growing older and weaker in this world? Is that the way the
world views aging? What about you?
SPECIAL TERMS
annihilationism
communion of saints
death
limbo
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter 1,
pp. 38-39. Complete bibliographical data maybe found on pp. 1224-30.)
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1882-92 Litton, 543-78
1930 Thomas, 298 - 310, 508 - 21
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1875-76
Pope, 3:371-86
1892-94
Miley, 2:430-39
1940
Wiley, 3:211-42
1983
Carter, 2:1109-13
3. Baptist
1767
Gill, 2:179-211
1887
Boyce, 437-51
1907
Strong, 982- 1003
1917
Mullins, 458-62
1983-85
Erickson, 1167-84
4. Dispensational
1947
Chafer, 4:413 -15
1949
Thiessen, 333-36
1986
Ryrie, 518-20
5. Lutheran
1917-24
Pieper, 3:507-15
1934
Mueller, 613-19
limbus patrum
purgatory
soul sleep
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
826
6. Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1724—58 Edwards, 2:26-36
1871-73 Hodge, 3:713-70
1878 Dabney, 817-29
1889 Shedd, 2b:591 -640
1937- 66 Murray, CW, 2:401-3; CW, 3:242-46
1938 Berkhof, 668-94
1962 Buswell, 2:304-23
7. Renewal (or charismatic/Pentecostal)
1988-92 Williams, 3:400-401, 450
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
1. Roman Catholic: Traditional
1955 Ott, 445 - 50, 473 - 76, 482 - 85
2. Roman Catholic: Post-Vatican II
1980 McBrien, 2:1135-47
Other Works
Beckwith, Roger T. “Purgatory.” In NDT, pp. 549-50.
Cooper, John W. Body, Soul and Life Everlasting: Biblical Anthropology and the Monism-
Dualism Debate. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989, pp. 81-103, 121-253.
Davids, P. H. “Death.” In EDT, pp. 299-300.
Feinberg, John S. “1 Peter 3:18-20, Ancient Mythology, and the Intermediate State.” WTJ.
Vol. 48, no. 2 (Fall 1986), pp. 303-36.
Grudem, Wayne. “Christ Preaching Through Noah: 1 Peter 3:19-20 in the Light of Domi-
nant Themes in Jewish Literature.” In The First Epistle of Peter. Tyndale New Testa-
ment Commentaries. Leicester: Inter- Varsity Press, and Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1988, pp. 203-39.
Harris, Murray J. “Death.” In NDT, p. 188.
. “Intermediate State.” In NDT, pp. 339-40.
Hoekema, Anthony A. The Bible and the Future. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979,
pp. 79-108.
Smith, S. M. “Intermediate State.” In EDT, pp. 562-64.
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
Philippians 1:20-24: As it is my eager expectation and hope that I shall not be at all
ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body,
whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If it is to be life in
the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard
pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But
to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account.
CHAPTER 41 • DEATH AND THE INTERMEDIATE STATE
827
HYMN
“My Jesus I Love Thee”
My Jesus, I love thee, I know thou art mine;
For thee all the follies of sin I resign.
My gracious Redeemer, my Savior art thou;
If ever I loved thee, my Jesus ’tis now.
I love thee because thou hast first loved me,
And purchased my pardon on Calvary’s tree.
I love thee for wearing the thorns on thy brow;
If ever I loved thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.
I’ll love thee in life, I will love thee in death;
And praise thee as long as thou lendest me breath;
And say, when the death-dew lies cold on my brow:
If ever I loved thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.
In mansions of glory and endless delight,
I’ll ever adore thee in heaven so bright;
I’ll sing with the glittering crown on my brow:
If ever I loved thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.
AUTHOR: WILLIAM R. FEATHERSTONE, 1864
Chapter
GLORIFICATION
(RECEIVING A
RESURRECTION BODY)
When will we receive resurrection bodies?
What will they be like?
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
When Christ redeemed us he did not just redeem our spirits (or souls) — he
redeemed us as whole persons, and this includes the redemption of our bodies. There-
fore the application of Christ’s work of redemption to us will not be complete until
our bodies are entirely set free from the effects of the fall and brought to that state of
perfection for which God created them. In fact, the redemption of our bodies will only
occur when Christ returns and raises our bodies from the dead. But at this present
time, Paul says that we wait for “the redemption of our bodies and then adds, “for in
this hope we were saved” (Rom. 8:23-24). The stage in the application of redemption
when we receive resurrection bodies is called glorification . Referring to that future day
Paul says that we will be “glorified with him” (Rom. 8:17). Moreover, when Paul traces
the steps in the application of redemption, the last one he names is glorification: “And
those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified;
and those whom he justified he also glorified” (Rom. 8:30).
The day we are glorified will be a day of great victory because on that day the last
enemy, death, will be destroyed, just as Scripture predicts: “For he must reign until he
has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death” (1 Cor.
15:25-26). In the context of a discussion of the resurrection of our bodies when Christ
returns, Paul says, “Then shall come to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swal-
lowed up in victory/ ‘O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?’”
(1 Cor. 15:54-55). When our bodies are raised from the dead we will experience
828
CHAPTER 42 ♦ GLORIFICATION
complete victory over the death that came as a result of the fall of Adam and Eve. Then
our redemption will be complete.
We may therefore define glorification as follows: Glorification is the final step in the
application of redemption . It will happen when Christ returns and raises from the dead the
bodies of all believers for all time who have died , and reunites them with their souls , and
changes the bodies of all believers who remain alive , thereby giving all believers at the same
time perfect resurrection bodies like his own.
A. New Testament Evidence for Glorification
The primary New Testament passage on glorification or the resurrection of the body
is 1 Corinthians 15:12-58. Paul says, “So also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each
in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ”
(w. 22-23). 1 Paul discusses the nature of the resurrection body in some detail in verses
35-50, which we will examine in section C below. He then concludes the passage by say-
ing that not all Christians will die, but some who remain alive when Christ returns will
simply have their bodies instantaneously changed into new, resurrection bodies that can
never grow old or weak and can never die:
Lo! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. , in
a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet
will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.
(1 Cor. 15:51-52)
Paul further explains in 1 Thessalonians that the souls of those who have died and
gone to be with Christ will come back and be joined with their bodies on that day, for
Christ will bring them with him: “For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again,
even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep” (1 Thess.
4:14). But here Paul affirms not only that God will bring with Christ those who have
died; he also affirms that “the dead in Christ will rise first” (1 Thess. 4:16). So these
believers who have died with Christ are also raised up to meet Christ (Paul says in v. 17,
“We . . . shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air”).
This only makes sense if it is the souls of believers who have gone into Christ’s presence
who return with him, and if it is their bodies that are raised from the dead to be joined
together with their souls, and then to ascend to be with Christ.
In addition to these passages in 1 Corinthians 15 and 1 Thessalonians 4, several other
New Testament passages affirm the reality of the doctrine of glorification. Jesus says,
“The hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come forth,
those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the
Murray J. Harris argues for the possibility of an alternative
view, based on his understanding of 2 Cor. 5:1-10: that Chris-
tians receive their resurrection bodies immediately after they
die. See Harris, From Grave to Glory: Resurrection in the New
Testament , pp. 207-10. But this view is exceptionally difficult
to reconcile with 1 Cor. 15 and 1 Thess. 4: see the discussion
in D. A. Carson, “Unity and Diversity in the New Testament:
The Possibility of Systematic Theology,” in Scripture and Truth ,
pp. 85-86.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
resurrection of judgment” (John 5:28-29). 2 Jesus also says, “This is the will of him
who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up at the
last day. For this is the will of my Father, that every one who sees the Son and believes
in him should have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day ” (John 6:39-40;
cf. vv. 44, 54).
Paul says, “He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal
bodies also through his Spirit which dwells in you” (Rom. 8:11; cf. 2 Cor. 5:1 - 10). He
realizes that Christians should live in eager expectation of Christ s return and of the
change in our bodies to be like his own perfect body. He says, “But our commonwealth
is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will change our
lowly body to be like his glorious body , by the power which enables him even to subject
all things to himself” (Phil. 3:20-21).
B. Old Testament Support for Glorification
Sometimes people have claimed that the Old Testament has little if any evidence of
hope in a future resurrection of the body, but there is in fact more Old Testament evi-
dence for this than we might realize. First, even before Jesus was raised from the dead, the
New Testament indicates that many Jewish people living at the time of Christ had some
hope of a future bodily resurrection. When Jesus comes to the home of Lazarus after he
had died and says to Martha, “Your brother will rise again,” Martha responds, “I know
that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day ” (John 1 1 :23 - 24) . Moreover, when
Paul was on trial, he said to Felix that he had a “hope in God which these themselves [his
Jewish accusers] accept, that there will be a resurrection of both the just and the unjust”
(Acts 24:15).
As for the beliefs of those living in the time of the Old Testament, Hebrews 11 tells
us that Abraham “looked forward to the city which has foundations, whose builder
and maker is God” (Heb. 11:10). We also read that many Old Testament saints “all
died in faith, not having received what was promised, but having seen it and greeted
it from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the
earth. . . . But as it is, they desire a better country , that is, a heavenly one. Therefore
God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city” (Heb.
11:13-16). The author even says that Abraham “considered that God was able to raise
men even from the dead” (Heb. 11:19).
When we look at the actual teachings of the Old Testament itself, there are indications
that Old Testament authors had a strong expectation of the resurrection to come in the
future. Job says: “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon
the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself
will see him with my own eyes — I, and not another” (Job 19:25-26 NIV). 3
2 Some evangelical Christians hold that believers and unbe-
lievers will be resurrected at the same time (this is the position
taken by amillennialists). Others (especially premillennialists)
hold that the resurrection of believers occurs before the mil-
lennium and the resurrection of the unbelievers for judgment
occurs 1,000 years later, after the millennium. See chapter 55 for
a discussion of the issues involved, and of this particular verse.
3 Several words in this passage are difficult to interpret,
and there is scholarly debate over the question of whether
Job is looking forward to seeing God in this life (as he does
CHAPTER 42 • GLORIFICATION
We read in the Psalms, “But God will redeem my soul from the grave; he will surely
take me to himself” (Ps. 49:15 NIV; cf. 73:24-25). And we read in Proverbs, “Do not
withhold discipline from a child. ... If you beat him with the rod you will save his
life from Sheol” (Prov. 23:13-14). Isaiah says, “ Your dead shall live , their bodies shall
rise ” (Isa. 26:19). Daniel has a very explicit prophecy that “many of those who sleep
in the dust of the earth shall awake f some to everlasting life, and some to shame and
everlasting contempt” (Dan. 12:2). (Cf. also Ezekiels vision of the dry bones in Ezek.
37:1-14.)
Although Old Testament believers certainly did not have as much detail about the
nature of the resurrection or the way it would come about through the resurrection of
the Messiah, and although they did not have as clear a basis for confidence in the res-
urrection as we do in the actual event of the bodily resurrection of Christ, nonetheless
there was certainly, as we have seen, an expectation of a future day of bodily resurrection.
People who for years had meditated on and believed these statements of Scripture (such
as Martha in John 11:24) were prepared to receive the full-fledged New Testament teach-
ing on the resurrection eagerly, for it simply provided more detail and more assurance for
what they already had believed.
C. What Will Our Resurrection Bodies Be Like?
If Christ will raise our bodies from the dead when he returns, and if our bodies
will be like his resurrection body (1 Cor. 15:20, 23, 49; Phil. 3:21), then what will our
resurrection bodies be like?
Using the example of sowing a seed in the ground and then watching it grow into
something much more wonderful, Paul goes on to explain in more detail what our
resurrection bodies will be like:
What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor,
it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a
physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. . . . Just as we have borne the image
of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. (1 Cor.
15:42-44, 49)
The fact that our new bodies will be “imperishable” means that they will not wear out
or grow old or ever be subject to any kind of sickness or disease. They will be completely
healthy and strong forever. Moreover, since the gradual process of aging is part of the
process by which our bodies now are subject to “corruption,” it is appropriate to think
that our resurrection bodies will have no sign of aging, but will have the characteristics
of youthful but mature manhood or womanhood forever. There will be no evidence of
in 42:5) or after his death (note that Job expects his Redeemer to
stand upon the earth “in the end,” and expects to see God “in my
flesh” but this will be “after my skin has been destroyed”). For a
summary of the exegetical issues and a persuasive defense of the
view that Job is looking forward to a physical resurrection after
he dies, see Francis L. Andersen, Job, TOTC (Leicester: Inter-
Varsity Press, 1976), pp. 193-94. The view that this passage
looks forward to seeing God in this life only is largely based
on some scholars’ convictions that the idea of a future bodily
resurrection was not found in Judaism until long after Job was
written (but see Heb. 11:10,19, commenting on Abraham’s faith
in the resurrection).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
832
disease or injury, for all will be made perfect. 4 Our resurrection bodies will show the ful-
fillment of God’s perfect wisdom in creating us as human beings who are the pinnacle of
his creation and the appropriate bearers of his likeness and image. In these resurrection
bodies we will clearly see humanity as God intended it to be.
Paul also says our bodies will be raised “in glory.” When this term is contrasted with
“dishonor,” as it is here, there is a suggestion of the beauty or the attractiveness of appear-
ance that our bodies will have. They will no longer be “dishonorable” or unattractive, but
will look “glorious” in their beauty. Moreover, because the word “glory” is so frequently
used in Scripture of the bright shining radiance that surrounds the presence of God him-
self, this term suggests that there will also be a kind of brightness or radiance surround-
ing our bodies that will be an appropriate outward evidence of the position of exaltation
and rule over all creation that God has given to us. This is also suggested in Matthew
13:43, where Jesus says, “Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their
Father.” Similarly, we read in Daniel’s vision, “And those who are wise shall shine like the
brightness of the firmament; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars for
ever and ever” (Dan. 12:3, in a passage talking about the final resurrection). Now both
of these statements might possibly be understood metaphorically, and in that case they
would not indicate that an actual brightness or radiance will surround our resurrection
bodies. But there is no reason in the context of either of them that would cause us to see
them as metaphorical, and other pieces of evidence argue against doing so. The hints of
the age to come that were seen in the shining of the glory of God from the face of Moses
(Ex. 34:35), and, in a much greater way, the bright light that shone from Jesus at the
transfiguration (Matt. 17:2), together with the fact that we will bear the image of Christ
and be like him (1 Cor. 15:49), combine to suggest that there will actually be a visible
brightness or radiance that surrounds us when we are in our resurrection bodies. 5
Our bodies will also be raised “in power” (1 Cor. 15:43). This is in contrast to the
“weakness” which we see in our bodies now. Our resurrection bodies will not only be
free from disease and aging, they will also be given fullness of strength and power — not
infinite power like God, of course, and probably not what we would think of as “superhu-
man” power in the sense possessed by the “superheroes” in modern fictional children’s
writing, for example, but nonetheless full and complete human power and strength, the
strength that God intended human beings to have in their bodies when he created them.
It will therefore be strength that is sufficient to do all that we desire to do in conformity
with the will of God.
Finally, Paul says that the body is raised a “spiritual body” (1 Cor. 15:44). In the Pau-
line epistles, the word “spiritual” (Gk. pneumatikos) seldom means “nonphysical” but
rather “consistent with the character and activity of the Holy Spirit” (see, for example,
Rom. 1:11; 7:14; 1 Cor. 2:13, 15; 3:1; 14:37; Gal. 6:1 [“you who are spiritual”]; Eph. 5:19).
4 The fact that the scars of Jesus’ nail prints remained on his
hands is a special case to remind us of the price he paid for our
redemption, and it should not be taken as an indication that
any of our scars from physical injuries will remain: see chapter
28, pp. 616.
5 Jesus’ body did not have a bright radiance surrounding
it immediately after his resurrection, but when he returned
to heaven and received from God the Father the glory that
was rightfully his, then “his face was like the sun shining in
full strength” (Rev. 1:16). Jesus at his transfiguration gave his
disciples only a brief glimpse of the glory that was rightfully
his and would be his again in heaven.
CHAPTER 42 - GLORIFICATION
The RSV translation, “It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body,” is mislead-
ing, 6 and a more clear paraphrase would be, “It is sown a natural body subject to the
characteristics and desires of this age, and governed by its own sinful will, but it is raised
a spiritual body, completely subject to the will of the Holy Spirit and responsive to the
Holy Spirit’s guidance.” Such a body is not at all “nonphysical,” but it is a physical body
raised to the degree of perfection for which God originally intended it.
In conclusion, when Christ returns he will give us new resurrection bodies to be like
his resurrection body. “When he appears we shall be like him ” (1 John 3:2; this statement
is true not only in an ethical sense but also in terms of our physical bodies; cf. 1 Cor.
15:49; also Rom. 8:29).
In spite of this strong New Testament emphasis on the similarity between our bodies
and Jesus’ body after the resurrection, some have objected that we will not have physical
bodies because Paul says, “ Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the
perishable inherit the imperishable” (1 Cor. 15:50). This is in the very section in which
he has been discussing the resurrection of the dead. But it is surely a misunderstanding to
say that this verse implies that we shall not have physical bodies. When Paul says, “flesh
and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God,” what he means by “flesh and blood” is our
present human nature, particularly our physical bodies, as they are now existing in the like-
ness of Adam after the fall — that is, subject to weakness, decay, and ultimate death. This is
the point he has made in the previous four verses (1 Cor. 15:45-49), in which he has been
contrasting Adam with Christ. He explains, “As was the man of dust, so are those who
are of the dust” (that is, we ourselves in this present age, 1 Cor. 15:48). Then he explains,
“Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the
man of heaven” (1 Cor. 15:49). By “flesh and blood” here Paul means “ flesh and blood in
the present state of existence with a body like Adam’s after the fall, a body that is subject
to decay and death.” He does not mean that we shall exist in a nonphysical state, for the
entire heaven and earth will be made new and renewed for us to live in (Rom. 8:18-25),
and we ourselves “shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last
trumpet” (1 Cor. 15:51-52). We will not cease to exist in physical bodies, but we will be
changed and we will have an imperishable body, “For this perishable nature must put on
the imperishable, and this mortal nature must put on immortality” (1 Cor. 15:53).
Moreover, the repeated instances in which Jesus demonstrated to the
disciples that he had a physical body that was able to be touched, that had flesh and bones
(Luke 24:39), and that could eat food, show that Jesus’ body, which is our pattern, was
clearly a physical body that had been made perfect. 7
What kind of continuity will there be between our present bodies and our future
resurrection bodies? Will our bodies look exactly the same and have exactly the same
characteristics, or will they be somewhat different, or will they be almost entirely
different? Moreover, will our resurrection bodies be made of the same molecules of which
our earthly bodies consist, or will they be an entirely new creation from God, or will they
be some combination of old and new?
6 See the discussion of the RSV’s use of “physical” in 1 Cor. 7 See chapter 28, pp. 608- 14, for a discussion of the nature
15:44 in chapter 28, p. 609, n. 3. of Christ’s resurrection body.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
834
Several passages indicate that Paul expected a considerable measure of continuity
between our present earthly bodies and our future resurrection bodies. Paul said, “He
who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through
his Spirit which dwells in you” (Rom. 8:11). He said that Jesus “will change our lowly
body to be like his glorious body” (Phil. 3:21). And when Paul spoke about the nature
of the resurrection body he gave an example of a seed sown in the ground: “What you
sow is not the body which is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other
grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body”
(1 Cor. 15:37-38). In this example, he draws on common human knowledge that there
are differences between what is sown and what is raised (vv. 42-44), but there is also
continuity — just as a seed grows into a larger plant, retaining the matter that was in it
but taking to itself other materials from the ground as well, so we will have continuity
and differences as well. On this analogy we can say that whatever remains in the grave
from our own physical bodies will be taken by God and transformed and used to make
a new resurrection body. But the details of how that will happen remain unclear to us,
since Scripture does not specify them — we are to affirm this because Scripture teaches
it, even if we cannot fully explain how it can happen. 8
Another indication of significant continuity between our present bodies and the bod-
ies that we will have is seen in the fact that those believers who remain alive on the day
Christ returns will “be changed”— yet their bodies will not be replaced: “We shall not
all sleep, but we shall all be changed , in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last
trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and
we shall be changed. For this perishable nature must put on the imperishable, and this
mortal nature must put on immortality” (1 Cor. 15:51-53).
We must also clearly note that Christ s own resurrection body, though it differed
somewhat from the body he had before he died, so that the disciples did not immediately
recognize him in every situation, was similar enough in appearance for the disciples to
know who it was rather quickly. There were some instances when they did not imme-
diately recognize him, but this may in part be accounted for by the fact that during his
earthly life and ministry he had no doubt aged considerably, since he was “a man of
sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isa. 53:3). After his resurrection, Jesus would have
been restored to full and perfect strength and youthfulness of appearance. Just as we
sometimes do not immediately recognize a friend who has aged considerably since the
last time we saw him or her, so the disciples may have had initial difficulty in recogniz-
ing Christ because the opposite of aging had occurred. 9 On the other hand, significant
continuity between Jesus’ body before and after the resurrection is seen in the fact that
even the nail prints in his hands and feet and the wound in his side remained in his
resurrection body (John 20:20, 27).
Another piece of evidence indicating continuity between our earthly and heavenly
8 Someone may object that some bodies completely decay,
are absorbed into plants, and then eventually into other bod-
ies, so that nothing of the first body can be found. But in
response we must simply say that God can keep track of enough
of the elements from each body to form a “seed” from which
to form a new body (see Gen. 50:25; Job 19:26; Ezek. 37:1-14;
Heb. 11:22).
9 For a discussion on the failure of disciples to recog-
nize Christ at once after his resurrection, see chapter 28,
pp. 609-10.
CHAPTER 42 ■ GLORIFICATION
835
bodies is the fact that apparently people will recognize and know one another in heaven.
Jesus says that people will come from east and west and “sit at the table with Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 8:11). Moreover, Elijah, who had been
taken up to heaven in his earthly body, was somehow recognizable to the disciples on the
Mount of Transfiguration (Luke 9:30, 33) — of course, the disciples had not known Elijah
or Moses in the flesh, but somehow these men retained their personal identities in such a
way that the disciples believed that they were there and that they were just as real as Jesus
was (see Luke 9:33). Finally, Matthew tells us that when Jesus died, “the tombs also were
opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out
of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many”
(Matt. 27:52-53). The fact that these people’s actual bodies were raised, and the fact
that they appeared to many in Jerusalem, indicates again that there was some continu-
ity between their dead bodies that were in the graves and the bodies that were raised up.
Since they came out of the tombs “after his resurrection” we may assume that these also
were saints who had received resurrection bodies as a kind of foretaste of the final day of
glorification when Christ returns. 10 The fact that these people “appeared to many” sug-
gests that they were recognizable — that people knew who they were. Again the evidence
is suggestive rather than conclusive, yet it points in the direction of continuity between
the body that existed before the resurrection and the one that existed after it.
There is today some hesitancy on the part of many evangelicals to affirm clearly that
there will be a “resurrection of the body,” or at least that the body that is raised will be a
material, physical body that is in some way continuous with the body that was placed in
the grave. To some measure, this may be due to a sense of inability to understand how
God could raise the same bodies from the grave, especially when some of those bodies
have been dead for many centuries. Yet some of this hesitancy is probably also due to
the continuing skepticism of unbelievers who challenge the Christian view with exactly
the kind of problems just presented — does this not seem like a fantastic, unbelievable
position? How could God bring about such a thing?
In both cases — whether the hesitancy comes from the honest questioning of the
believer or from the hostile skepticism of the unbeliever — we should realize that our
inability to understand or explain something should never be a reason for rejecting it
if it is clearly taught in Scripture. The many passages cited above indicating that God
will raise our mortal bodies from the grave, just as he raised Jesus’ body from the grave,
indicate quite conclusively that there will be a definite continuity between our present
bodies and the bodies we have in the resurrection. And if that is what Scripture teaches,
then, even though we may not understand exactly how God will bring this about in every
case, we should still believe it. The God who created the universe and created each one of
us, and who sovereignly rules over every bit of this creation at every moment, and who
carries along all things by his word of power, can certainly keep track of the parts of our
physical bodies that he wishes to preserve and use as the “seed” from which a new body
will be made.
10 See discussion of this passage in D. A. Carson, Matthew ,
in EBC, 8:581-82.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
836
It is important to insist on the resurrection of a real, physical body, not only for the
reasons above, but also because this provides a clear affirmation of the goodness of God’s
physical creation. We will live in bodies that have all the excellent qualities God created
us to have, and thereby we will forever be living proof of the wisdom of God in making
a material creation that from the beginning was “very good” (Gen. 1:31). We will live
as resurrected believers in those new bodies, and they will be suitable for inhabiting the
“new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (2 Peter 3:13).
D. The Entire Creation Will Be Renewed As Well
When Adam sinned God cursed the ground because of him (Gen. 3:17-19), so that
it brought forth thorns and thistles and would only yield food useful for mankind by
painful toil. But Paul says that “the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to
decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Rom. 8:21). He explains
that this will happen when we receive our resurrection bodies — in fact, he says that
the creation is somehow longing for that day: “For the creation waits with eager long-
ing for the revealing of the sons of God We know that the whole creation has been
groaning in travail together until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who
have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons, the
redemption of our bodies” (Rom. 8 : 1 9, 22 - 23) . In this renewed creation, there will be no
more thorns or thistles, no more floods or droughts, no more deserts or uninhabitable
jungles, no more earthquakes or tornadoes, no more poisonous snakes or bees that sting
or mushrooms that kill. There will be a productive earth, an earth that will blossom and
produce food abundantly for our enjoyment. (See chapter 57 for further discussion of
the renewed earth.)
E. The Unbelieving Dead Will Be Raised for Judgment
on the Day of Final Judgment
Although the emphasis of Scripture is on the fact that believers will experience a
bodily resurrection, there are some passages that state that unbelievers will also be raised
from the dead, but that they will face the final judgment at the time they are raised. Jesus
clearly teaches that “those who have done evil” will come forth “to the resurrection of
judgment” (John 5:29); Paul also said that he believed “that there will be a resurrection
of both the just and the unjust” (Acts 24:15; cf. Matt. 25:31-46; Dan. 12:2). (See chapter
56 for further discussion of the final judgment of unbelievers.)
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1 . Paul says that the expectation of a future bodily resurrection is the “hope” in which
we were saved (Rom. 8:24). Is the hope of a future resurrection of your body one
of the major things you look forward to in the future? If not, why not? What could
increase your hope in the future resurrection of the body?
CHAPTER 42 * GLORIFICATION
837
2. So strong was Paul’s longing for the future day of resurrection, and so aware was
he of the hardships that we still suffer in this life, that he could say, “If for this life
only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied” (1 Cor. 15:19),
and, “If the dead are not raised, ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die’” (1
Cor. 15:32). Do you have a great longing for the future resurrection that gives you
this kind of sentiment in your heart as well? If not, why do you not have the same
perspective on the resurrection of the body that Paul did?
3. What do you think might occur in your life to give you a greater longing for the
resurrection of your body? If you have a grandfather or grandmother or other
older friend or relative who has died and gone to be with Christ, what do you
think that person will look like on the day of resurrection? Can you imagine what
it will be like meeting that person and becoming acquainted again? How will your
relationship be different from what it was in this life?
SPECIAL TERMS
glorification
spiritual body
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter 1,
pp. 38-39. Complete bibliographical data maybe found on pp. 1224-30.)
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1882-92 Litton, 585-91
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1875-76
Pope, 3:401-11
1892-94
Miley, 2:448-58
1940
Wiley, 3:320-38
1960
Purkiser, 561-67
1983
Carter, 2:1116-18
3. Baptist
1767
Gill, 2:211-30
1887
Boyce, 454-61
1907
Strong, 1015-23
1917
Mullins, 472 - 78
1983-85
Erickson, 997-1002, 1194-1200
4. Dispensational
1947
Chafer, 3:366-69
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
838
1949 Thiessen, 376-83
1986 Ryrie, 517-18
5. Lutheran
1917-24 Pieper, 3:534-39
1934 Mueller, 625 - 30
6. Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1559 Calvin, 2:987- 1008 (3.25)
1861 Heppe, 695-712
1871-73 Hodge, 3:771-89
1878 Dabney, 829-41
1889 Shedd, 2b:647-58
1937 -66 Murray, CW, 2:403-13; RAA, 174-81
1938 Berkhof, 720-27
1962 Buswell, 2:324-46
7. Renewal (or charismatic/Pentecostal)
1988-92 Williams, 3:397-413
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
1. Roman Catholic: Traditional
1955 Ott, 488-92
2. Roman Catholic: Post-Vatican II
1 980 McBrien, 2 : 1 147 - 50
Other Works
Gaffin, Richard B., Jr. Resurrection and Redemption: A Study in Paul's Soteriology. Formerly,
The Centrality of the Resurrection: A Study in Paul’s Soteriology. Phillipsburg, N.J.:
Presbyterian and Reformed, 1978.
Grider, J. K. “Glorification.” In EDT, pp. 442-43.
Gundry, Robert N. Soma in Biblical Theology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1975.
Harris, Murray J. From Grave to Glory: Resurrection in the New Testament, Including a
Response to Norman L. Geisler. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990, pp. 185-287.
. Raised Immortal: Resurrection and Immortality in the New Testament. Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983.
. “Resurrection, General.” In NDT, pp. 581-82.
Hoekema, Anthony A. “The Resurrection of the Body.” In The Bible and the Future. Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979, pp. 239-52.
Murray, John. “Glorification.” In Redemption Accomplished and Applied. Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1955, pp. 174-81.
Schep, J. A. The Nature of the Resurrection Body. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964.
White, R. E. O. “Resurrection of the Dead.” In EDT, pp. 941 -44.
CHAPTER 42 • GLORIFICATION
839
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
1 Corinthians 15:42-44: So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perish-
able, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in
weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there
is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body.
HYMN
“Ten Thousand Times Ten Thousand”
This hymn was written by Henry Alford, a New Testament professor at Cambridge
University, England, and one of the greatest Greek scholars of the nineteenth century. The
hymn pictures thousands of glorified believers streaming through the gates of heaven on
the day of Christ’s return, and ends with a prayer that Christ would come back quickly.
Ten thousand times ten thousand in sparkling raiment bright,
The armies of the ransomed saints throng up the steeps of light:
’Tis finished, all is finished, their fight with death and sin:
Fling open wide the golden gates, and let the victors in.
What rush of alleluias fills all the earth and sky!
What ringing of a thousand harps bespeaks the triumph nigh!
O day, for which creation and all its tribes were made;
O joy, for all its former woes a thousand-fold repaid!
O then what raptured greetings on Canaan’s happy shore;
What knitting severed friendships up where partings are no more!
Then eyes with joy shall sparkle, that brimmed with tears of late;
Orphans no longer fatherless, nor widows desolate.
Bring near thy great salvation, thou Lamb for sinners slain;
Fill up the roll of thine elect, then take thy pow’r, and reign:
Appear, desire of nations, thine exiles long for home;
Show in the heav’n thy promised sign; thou Prince and Saviour,
come.
AUTHOR: HENRY ALFORD, 1867
Chapter
UNION WITH CHRIST
What does it mean to be “in Christ ”
or “ united with Christ ”?
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS 1
Although we have now completed our study of the steps in the application of redemp-
tion, one other subject is so frequently mentioned in Scripture and so wide-ranging in its
application to our lives that it deserves a separate treatment here. That is the concept of
union with Christ. As we shall see below, every aspect of Gods relationship to believers is
in some way connected to our relationship with Christ. From God’s counsels in eternity
past before the world was created, to our fellowship with God in heaven in eternity future,
and including every aspect of our relationship with God in this life— all has occurred
in union with Christ. So in one sense the entire study of the application of redemption
could be included in this subject. However, in this chapter we can simply summarize the
incredible richness of the scriptural idea of union with Christ. John Murray says:
Union with Christ has its source in the election of God the Father before the
foundation of the world and has its fruition in the glorification of the sons
of God. The perspective of Gods people is not narrow; it is broad and it is
long. It is not confined to space and time; it has the expanse of eternity. Its
orbit has two foci, one the electing love of God the Father in the counsels of
eternity; the other glorification with Christ in the manifestation of his glory.
The former has no beginning, the latter has no end Why does the believer
entertain the thought of God’s determinate counsel with such joy? Why can
he have patience in the perplexities and adversities of the present? Why can he
have confident assurance with reference to the future and rejoice in hope of
the glory of God? It is because he cannot think of past, present, or future apart
from union with Christ . 2
The material in this chapter is taken from an essay writ- 2 John Murray, Redemption Accomplished and Applied ,
ten for Tyndale House Publishers (Wheaton, 111.). Used by p. 164.
permission.
840
CHAPTER 43 • UNION WITH CHRIST
We may define union with Christ as follows : Union with Christ is a phrase used to sum-
marize several different relationships between believers and Christy through which Christians
receive every benefit of salvation. These relationships include the fact that we are in Christy
Christ is in us, we are like Christ , and we are with Christ .
As this definition indicates, four different aspects of our union with Christ may be
specified from the biblical material. We will look at each of these four in turn:
1. We are in Christ.
2. Christ is in us.
3. We are like Christ.
4. We are with Christ. 3
A. We Are in Christ
The phrase “in Christ” does not have one single sense, but refers to a variety of
relationships, as indicated below.
1. In God’s Eternal Plan. Ephesians 1:4 tells us that, God chose us in Christ “before the
foundation of the world.” It was “in Christ” that we were “destined and appointed to live
for the praise of his glory” (vv. 1:11-12). Later he “saved us and called us” because of
“his own purpose” and because of the grace which he gave us “m Christ Jesus before the
beginning of time” (2 Tim. 1:9 NIV).
Since we did not exist before the foundation of the world, these verses indicate that
God, looking into the future and knowing that we would exist, thought of us being in a
special relationship with Christ. He did not first choose us and later decide to relate us to
Christ. Rather, while choosing us, he at the same time thought about us as belonging to
Christ in a special way, as being “in Christ.” Therefore, he thought about us as eventually
having the right to share in the blessings of Christ’s work.
2. During Christ’s Life on Earth. Throughout Christ’s entire life on earth, from the
time of his birth to the time of his ascension into heaven, God thought of us as being “in
Christ.” That is, whatever Christ did as our representative, God counted it as being some-
thing we did, too. Of course, believers were not consciously present in Christ, since most
believers did not even exist yet when Christ was on earth. Nor were believers present in
Christ in some mysterious, spiritual way (as if, for example, the souls of thousands of
believers were somehow present in Christ’s body during his earthly life). Rather, believ-
ers were present in Christ only in God's thoughts . God thought of us as going through
everything that Christ went through, because he was our representative.
When Jesus perfectly obeyed God for his whole life, God thought of us as having
obeyed, too. “By one man’s obedience many will be made righteous” (Rom. 5:19). So
Christ is our source of righteousness (1 Cor. 1:30; Phil. 3:9).
3 Union with Christ is also sometimes referred to as the because we know about them only through God’s revelation in
“mystical union.” This is because we do not fully under- Scripture,
stand the workings of these relationships with Christ, and
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
842
Because God thought of us as being “in” Christ, he also could think of our sins as
belonging to Christ: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us” (2 Cor. 5:21 NIV),
and “the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isa. 53:6). These were sins we
had not yet committed, but God knew about them in advance, and thought of them as
belonging to Christ. Thus, it was right that Christ should die for our sins. “He himself
bore our sins in his body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24; see also Rom. 4:25; 1 Cor. 15:3; Col.
2:14; Heb. 9:28).
But it was not just our sins that God thought of as belonging to Christ: it was we our-
selves. When Christ died, God thought of us as having died. Our old self was “ crucified
with him ” (Rom. 6:6). “I have been crucified with Christ” (Gal. 2:20). “One has died for
all; therefore all have died” (2 Cor. 5:14; see also Rom. 6:4-5, 8; 7:4; Col. 1:22; 2:12, 20;
3:3; 2 Tim. 2:11).
In the same way, God thought of us as having been buried with Christ, raised with
him, and taken up to heaven with him in glory. “God raised us up with Christ and seated
us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:6 NIV; see also Rom. 6:4-11;
1 Cor. 15:22; Col. 2:12-13).
When Christ returned to heaven, therefore, all the blessings of salvation were earned
for us. God thought of these blessings as being rightfully ours, just as if we had earned
them ourselves. Nevertheless, they were stored up for us in heaven— in Gods mind,
actually, and in Christ, our representative — waiting to be applied to us personally
(1 Peter 1:3-5; Col. 3:3-4; Eph. 1:3).
3. During Our Lives Now. Once we have been born and exist as real people in the world,
our union with Christ can no longer be something just in Gods mind. We also must be
brought into an actual relationship with Christ through which the benefits of salvation
can be applied to our lives by the Holy Spirit. The richness of our present life in Christ
can be viewed from four slightly different perspectives:
1. We have died and been raised with Christ.
2. We have new life in Christ.
3. All our actions can be done in Christ.
4. All Christians together are one body in Christ.
a. Dying and Rising With Christ: The death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus now have
real effects in our lives. “You were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also
raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead”
(Col. 2:12). Here Paul’s references to baptism and faith indicate that our dying and rising
with Christ occur in this present life, at the time we become Christians.
Paul sees this present death and resurrection with Christ as a way of describing and
explaining the change that the Holy Spirit brings about in our character and personality
when we become Christians. It is as if the Holy Spirit reproduces Jesus’ death and resur-
rection in our lives when we believe in Christ. We become so unresponsive to the pres-
sures, demands and attractions of our previous, sinful way of life, that Paul can say we are
“dead” to these influences, because we have died with Christ (Rom. 7:6; Gal. 2:20; 5:24;
6:14; Col. 2:20). On the other hand, we find ourselves wanting to serve God much more,
CHAPTER 43 • UNION WITH CHRIST
and able to serve him with greater power and success, so much so that Paul says we are
“alive” to God, because we have been raised up with Christ: “We were buried therefore
with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of
the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4). “So you also must consider
yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 6:11; see also 1 Peter 1:3;
2:24). Because we died and rose with Christ, we have power to overcome personal sin more
and more (Rom. 6:12-14, 19); we have come to “fullness oflife” in Christ (Col. 2:10-13);
in fact, we have become a “new creation” in him (2 Cor. 5:17, with w. 14- 15), and should
therefore set our minds on things that are above, where Christ is (Col. 3:1-3).
b. New Life in Christ: These last verses suggest a second perspective on our being “in
Christ.” We can think not only in terms of Christ’s past work of redemption, but also
in terms of his present life in heaven, and his continuing possession of all the spiritual
resources we need to live the Christian life. Since every spiritual blessing was earned by
him and belongs to him, the New Testament can say that these blessings are “in him.”
Thus, they are available only to those who are “in Christ,” and if we are in Christ, these
blessings are ours.
John writes, “God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son” (1 John 5:11), and Paul
speaks of “the promise of the life which is in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 1:1). We read that “in
Christ” are “faith and love” (1 Tim. 1:14; 2 Tim. 1:13), “grace” (2 Tim. 2:1), “salvation”
(2 Tim. 2:10), “all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:3), and God’s “riches
in glory” (Phil. 4:19). Paul says that it is because of God’s work that Christians are “in
Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and
redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30), and that “God . . . has blessed us in the heavenly realms with
every spiritual blessing in Christ” (Eph. 1:3).
In fact, every stage of the application of redemption is given to us because we are “in
Christ.” It is “in Christ” that we are called to salvation (1 Cor. 7:22), regenerated (Eph.
1:3; 2:10), and justified (Rom. 8:1; 2 Cor. 5:21; Gal. 2:17; Eph. 1:7; Phil. 3:9; Col. 1:14). “In
Christ” we die (1 Thess. 4:16; Rev. 14:13) and “in him” our bodies will be raised up again
(1 Cor. 15:22). These passages suggest that because our lives are inseparably connected to
Christ himself, the Holy Spirit gives us all the blessings that Christ has earned.
c. All Our Actions Can Be Done in Christ: The foregoing changes within our individual
lives are accompanied by a dramatic change in the realm in which we live. To become a
Christian is to enter the newness of the age to come, and to experience to some degree
the new powers of the kingdom of God affecting every part of our lives. To be “in Christ”
is to be in that new realm that Christ controls.
This means that every action in our lives can be done “in Christ,” if it is done in the
power of his kingdom and in a way that brings honor to him. Paul speaks the truth “in
Christ” (Rom. 9:1; 2 Cor. 2:17; 12:19), is proud of his work “in Christ” (Rom. 15:17;
1 Cor. 15:31), reminds the Corinthians of his ways “in Christ” (1 Cor. 4:17), hopes “in the
Lord Jesus” to send Timothy to Philippi (Phil. 2:19), rejoices greatly “in the Lord” (Phil.
4:10), and “in the Lord” commands, beseeches, and exhorts other Christians (1 Thess. 4:1;
2 Thess. 3:12; Philem. 8). He says, “I can do all things in him who strengthens me” (Phil.
4:13).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
Paul also writes to believers about their actions “in Christ.” He reminds the Cor-
inthians, “in the Lord your labor is not in vain” (1 Cor. 15:58). It is “in the Lord” that
children are to obey their parents (Eph. 6:1), wives are to submit to their husbands (Col.
3:18), and all believers are to be strong (Eph. 6:10), be encouraged (Phil. 2:1), rejoice (Phil.
3:1; 4:4), agree (Phil. 4:2), stand firm (Phil. 4:1; 1 Thess. 3:8), live a godly life (2 Tim.
3:12), and have good behavior (1 Peter 3:16). “In the Lord” they work hard (Rom. 16:12),
are made confident (Phil. 1:14) and are approved (Rom. 16:10). Paul’s hope for Christians
is that they live in Christ: “Just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in
him, rooted and built up in him” (Col. 2:6-7 NIV). Then Paul will achieve his life’s
goal, to “present every man mature in Christ” (Col. 1:28). John similarly encourages
believers to “abide in him” (1 John 2:28; 3:6, 24), echoing Jesus’ words, “He who abides
in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit” (John 15:5).
d. One Body in Christ: We are not simply in Christ as isolated individual persons. Since
Christ is the head of the body, which is the church (Eph. 5:23), all who are in union
with Christ are also related to one another in his body. This joining together makes us
“one body in Christ, and individually members one of another” (Rom. 12:5; 1 Cor. 10:17;
12:12-27). Thus, “If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored,
all rejoice together” (1 Cor. 12:26). The ties of fellowship are so strong that Christians may
only marry “in the Lord” (1 Cor. 7:39). In this body of Christ old hostilities disappear,
sinful divisions among people are broken down, and worldly criteria of status no longer
apply, for “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither
male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28; cf. Eph. 2:13-22).
Because we are one body in Christ, entire churches can be “in Christ” (Gal. 1:22; 1
Thess. 2:14). And the church universal, the church made up of all true believers, is col-
lectively united to Christ as a husband is united to his wife (Eph. 5:31 -32; 1 Cor. 6:17).
Christ’s purpose is to perfect and cleanse and purify the church, so that it might more
completely reflect what he is like and thereby bring glory to him (Eph. 5:25-27).
Yet another metaphor is used in 1 Peter 2:4-5, where believers, in coming to Christ,
are said to be like living stones, built into a spiritual house (see also Eph. 2:20-22). Thus,
they are unified and forever dependent on one another, just as the stones of a building
are united to each other and depend upon each other.
But the boldest analogy of all is used by Jesus, who prays for believers “ that they may
all be one; even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us” (John
17:21). Here Jesus prays that our unity would be like the perfect unity between the Father
and the Son in the Trinity. This is a reminder to us that our unity should be eternal and
perfectly harmonious (as God’s unity is).
But this analogy with the members of the Trinity is very important for another reason:
it warns us against thinking that union with Christ will ever swallow up our individual
personalities. Even though the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have perfect and eternal unity,
yet they remain distinct persons. In the same way, even though we shall someday attain
perfect unity with other believers and with Christ, yet we shall forever remain distinct
persons as well, with our own individual gifts, abilities, interests, responsibilities, circles
of personal relationships, preferences, and desires.
CHAPTER 43 • UNION WITH CHRIST
B. Christ Is in Us
Jesus spoke of a second kind of relationship when he said, “He who abides in me,
and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit” (John 15:5). It is not only true that we are in
Christ; he is also in us, to give us power to live the Christian life. “I have been crucified
with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). The factor
that determines whether someone is a Christian is whether Christ is in him (Rom. 8:10;
2 Cor. 13:5; Rev. 3:20). God’s wise plan, hidden as a mystery for generations, was to save
Gentiles as well as Jews. Therefore, Paul can tell his Gentile readers that God’s mystery is
“ Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27).
It is important to maintain, on the basis of these verses, that there is a real, personal
dwelling of Christ in us, and that this does not mean that we merely agree with Christ
or that his ideas are in us. Rather, he is in us and remains in us through faith (Eph. 3:17;
2 Cor. 13:5). 4 To overlook this truth would be to neglect the great source of spiritual
strength that we have within us (1 John 4:4). To remember it destroys our pride, gives us
a constant feeling of deep dependence on Christ, and gives us great confidence, not in
self, but in Christ working in us (Gal. 2:20; Rom. 15:18; Phil. 4:13).
This indwelling of Christ affects our response to those in need. Whatever we do to
help a Christian brother or sister, we do to Christ (Matt. 25:40). Keeping Jesus’ com-
mandments is an indication that he is in us, and the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us
that Christ is in us (1 John 3:24).
C. We Are Like Christ
A third aspect of union with Christ is our imitation of him. “Be imitators of me, as I
am of Christ,” writes Paul (1 Cor. 11:1). John reminds us, “He who says he abides in him
ought to walk in the same way in which he walked” (1 John 2:6). So union with Christ
implies that we should imitate Christ. Our lives ought so to reflect what his life was like
that we bring honor to him in everything we do (Phil. 1:20).
Thus, the New Testament pictures the Christian life as one of striving to imitate Christ
in all our actions. “Welcome one another, therefore, as Christ has welcomed you” (Rom.
15:7). “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church” (Eph. 5:25). “As the Lord
has forgiven you, so you also must forgive” (Col. 3:13). “He laid down his life for us; and
we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren” (1 John 3:16). Throughout our lives, we
are to run the race before us, “looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith”
(Heb. 13:2; see also Eph. 5:2; Phil. 2:5-11; 1 Thess. 1:6; 1 John 3:7; 4:17). By contrast,
disobedience to Christ holds him up in contempt (Heb. 6:6).
Our imitation of Christ is especially evident in suffering. Christians are called to take
suffering patiently, “because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that
you should follow in his steps” (1 Peter 2:21). Paul’s goal is to “share his [Christ’s] suf-
ferings, becoming like him in his death” (Phil. 3:10; see also 2 Cor. 1:5; 4:8-11; Heb.
12:3; 1 Peter 4:13).
4 See chapter 26, pp. 548, 558, on the way in which Christ’s
divine nature is omnipresent but his hunjan nature is not.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
846
Furthermore, our suffering is connected with sharing in Christs glory when he
returns: “we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Rom.
8:17). This is probably because it is through suffering and difficulty that God makes
us more Christ-like and causes us to grow to maturity in Christ (James 1:2-4; Heb.
5:8-9). Also, since Christ perfectly obeyed his Father even in the face of great suffering,
so our obedience, trust, and patience in suffering more fully portray what Christ was
like, and so bring more honor to him. It gives us great comfort to know that we are only
experiencing what he has already experienced, and that he therefore understands what
we are going through, and listens sympathetically to our prayers (Heb. 2:18; 4:15-16;
12:11). As the outcome of a life of obedience, we are able to share in Christ’s glory: “He
who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I myself conquered and
sat down with my Father on his throne” (Rev. 3:21).
Our imitation of Christ should not be thought of as a mere mimicking of Jesus’ actions,
however. The far deeper purpose is that in imitating him we are becoming more and
more like him: when we act like Christ we become like Christ. We grow up to maturity in
Christ (Eph. 4:13, 15) as we are “being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory
to another” (2 Cor. 3:18). The final result is that we shall become perfectly like Christ,
for God has predestined us “to be conformed to the image of his Son” (Rom. 8:29; 1 Cor.
15:49), and “when he appears, we shall be like him ,y (1 John 3:2). When this happens,
Christ will be fully glorified in us (2 Thess. 1:10- 12; John 17:10).
Yet in all of this we never lose our individual personhood. We become perfectly like
Christ, but we do not become Christ, and we are not absorbed into Christ or lost forever
as individuals. Rather, it is we as real individuals who shall still know as we are known
(1 Cor. 13:12); it is we who shall see him as he is (1 John 3:2); it is we who shall worship
him, and see his face, and have his name on our foreheads, and reign with him for ever
and ever (Rev. 22:3-5).
Just as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are exactly like one another in character
(John 14:7, 9), yet remain distinct persons, so we can become more and more like
Christ and still be distinct individuals with different gifts and different functions (Eph.
4:15-16; 1 Cor. 12:4-27). In fact, the more like Christ we become, the more truly
ourselves we become (Matt. 10:39; John 10:3; Rev. 2:17; Ps. 37:4). If we forget this, we
will tend to neglect the diversity of gifts in the church and will want to make everyone
like ourselves. We will also tend to deny any ultimate importance for ourselves as
individuals. A proper biblical perspective will allow each believer to say not only, “We
Christians are important to Christ,” but also, “/ am important to Christ: he knows my
name, he calls me by name, he gives me a new name which is mine alone” (John 10:3;
Rev. 2:17).
D. We Are With Christ
1. Personal Fellowship With Christ. Another aspect of union with Christ concerns
our personal fellowship with him. It makes little difference whether we say that we are
with Christ or that Christ is with us, for both phrases represent the same truth. Christ
promised, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst
of them” (Matt. 18:20), and, “I am with you always, to the close of the age” (Matt.
CHAPTER 43 • UNION WITH CHRIST
28:20). Once again, since Jesus’ human body ascended to heaven (John 16:7; 17:11;
Acts 1:9-11), these verses must speak of his divine nature being present with us. Yet
it is still a very personal presence, in which we work together with Christ (2 Cor. 6:1),
we know him (Phil. 3:8, 10), we are comforted by him (2 Thess. 2:16- 17), we are taught
by him (Matt. 11:29), and we live our whole lives in his presence (2 Cor. 2:10; 1 Tim.
5:21; 6:13-14; 2 Tim. 4:1). To become a Christian is to be “called into the fellowship
of [God’s] Son, Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Cor. 1:9). Yet this fellowship can vary in
intensity, since Paul’s benediction on Christians, “The Lord be with you all” (2 Thess.
3:16; cf. 2 Tim. 4:22) can only express a hope for still closer fellowship with Christ and
a deeper awareness of his presence.
Furthermore, in some sense yet imperceptible to us, when we come to worship we
now come into heaven itself, to “innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the
assembly of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven, and to a judge who is God of
all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new cov-
enant” (Heb. 12:22-24). This participation in heavenly worship is what the Apostles’
Creed calls the “communion of saints,” and what a familiar hymn calls “mystic, sweet
communion with those whose rest is won.” 5 Hebrews 12 does not seem to suggest that
we have a conscious awareness of being in the presence of this heavenly assembly, but
it may indicate that those now in heaven witness our worship and rejoice in it, and it
certainly implies that we can have a joyful awareness that our praise is being heard in
God’s temple in heaven.
In all our prayers now we are heard by Jesus and have fellowship with him (1 John
1:3), our great high priest, who has entered “into heaven itself, now to appear in the pres-
ence of God on our behalf” (Heb. 9:24; 4:16). Our fellowship with him will be greater
yet when we die (2 Cor. 5:8; Phil. 1:23; 1 Thess. 5:10), and even greater still once Jesus
returns (1 Thess. 4:17; 1 John3:2). It gives us great joy to know that Christ actually desires
to have us with him (John 17:24).
Our fellowship with Christ also brings us into fellowship with each other. John writes,
That which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you may have fel-
lowship with us; and our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ”
(1 John 1:3).
2. Union With the Father and With the Holy Spirit. This last verse suggests a final aspect
of union with Christ. Because we are in union with Christ in these several relationships,
we also are brought into union with the Father and with the Holy Spirit. We are in the
Father (John 17:21; 1 Thess. 1:1; 2 Thess. 1:1; 1 John 2:24; 4:15- 16; 5:20) and in the Holy
Spirit (Rom. 8:9; 1 Cor. 3:16; 6:19; 2 Tim. 1:14). The Father is in us (John 14:23) and the
Holy Spirit is in us (Rom. 8:9, 11). We are like the Father (Matt. 5:44-45, 48; Eph. 4:32;
Col. 3:10; 1 Peter 1:15-16) and like the Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:4-6; Gal. 5:22-23; John
16:13). We have fellowship with the Father (1 John 1:3; Matt. 6:9; 2 Cor. 6:16-18) and
with the Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:16; Acts 15:28; 2 Cor. 13:14; Eph. 4:30).
5 This phrase is taken from the hymn, “The Church’s One
Foundation ” written in 1866 by SamuelJ. Stone.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
848
These additional relationships are not blurred into a distinctionless, mystical ecstasy,
however. Both now and in eternity we relate to the Father in his distinct role as our heav-
enly Father, to the Son in his distinct role as our Savior and Lord, and to the Holy Spirit
in his distinct role as the Spirit who empowers us and continually applies to us all the
benefits of our salvation.
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1 . Before reading this chapter, had you thought of yourself as being united with Christ
from the point of God’s choosing you before the foundation of the world to the
point of going to be with him in heaven forever? How does this idea change the way
you think of yourself and your own life? How does it affect the way you think of
difficulties that you may be experiencing at this time? In what ways can the ideas
of having died with Christ and having been raised with him be an encouragement
in your present efforts to overcome sin that remains in your life?
2. Have you previously thought of doing the actions that you do each day “in Christ”
(see Phil. 4:13)? If you thought of doing the reading that you are presently doing
“in Christ,” how would it change your attitude or perspective? What difference
would it make to think of doing your daily work “in Christ” ? What about carrying
on conversations with friends or family members? Or eating, or even sleeping?
3. How can the idea of union with Christ increase your love and fellowship for other
Christians, both those in your church and those in other churches?
4. Do you have any awareness in your day-to-day life of Christ living in you (Gal.
2:20)? What would change in your life if you had a stronger awareness of Christ
living in you throughout the day?
5. For one or two days, try reading some section of the gospels and asking how you
might better imitate Christ in your own life. What effect will the idea of follow-
ing in Christ’s steps (1 Peter 1:21) and walking as he walked (1 John 2:6) have in
your life?
6. Can you name some times in your life when you have sensed an especially close
personal fellowship with Christ? What have those times been like? Can you think
of anything that brought about that close fellowship with Christ? What can we do
to increase the intensity of our daily fellowship with Christ?
7. In your personal experience, do you relate differently to God the Father, to
Jesus Christ, and to the Holy Spirit? Can you describe those differences, if there
are any?
SPECIAL TERMS
being raised with Christ
dying with Christ
in Christ
mystical union
one body in Christ
communion of saints
union with Christ
CHAPTER 43 • UNION WITH CHRIST
849
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter 1,
pp. 38-39. Complete bibliographical data maybe found on pp. 1224-30.)
Note: This topic has not received explicit treatment in many systematic theologies,
but the subjects mentioned in this chapter have been treated in a variety of ways under
different topics.
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1882-92 Litton, 328-30
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
(no explicit treatment)
3. Baptist
1907 Strong, 795 -809
1917 Mullins, 409 - 16
1983 - 85 Erickson, 948 - 54
4. Dispensational
1949 Thiessen, 278 -82
5. Lutheran
(no explicit treatment)
6. Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1878 Dabney, 612- 17
1937-66 Murray, RAA, 161-73
1938 Berkhof, 447 -53
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
(No explicit treatment.)
Other Works
Baker, J. P. “Union With Christ.” In NDT, pp. 697-99.
Gordon, Adoniram Judson. In Christ; or the Believer’s Union with His Lord. 1872; reprint.
Grand Rapids: Baker, 1964. (First published in 1872.)
Murray, John. “Union with Christ.” In Redemption Accomplished and Applied. Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1955, pp. 161-73.
Poythress, Vern. “Using Multiple Thematic Centers in Theological Synthesis: Holiness as
a Test Case in Developing a Pauline Theology.” Unpublished manuscript available
from the Campus Bookstore, Westminster Theological Seminary, P.O. Box 27009,
Philadelphia, PA 191 18.
Smedes, Lewis B. Union With Christ: A Biblical View of the New Life in Jesus Christ. 2d ed.
Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983.
Walvoord, J. F. “Identification With Christ.” In EDT, p. 542.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
850
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
Galatians 2:20 : 1 have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who
lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me
and gave himself for me.
HYMN
“Jesus, Thou Joy of Loving Hearts”
This hymn has been attributed to Bernard of Clairvaux (1090- 1153), a monk known
for his love of God and deep piety. Other hymns attributed to him are “Jesus, the Very
Thought of Thee” and “O Sacred Head Now Wounded.” Though written eight hundred
years ago, this hymn remains one of the most beautiful expressions of love for Christ in
the history of the church.
Jesus, thou joy of loving hearts,
Thou fount of life, thou light of men,
From the best bliss that earth imparts
We turn unfilled to thee again.
Thy truth unchanged hath ever stood;
Thou savest those that on thee call;
To them that seek thee thou art good,
To them that find thee all in all.
We taste thee, O thou living bread,
And long to feast upon thee still;
We drink of thee, the fountain-head,
And thirst our souls from thee to fill.
Our restless spirits yearn for thee,
Where’er our changeful lot is cast;
Glad when thy gracious smile we see,
Blest when our faith can hold thee fast.
O Jesus, ever with us stay,
Make all our moments calm and bright;
Chase the dark night of sin away,
Shed o’er the world thy holy light.
AUTHOR: BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX, C. 1150
THE DOCTRINE
OF THE CHURCH
Chapter
THE CHURCH: ITS
NATURE, ITS MARKS,
AND ITS PURPOSES
What is necessary to make a church ?
How can we recognize a true church?
The purposes of the church.
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
A. The Nature of the Church
1. Definition: The church is the community of all true believers for all time. This defi-
nition understands the church to be made of all those who are truly saved. Paul says,
“Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Eph. 5:25). Here the term “the
church” is used to apply to all those whom Christ died to redeem, all those who are saved
by the death of Christ. But that must include all true believers for all time, both believ-
ers in the New Testament age and believers in the Old Testament age as well. 1 So great
is God’s plan for the church that he has exalted Christ to a position of highest authority
for the sake of the church: “He has put all things under his feet and has made him the
head over all things for the church , which is his body, the fulness of him who fills all in
all” (Eph. 1:22-23).
Jesus Christ himself builds the church by calling his people to himself. He promised,
“I will build my church” (Matt. 16:18). And Luke is careful to tell us that the growth of
the church came not by human effort alone, but that “the Lord added to their number day
by day those who were being saved” (Acts 2:47). But this process whereby Christ builds
the church is just a continuation of the pattern established by God in the Old Testament
l See section 5 below for a discussion of the dispensational position on that question, though it should be pointed out
view that the church and Israel must be thought of as dis- that many evangelicals who agree with much of the rest of
tinct groups. In this book, I have taken a non- dispensational this book will differ with me on this particular question.
853
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
854
whereby he called people to himself to be a worshiping assembly before him. There are sev-
eral indications in the Old Testament that God thought of his people as a “church,” a people
assembled for the purpose of worshiping God. When Moses tells the people that the Lord
said to him, “ Gather the people to me y that I may let them hear my words, so that they may
learn to fear me all the days that they live upon the earth . . ” (Deut. 4:10), the Septuagint
translates the word for “gather” (Heb. qdhal) with the Greek term ekklesiazo , “to summon
an assembly,” the verb that is cognate to the New Testament noun ekklesia , “church.” 2
It is not surprising, then, that the New Testament authors can speak of the Old Testa-
ment people of Israel as a “church” (ekklesia). For example, Stephen speaks of the people
of Israel in the wilderness as “the church ( ekklesia ) in the wilderness” (Acts 7:38, authors
translation). And the author of Hebrews quotes Christ as saying that he would sing praise
to God in the midst of the great assembly of Gods people in heaven: “In the midst of
the church ( ekklesia ) I will sing praise to you” (Heb. 2:12, author’s translation, quoting
Ps. 22:22).
Therefore the author of Hebrews understands the present-day Christians who consti-
tute the church on earth to be surrounded by a great “cloud of witnesses” (Heb. 12:1) that
reaches back into the earliest eras of the Old Testament and includes Abel, Enoch, Noah,
Abraham, Sarah, Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets
(Heb. 11:4-32). All these “witnesses” surround the present-day people of God, and it
seems only appropriate that they, together with the New Testament people of God, should
be thought of as Gods great spiritual “assembly” or “church.” 3 Moreover, later in chapter
12 the author of Hebrews says that when New Testament Christians worship we come
into the presence of “the assembly (lit. “church,” Gk. ekklesia) of the first-born who are
enrolled in heaven.” This emphasis is not surprising in light of the fact that the New Tes-
tament authors see Jewish believers and Gentile believers alike to be now united in the
church. Together they have been made “one” (Eph. 2:14), they are “one new man” (v. 15)
and “fellow citizens” (v. 19), and “members of the household of God” (v. 19).
Therefore, even though there are certainly new privileges and new blessings that are
given to the people of God in the New Testament, both the usage of the term “church”
2 In fact, the Greek word ekklesia, the term translated Theology, 4:39). However, the extensive use of the word ekkl-
“church” in the New Testament, is the word that the Septuagint esia in the Septuagint to refer to assemblies not of pagan mobs
most frequently uses to translate the Old Testament term qahal, but specifically of God’s people certainly must be taken into
the word used to speak of the “congregation” or the “assembly” account in understanding the meaning of the word when used
of God’s people. Ekklesia translates qahal, “assembly,” 69 times by New Testament authors. The Septuagint was the Bible that
in the Septuagint. The next most frequent translation is syna- they most commonly used, and they are certainly using the
goge, “synagogue” or “meeting, place of meeting” (37 times). word ekklesia with awareness of its Old Testament content.
Chafer objects to this analysis, for he says that the Sep- This would explain why Luke can so easily record Stephen as
tuagint use of the word ekklesia does not reflect the New referring to the “church” in the wilderness with Moses and
Testament meaning of the word “church” but is a common yet many times in the surrounding chapters in Acts speak of
term for an “assembly.” Therefore we should not call the the growth of the “church” after Pentecost with no indication
“assembly” in the theater at Ephesus a church (Acts 19:32) that there is any difference in meaning intended. The New
even though the word ekklesia is used there to refer to that Testament church is an assembly of God’s people that simply
group of people. Similarly, when Stephen refers to Israel in continues in the pattern of assemblies of God’s people found
the wilderness (Acts 7:38) as an ekklesia, it does not imply that throughout the Old Testament.
he thinks of it as a “church” but only an assembly of people. 3 The Greek word ekklesia, translated “church” in the New
Chafer sees this usage of the term as different from its distinc- Testament, simply means “assembly.”
tive New Testament meaning to refer to the church (Systematic
CHAPTER 44 * THE NATURE AND PURPOSES OF THE CHURCH
855
in Scripture and the fact that throughout Scripture God has always called his people
to assemble to worship himself, indicate that it is appropriate to think of the church as
constituting all the people of God for all time, both Old Testament believers and New
Testament believers. 4
2. The Church Is Invisible, Yet Visible. In its true spiritual reality as the fellowship
of all genuine believers, the church is invisible. This is because we cannot see the
spiritual condition of people’s hearts. We can see those who outwardly attend the
church, and we can see outward evidences of inward spiritual change, but we cannot
actually see into people’s hearts and view their spiritual state — only God can do that.
This is why Paul says, “The Lord knows those who are his ” (2 Tim. 2:19). Even in our
own churches and our own neighborhoods, only God knows who are true believers
with certainty and without error. In speaking of the church as invisible the author
of Hebrews speaks of the “assembly (literally, “church”) of the first-born who are
enrolled in heaven” (Heb. 12:23), and says that present-day Christians join with that
assembly in worship.
We can give the following definition: The invisible church is the church as God sees it
Both Martin Luther and John Calvin were eager to affirm this invisible aspect of the
church over against the Roman Catholic teaching that the church was the one visible
organization that had descended from the apostles in an unbroken line of succession
(through the bishops of the church). The Roman Catholic Church had argued that only
in the visible organization of the Roman Church could we find the one true church,
the only true church. Even today such a view is held by the Roman Catholic Church. In
their “Pastoral Statement for Catholics on Biblical Fundamentalism” issued March 25,
1987, the (United States) National Conference of Catholic Bishops Ad Hoc Committee
4 For a discussion of the question of whether there remains the Qumran community), crass materialism (the tax collec-
a distinction between “the church” and “Israel” as two separate tors and others for whom wealth was a false god), or political
peoples of God, see section 5 below. or military activism (the Zealots and others who sought salva-
Millard Erickson, Christian Theology, p. 1048, argues that tion through political or military means). Though there were
the church does not start until Pentecost because Luke does no doubt genuine believers among many or all of these groups,
not use the word “church” ( ekklesia ) in his gospel, but uses it the nation as a whole did not constitute an assembly of people
twenty-four times in Acts. If the church existed before Pen- who worshiped God rightly.
tecost, he reasons, why did Luke not speak of it before that Moreover, the idea of a people of God newly “called out” as
time? Yet the reason Luke did not use the word “church” to an assembly to follow Christ first came to fruition on the day
speak of the people of God during Jesus’ earthly ministry is of Pentecost. Therefore, although the “church” in the sense
probably because there was no clearly defined or visible group of the group of all who truly believed in God did exist before
to which it could refer during lesus’ earthly ministry. The true the day of Pentecost, it came to much clearer visible expres-
church did exist in the sense that it consisted of all true believ- sion on the day of Pentecost, and it is natural that Luke should
ers in Israel during that time, but this was such a small rem- begin to use the name “the church” at that point. Before that
nant of faithful Jews (such as Joseph and Mary, Zechariah and point the name “church” could not have referred to any clearly
Elizabeth, Simeon, Anna, and others like them), that it was established entity apart from the nation of Israel as a whole;
not an outwardly evident or well-defined group at all. Large after Pentecost, however, it readily could be used to refer to
segments of the Jewish population had strayed from God and those who willingly and visibly identified themselves with this
had substituted other kinds of religious activities, such as new people of God.
legalism (the Pharisees), unbelieving “liberalism” (the Sad- We should also note that Jesus did use the word “church”
ducees), speculative mysticism (those who wrote or believed ( ekklesia ) twice in Matthew’s gospel (16:18 and 18:17).
apocalyptic literature and followers of* sects such as those in
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
856
on Biblical Fundamentalism criticized evangelical Christianity (which it called “biblical
fundamentalism”) primarily because it took people away from the one true church:
The basic characteristic of biblical fundamentalism is that it eliminates from
Christianity the church as the Lord Jesus founded it There is no mention
of the historic, authoritative church in continuity with Peter and the other
apostles. ... A study of the New Testament . . . demonstrates the importance
of belonging to the church started by Jesus Christ. Christ chose Peter and the
other apostles as foundations of his church. . . . Peter and the other apostles have
been succeeded by the bishop of Rome and the other bishops, and . . . the flock
of Christ still has, under Christ, a universal shepherd. 5
In response to that kind of teaching both Luther and Calvin disagreed. They said
that the Roman Catholic Church had the outward form, the organization, but it was
just a shell. Calvin argued that just as Caiaphas (the high priest at the time of Christ)
was descended from Aaron but was no true priest, so the Roman Catholic bishops had
“descended” from the apostles in a line of succession but they were not true bishops in
Christ’s church. Because they had departed from the true preaching of the gospel, their
visible organization was not the true church. Calvin said, “This pretense of succession is
vain unless their descendants conserve safe and uncorrupted the truth of Christ which
they have received at their fathers’ hands, and abide in it See what value this succes-
sion has, unless it also include a true and uninterrupted emulation on the part of the
successors!” 6
On the other hand, the true church of Christ certainly has a visible aspect as well. We
may use the following definition: The visible church is the church as Christians on earth
see it. In this sense the visible church includes all who profess faith in Christ and give
evidence of that faith in their lives. 7
In this definition we do not say that the visible church is the church as any person in
the world (such as an unbeliever or someone who held heretical teachings) might see it,
but we mean to speak of the church as it is perceived by those who are genuine believers
and have an understanding of the difference between believers and unbelievers.
When Paul writes his epistles he writes to the visible church in each community: “To
the church of God which is at Corinth” (1 Cor. 1:2); “To the church of the Thessalonians”
(1 Thess. 1:1); “To Philemon . . . and Apphia . . . and Archippus . . . and the church in
your house” (Philem. 1-2). Paul certainly realized that there were unbelievers in some
of those churches, some who had made a profession of faith that was not genuine, who
appeared to be Christians but would eventually fall away. Yet neither Paul nor anyone
else could tell with certainty who those people were. Paul simply wrote to the entire
church that met together in any one place. In this sense, we could say today that the vis-
5 The full text of the Bishops’ statement can be obtained
from the National Catholic News Service, 1312 Massachusetts
Avenue NW, Washington, D.C. 20005. The text was published in
“Pastoral Statement for Catholics on Biblical Fundamentalism,”
in Origins vol. 17:21 (Nov. 5, 1987), pp. 376-77.
6 John Calvin, Institutes 4.2.2 -3, pp. 1043, 1045.
7 Both Calvin and Luther would add the third qualifica-
tion that those who are considered part of the visible church
must partake of the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s
Supper. Others might consider this as a subcategory of the
requirement that people give evidence of faith in their life.
CHAPTER44 • THE NATURE AND PURPOSES OF THE CHURCH
857
ible church is the group of people who come together each week to worship as a church
and profess faith in Christ.
The visible church throughout the world will always include some unbelievers, and
individual congregations will usually include some unbelievers, because we cannot see
hearts as God sees them. Paul speaks of “Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have swerved
from the truth” and who “are upsetting the faith of some” (2 Tim. 2:17-18). But he is
confident that “The Lord knows those who are his” (2 Tim. 2:19). Paul says with sor-
row, “Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica”
(2 Tim. 4:10).
Similarly, Paul warns the Ephesian elders that after his departure “fierce wolves will
come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise
men speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them” (Acts 20:29-30).
Jesus himself warned, “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but
inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits” (Matt. 7:15-16). Real-
izing this distinction between the church invisible and the church visible, Augustine said
of the visible church, “Many sheep are without and many wolves are within.” 8
When we recognize that there are unbelievers in the visible church, there is a danger
that we may become overly suspicious. We may begin to doubt the salvation of many true
believers and thereby bring great confusion into the church. Calvin warned against this
danger by saying that we must make a “charitable judgment” whereby we recognize as
members of the church all who “by confession of faith, by example of life, and by partak-
ing of the sacraments, profess the same God and Christ with us.” 9 We should not try to
exclude people from the fellowship of the church until they by public sin bring discipline
upon themselves. On the other hand, of course, the church should not tolerate in its
membership “public unbelievers” who by profession or life clearly proclaim themselves
to be outside the true church.
3. The Church Is Local and Universal. In the New Testament the word “church” may
be applied to a group of believers at any level, ranging from a very small group meeting
in a private home all the way to the group of all true believers in the universal church.
A “house church” is called a “church” in Romans 16:5 (“greet also the church in their
house ”), 1 Corinthians 16:19 (“Aquila and Prisca, together with the church in their house,
send you hearty greetings in the Lord”). The church in an entire city is also called “a
church” (1 Cor. 1:2; 2 Cor. 1:1; and 1 Thess. 1:1). The church in a region is referred to as
a “church” in Acts 9:31: “So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had
peace and was built up.” 10 Finally, the church throughout the entire world can be referred
to as “the church.” Paul says, “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Eph.
8 Quoted in John Calvin, Institutes 4.1.8 (p. 1022).
9 John Calvin, Institutes , 4.1.8 (pp. 1022-23).
10 There is a textual variant among the Greek manuscripts
of Acts 9:31, with some manuscripts having “the church”
and some having “the churches.” The singular reading “the
church” is far preferable to the variant that has the plural. The
singular reading is given a “B” probability (next to highest
degree of probability) in the United Bible Societies* text. The
singular is represented by many early and diverse texts while
the plural reading is found in the Byzantine text tradition
but in no texts before the fifth century A.D. (In order for the
grammar to be consistent, six words have to be changed in the
Greek text; therefore the variant is an intentional alteration in
one direction or the other.)
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
858
5:25) and says, “God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third
teachers . . (1 Cor. 12:28). In this latter verse the mention of “apostles,” who were not
given to any individual church, guarantees that the reference is to the church universal.
We may conclude that the group of Gods people considered at any level from local
to universal may rightly be called “a church.” We should not make the mistake of saying
that only a church meeting in houses expresses the true nature of the church, or only a
church considered at a city-wide level can rightly be called a church, or only the church
universal can rightly be called by the name “church.” Rather, the community of God’s
people considered at any level can be rightly called a church.
4. Metaphors for the Church. 11 To help us understand the nature of the church, Scripture
uses a wide range of metaphors and images to describe to us what the church is like. 12
There are several family images — for example, Paul views the church as a family when
he tells Timothy to act as if all the church members were members of a larger family: “Do
not rebuke an older man but exhort him as you would a father; treat younger men like
brothers, older women like mothers, younger women like sisters, in all purity” (1 Tim.
5:1-2). God is our heavenly Father (Eph. 3:14), and we are his sons and daughters, for
God says to us, “I will be a father to you, and you shall be my sons and daughters, says
the Lord Almighty” (2 Cor. 6:18). We are therefore brothers and sisters with each other in
God’s family (Matt. 12:49-50; 1 John 3:14-18). A somewhat different family metaphor
is seen when Paul refers to the church as the bride of Christ He says that the relationship
between a husband and wife “refers to Christ and the church” (Eph. 5:32), and he says
that he brought about the engagement between Christ and the church at Corinth and
that it resembles an engagement between a bride and her husband- to-be: “I betrothed
you to one husband, that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin” (2 Cor. 11:2
NASB) — here Paul is looking forward to the time of Christ’s return as the time when the
church will be presented to him as his bride.
In other metaphors Scripture compares the church to branches on a vine (John 15:5),
an olive tree (Rom. 11:17-24), a field of crops (1 Cor. 3:6-9), a building (1 Cor. 3:9), and
a harvest (Matt. 13:1-30; John 4:35). The church is also viewed as a new temple not built
with literal stones but built with Christian people who are “living stones” (1 Peter 2:5)
built up on the “cornerstone” who is Christ Jesus (1 Peter 2:4-8). Yet the church is not
only a new temple for worship of God; it is also a new group of priests, a “holy priesthood”
that can offer “spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God” (1 Peter 2:5). We are also viewed as
God’s house: “And we are his house” (Heb. 3:6), with Jesus Christ himself viewed as the
“builder” of the house (Heb. 3:3). The church is also viewed as “the pillar and bulwark of
the truth ” (1 Tim. 3:15).
Finally, another familiar metaphor views the church as the body of Christ (1 Cor.
12:12-27). We should recognize that Paul in fact uses two different metaphors of the
human body when he speaks of the church. In 1 Corinthians 12 the whole body is taken as
n For more discussion of this topic see Edmund P. Clowney, 12 The list of metaphors given in this section is not intended
“Interpreting the Biblical Models of the Church,” in Biblical to be exhaustive.
Interpretation and the Church , ed. by D. A. Carson (Nashville:
Thomas Nelson, 1985), pp. 64-109.
CHAPTER44 • THE NATURE AND PURPOSES OF THE CHURCH
859
a metaphor for the church, because Paul speaks of the “ear” and the “eye” and the “sense
of smell” (1 Cor. 12:16-17). In this metaphor, Christ is not viewed as the head joined
to the body, because the individual members are themselves the individual parts of the
head. Christ is in this metaphor the Lord who is “outside” of that body that represents
the church and is the one whom the church serves and worships.
But in Ephesians 1:22-23; 4:15-16, and in Colossians 2:19, Paul uses a different body
metaphor to refer to the church. In these passages Paul says that Christ is the head and
the church is like the rest of the body ; as distinguished from the head: “We are to grow up in
every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and
knit together by every joint with which it is supplied, when each part is working properly,
makes bodily growth and upbuilds itself in love” (Eph. 4:15- 16). 13 We should not con-
fuse these two metaphors in 1 Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 4, but keep them distinct.
The wide range of metaphors used for the church in the New Testament should remind
us not to focus exclusively on any one. For example, while it is true that the church is
the body of Christ, we must remember that this is only one metaphor among many. If
we focus exclusively on that metaphor we will be likely to forget that Christ is our Lord
reigning in heaven as well as the one who dwells among us. Certainly we should not agree
to the Roman Catholic view that the church is the “continuing incarnation” of the Son
of God on earth today. The church is not the Son of God in the flesh, for Christ rose in
his human body, he ascended in his human body into heaven, and he now reigns as the
incarnate Christ in heaven, one who is clearly distinct from the church here on earth.
Each of the metaphors used for the church can help us to appreciate more of the rich-
ness of privilege that God has given us by incorporating us into the church. The fact that
the church is like a family should increase our love and fellowship with one another. The
thought that the church is like the bride of Christ should stimulate us to strive for greater
purity and holiness, and also greater love for Christ and submission to him. The image
of the church as branches in a vine should cause us to rest in him more fully. The idea of
an agricultural crop should encourage us to continue growing in the Christian life and
obtaining for ourselves and others the proper spiritual nutrients to grow. The picture of
the church as God’s new temple should increase our awareness of God’s very presence
dwelling in our midst as we meet. The concept of the church as a priesthood should help
us to see more clearly the delight God has in the sacrifices of praise and good deeds that
we offer to him (see Heb. 13:15-16). The metaphor of the church as the body of Christ
should increase our interdependence on one another and our appreciation of the diver-
sity of gifts within the body. Many other applications could be drawn from these and
other metaphors for the church listed in Scripture.
5. The Church and Israel. Among evangelical Protestants there has been a difference of
viewpoint on the question of the relationship between Israel and the church. This ques-
tion was brought into prominence by those who hold to a “dispensational” system of
theology. The most extensive systematic theology written by a dispensationalist, Lewis
13 This second metaphor is not even a complete or “proper” the idea of the church as a body, and the idea that we grow to
metaphor, for bodily parts do not grow up into the head, but maturity in Christ, and he combines them into one complex
Paul is mixing the idea of Christs headship (or authority), statement.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
860
Sperry Chafer’s Systematic Theology, 14 points out many distinctions between Israel and
the church, and even between believing Israel in the Old Testament and the church in
the New Testament. 15 Chafer argues that God has two distinct plans for the two different
groups of people that he has redeemed: God’s purposes and promises for Israel are for
earthly blessings , and they will yet be fulfilled on this earth at some time in the future.
On the other hand, God’s purposes and promises for the church are for heavenly blessings ,
and those promises will be fulfilled in heaven. This distinction between the two different
groups that God saves will especially be seen in the millennium, according to Chafer, for
at that time Israel will reign on earth as God’s people and enjoy the fulfillment of Old
Testament promises, but the church will already have been taken up into heaven at the
time of Christ’s secret return for his saints (“the rapture”). On this view, the church did
not begin until Pentecost (Acts 2). And it is not right to think of Old Testament believers
together with New Testament believers as constituting one church.
While Chafer’s position continues to have influence in some dispensational circles,
and certainly in more popular preaching, a number of leaders among more recent dis-
pensationalists have not followed Chafer in many of these points. Several current dis-
pensational theologians, such as Robert Saucy, Craig Blaising, and Darrell Bock, refer to
themselves as “progressive dispensationalists,” 16 and they have gained a wide following.
They would not see the church as a parenthesis in God’s plan but as the first step toward
the establishment of the kingdom of God. On a progressive dispensational view, God
does not have two separate purposes for Israel and the church, but a single purpose — the
establishment of the kingdom of God — in which Israel and the church will both share.
Progressive dispensationalists would see no distinction between Israel and the church
in the future eternal state, for all will be part of the one people of God. Moreover, they
would hold that the church will reign with Christ in glorified bodies on earth during the
millennium (see the discussion of the millennium in chapter 55).
However, there is still a difference between progressive dispensationalists and the rest
of evangelicalism on one point: they would say that the Old Testament prophecies concern-
ing Israel will still be fulfilled in the millennium by ethnic Jewish people who will believe in
Christ and live in the land of Israel as a “model nation” for all nations to see and learn
from. Therefore they would not say that the church is the “new Israel” or that all the Old
Testament prophecies about Israel will be fulfilled in the church, for these prophecies will
yet be fulfilled in ethnic Israel.
14 Lewis Sperry Chafer, Systematic Theology. Although
there are several other distinctive doctrines that usually
characterize dispensationalists, the distinction between Israel
and the church as two groups in God’s overall plan is probably
the most important. Other doctrines held by dispensationalists
usually include a pretribulational rapture of the church into
heaven (see chapter 54), a future literal fulfillment of Old Tes-
tament prophecies concerning Israel, the dividing of biblical
history into seven periods or “dispensations” of God’s ways of
relating to his people, and an understanding the church age as
a parenthesis in God’s plan for the ages, a parenthesis insti-
tuted when the Jews largely rejected Jesus as their Messiah.
However, many present-day dispensationalists would qualify
or reject several of these other distinctives. Dispensationalism
as a system began with the writings of J. N. Darby (1800- 1882)
in Great Britain, but was popularized in the USA through the
Scofield Reference Bible.
15 Chafer, Systematic Theology ; 4:45-53.
16 See Robert L. Saucy, The Case for Progressive Dispensa-
tionalism (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1993), and Darrell L.
Bock and Craig A. Blaising, eds., Progressive Dispensationalism
(Wheaton: Victor, 1993). See also John S. Feinberg, ed., Conti-
nuity and Discontinuity: Perspectives on the Relationship Between
the Old and New Testaments (Wheaton: Crossway, 1988).
CHAPTER44 • THE NATURE AND PURPOSES OF THE CHURCH
The position taken in this book differs quite a bit from Chafer’s views on this issue
and also differs somewhat with progressive dispensationalists. However, it must be said
here that questions about the exact way in which biblical prophecies about the future will
be fulfilled are, in the nature of the case, difficult to decide with certainty, and it is wise
to have some tentativeness in our conclusions on these matters. With this in mind, the
following may be said.
Both Protestant and Catholic theologians outside of the dispensational position have
said that the church includes both Old Testament believers and New Testament believers
in one church or one body of Christ. Even on the nondispensational view, a person may
hold that there will be a future large-scale conversion of the Jewish people (Rom. 11:12,
15, 23-24, 25-26, 28-31), 17 yet that this conversion will only result in Jewish believers
becoming part of the one true church of God — they will be “grafted back into their own
olive tree” (Rom. 11:24).
With regard to this question, we should notice the many New Testament verses that
understand the church as the “new Israel” or new “people of God.” The fact that “Christ
loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Eph. 5:25) would suggest this. Moreover,
this present church age, which has brought the salvation of many millions of Christians
in the church, is not an interruption or a parenthesis in God’s plan, 18 but a continuation
of his plan expressed throughout the Old Testament to call a people to himself. Paul says,
“For he is not a real Jew who is one outwardly, nor is true circumcision something exter-
nal and physical. He is a Jew who is one inwardly > and real circumcision is a matter of the
heart, spiritual and not literal” (Rom. 2:28-29). Paul recognizes that though there is a
literal or natural sense in which people who physically descended from Abraham are to
be called Jews, there is also a deeper or spiritual sense in which a “true Jew” is one who
is inwardly a believer and whose heart has been cleansed by God.
Paul says that Abraham is not only to be considered the father of the Jewish people in
a physical sense. He is also in a deeper and more true sense “the father of all who believe
without being circumcised . . . and likewise the father of the circumcised who are not
merely circumcised but also follow the example of the faith which our father Abraham
had” (Rom. 4:11 - 12; cf. vv. 16, 18). Therefore Paul can say, “not all who are descended
from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his
descendants ... it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the
children of the promise are reckoned as descendants” (Rom. 9:6-8). Paul here implies
that the true children of Abraham, those who are in the most true sense “Israel,” are
not the nation of Israel by physical descent from Abraham but those who have believed
in Christ. Those who truly believe in Christ are now the ones who have the privilege
of being called “my people” by the Lord (Rom. 9:25, quoting Hos. 2:23); therefore, the
church is now God’s chosen people. This means that when Jewish people according to
the flesh are saved in large numbers at some time in the future, they will not constitute
17 See chapter 54, pp. 1099 and 1104, where I affirm the con-
viction that Rom. 9-11 teaches a future large-scale conversion
of the Jewish people, even though I am not a dispensationalist
in the commonly understood sense of that term.
18 Chafer s term is “an intercalation,” meaning an inser-
tion of a period of time into a previously planned schedule or
calendar of events (p. 41). Here Chafer says, “The present age
of the church is an intercalation into the revealed calendar or
program of God as that program was foreseen by the prophets
of old ”
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
862
a separate people of God or be like a separate olive tree, but they will be “grafted back
into their own olive tree” (Rom. 11:24). Another passage indicating this is Galatians 3:29:
“And if you are Christs, then you are Abraham s offspring, heirs according to promise.”
Similarly, Paul says that Christians are the “true circumcision” (Phil. 3:3).
Far from thinking of the church as a separate group from the Jewish people, Paul
writes to Gentile believers at Ephesus telling them that they were formerly “alienated
from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise” (Eph.
2:12), but that now they have been “brought near in the blood of Christ” (Eph. 2:13).
And when the Gentiles were brought into the church, Jews and Gentiles were united
into one new body. Paul says that God “has made us both one , and has broken down the
dividing wall of hostility . . . that he might create in himself one new man in place of the
two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross”
(Eph. 2:14-16). Therefore Paul can say that Gentiles are “ fellow citizens with the saints
and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and
prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone” (Eph. 2:19-20). With his extensive
awareness of the Old Testament background to the New Testament church, Paul can still
say that “the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body” (Eph. 3:6). The entire
passage speaks strongly of the unity of Jewish and Gentile believers in one body in Christ
and gives no indication of any distinctive plan for Jewish people ever to be saved apart
from inclusion in the one body of Christ, the church. The church incorporates into itself
all the true people of God, and almost all of the titles used of Gods people in the Old
Testament are in one place or another applied to the church in the New Testament.
Hebrews 8 provides another strong argument for seeing the church as the recipient, and
the fulfillment, of the Old Testament promises concerning Israel. In the context of speak-
ing about the new covenant to which Christians belong, the author of Hebrews gives an
extensive quotation from Jeremiah 31:31-34, in which he says, “The days will come, says
the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of
Judah This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days,
says the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I
will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Heb. 8:8-10). Here the author quotes
the Lord’s promise that he will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with
the house of Judah y and says that that is the new covenant that has now been made with
the church . That new covenant is the covenant of which believers in the church are now
members. It seems hard to avoid the conclusion that the author views the church as the
true Israel of God in which the Old Testament promises to Israel find their fulfillment.
Similarly, James can write a general letter to many early Christian churches and say
that he is writing “To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion” (James 1:1). This indicates that
he is evidently viewing New Testament Christians as the successors to and fulfillment of
the twelve tribes of Israel.
Peter also speaks in the same way. From the first verse in which he calls his readers
“exiles of the Dispersion” (1 Peter 1:1) 19 to the next-to-last verse in which he calls the city
19 The “Dispersion” was a term used to refer to the
Jewish people scattered abroad from the land of Israel and
living throughout the ancient Mediterranean world.
CHAPTER 44 • THE NATURE AND PURPOSES OF THE CHURCH
of Rome “Babylon” (1 Peter 5:13), Peter frequently speaks of New Testament Christians
in terms of Old Testament imagery and promises given to the Jews. This theme comes to
prominence in 1 Peter 2:4-10, where 20 Peter says that God has bestowed on the church
almost all the blessings promised to Israel in the Old Testament. The dwelling-place
of God is no longer the Jerusalem temple, for Christians are the new “temple” of God
(v. 5). The priesthood able to offer acceptable sacrifices to God is no longer descended
from Aaron, for Christians are now the true “royal priesthood” with access before
God’s throne (vv. 4-5, 9). God’s chosen people are no longer said to be those physi-
cally descended from Abraham, for Christians are now the true “chosen race” (v. 9). The
nation blessed by God is no longer said to be the nation of Israel, for Christians are now
God’s true “holy nation” (v. 9). The people of Israel are no longer said to be the people of
God, for Christians — both Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians — are now “God’s
people” and those who have “received mercy” (v. 10). Moreover, Peter takes these quota-
tions from contexts in the Old Testament that repeatedly warn that God will reject his
people who persist in rebellion against him and who reject the precious “cornerstone” (v.
6) that he has established. What further statement could be needed in order for us to say
with assurance that the church has now become the true Israel of God and will receive
all the blessings promised to Israel in the Old Testament? 21
6. The Church and the Kingdom of God. What is the relationship between the church
and the kingdom of God? The differences have been summarized well by George Ladd:
The Kingdom is primarily the dynamic reign or kingly rule of God, and, deriva-
tively, the sphere in which the rule is experienced. In biblical idiom, the King-
dom is not identified with its subjects. They are the people of God’s rule who
enter it, live under it, and are governed by it. The church is the community of the
Kingdom but never the Kingdom itself. Jesus’ disciples belong to the Kingdom
as the Kingdom belongs to them; but they are not the Kingdom. The Kingdom
is the rule of God; the church is a society of men. 22
Ladd goes on to summarize five specific aspects of the relationship between the kingdom
and the church: (1) The church is not the kingdom (for Jesus and the early Christians
preached that the kingdom of God was near, not that the church was near, and preached
the good news of the kingdom, not the good news of the church: Acts 8:12; 19:8; 20:25;
28:23, 31). (2) The kingdom creates the church (for as people enter into God’s kingdom
they become joined to the human fellowship of the church). (3) The church witnesses
to the kingdom (for Jesus said, “this gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout
the whole world,” Matt. 24:14). (4) The church is the instrument of the kingdom (for the
Holy Spirit, manifesting the power of the kingdom, works through the disciples to heal
the sick and cast out demons, as he did in the ministry of Jesus: Matt. 10:8; Luke 10:17).
20 The remainder of this paragraph is largely taken from
Wayne Grudem, The First Epistle of Peter, p. 113.
21 A dispensationalist may grant at this point that the
church has been the recipient of many applications of Old Tes-
tament prophecies concerning Israel, but that the true fulfill-
ment of these promises will yet come in the future for ethnic
Israel. But with all these evident New Testament examples of
clear application of these promises to the church, there does
not seem to be any strong reason to deny that this really is the
only fulfillment that God is going to give for these promises.
22 George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament,
p. 111.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
864
(5) The church is the custodian of the kingdom (for the church has been given the keys
of the kingdom of heaven: Matt. 16:19). 23
Therefore we should not identify the kingdom of God and the church (as in Roman
Catholic theology), nor should we see the kingdom of God as entirely future, something
distinct from the church age (as in older dispensational theology). Rather, we should
recognize that there is a close connection between the kingdom of God and the church.
As the church proclaims the good news of the kingdom, people will come into the church
and begin to experience the blessings of Gods rule in their lives. The kingdom manifests
itself through the church, and thereby the future reign of God breaks into the present (it
is “already” here: Matt. 12:28; Rom. 14:17; and “not yet” here fully: Matt. 25:34; 1 Cor.
6:9- 10). Therefore those who believe in Christ will begin to experience something of
what God’s final kingdom reign will be like: they will know some measure of victory over
sin (Rom. 6:14; 14:17), over demonic opposition (Luke 10:17), and over disease (Luke
10:9). They will live in the power of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 12:28; Rom. 8:4-17; 14:17),
who is the dynamic power of the coming kingdom. Eventually Jesus will return and his
kingdom reign will extend over all creation (1 Cor. 15:24-28).
B. The “Marks” of the Church (Distinguishing Characteristics)
1. There Are True Churches and False Churches. What makes a church a church? What
is necessary to have a church? Might a group of people who claim to be Christians become
so unlike what a church should be that they should no longer be called a church?
In the early centuries of the Christian church, there was little controversy about what
was a true church. There was only one world-wide church, the “visible” church through-
out the world, and that was, of course, the true church. This church had bishops and local
clergymen and church buildings which everyone could see. Any heretics who were found
to be in serious doctrinal error were simply excluded from the church.
But at the Reformation a crucial question came up: how can we recognize a true
church? Is the Roman Catholic Church a true church or not? In order to answer that
question people had to decide what were the “marks” of a true church, the distinguishing
characteristics that lead us to recognize it as a true church. Scripture certainly speaks of
false churches. Paul says of the pagan temples in Corinth, “What pagans sacrifice they
offer to demons and not to God” (1 Cor. 10:20). He tells the Corinthians that “when
you were heathen, you were led astray to dumb idols” (1 Cor. 12:2). These pagan temples
were certainly false churches or false religious assemblies. Moreover, Scripture speaks of
a religious assembly that is really a “synagogue of Satan” (Rev. 2:9; 3:9). Here the risen
Lord Jesus seems to be referring to Jewish assemblies that claim to be Jews but were not
true Jews who had saving faith. Their religious assembly was not an assembly of Christ s
people but of those who still belonged to the kingdom of darkness, the kingdom of Satan.
This also would certainly be a false church.
In large measure there was agreement between Luther and Calvin on the question
of what constituted a true church. The Lutheran statement of faith, which is called the
23 These five points are summarized from Ladd, Theology,
pp. 111-19.
CHAPTER 44 • THE NATURE AND PURPOSES OF THE CHURCH
865
Augsburg Confession (1530), defined the church as “the congregation of saints in which
the gospel is rightly taught and the Sacraments rightly administered” (Article 7). 24 Simi-
larly, John Calvin said, “Wherever we see the Word of God purely preached and heard,
and the sacraments administered according to Christ’s institution, there, it is not to be
doubted, a church of God exists.” 25 Although Calvin spoke of the pure preaching of the
Word (whereas the Lutheran Confession spoke of the right preaching of the gospel) and
although Calvin said that the Word must not only be preached but heard (whereas the
Augsburg Confession merely mentioned that it had to be rightly taught), their under-
standing of the distinguishing marks of a true church is quite similar. 26 In contrast to
the view of Luther and Calvin regarding the marks of a church, the Roman Catholic
position has been that the visible church that descended from Peter and the apostles is
the true church.
It seems appropriate that we take Luther and Calvins view on the marks of a true
church as correct still today. Certainly if the Word of God is not being preached, but
simply false doctrines or doctrines of men, then there is no true church. In some cases
we might have difficulty determining just how much wrong doctrine can be tolerated
before a church can no longer be considered a true church, but there are many clear cases
where we can say that a true church does not exist. For example, the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter Day Saints (the Mormon Church) does not hold to any major Christian
doctrines concerning salvation or the person of God or the person and work of Christ.
It is clearly a false church. Similarly, the Jehovah’s Witnesses teach salvation by works,
not by trusting in Jesus Christ alone. This is a fundamental doctrinal deviation because
if people believe the teachings of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, they simply will not be saved.
So the Jehovah’s Witnesses also must be considered a false church. When the preaching
of a church conceals the gospel message of salvation by faith alone from its members, so
that the gospel message is not clearly proclaimed, and has not been proclaimed for some
time, the group meeting there is not a church.
The second mark of the church, the right administration of the sacraments (bap-
tism and the Lord’s Supper) was probably stated in opposition to the Roman Catholic
view that saving grace came through the sacraments and thereby the sacraments were
made “works” by which we earned merit for salvation. In this way, the Roman Catholic
Church was insisting on payment rather than teaching faith as the means of obtaining
salvation.
But another reason exists for including the sacraments as a mark of the church. Once
an organization begins to practice baptism and the Lord’s Supper, it is a continuing
organization and is attempting to function as a church. (In modern American society, an
organization that begins to meet for worship and prayer and Bible teachings on Sunday
mornings also would clearly be attempting to function as a church.)
Baptism and the Lord’s Supper also serve as “membership controls” for the church.
Baptism is the means for admitting people into the church, and the Lord’s Supper is
the means for allowing people to give a sign of continuing in the membership of the
24 Quoted from Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, 26 Later confessions sometimes added a third mark of the
pp. 11-12. church (the right exercise of church discipline), but neither
25 Calvin, Institutes 4.1.9 (p. 1023). , Luther nor Calvin themselves listed this mark.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
church the church signifies that it considers those who receive baptism and the Lord’s
Supper to be saved. Therefore these activities indicate what a church thinks about salva-
tion, and they are appropriately listed as a mark of the church today as well. By contrast,
groups who do not administer baptism and the Lord’s Supper signify that they are not
intending to function as a church. Someone may stand on a street corner with a small
crowd and have true preaching and hearing of the Word, but the people there would
not be a church. Even a neighborhood Bible study meeting in a home can have the true
teaching and hearing of the Word without becoming a church. But if a local Bible study
began baptizing its own new converts and regularly participating in the Lord’s Supper,
these things would signify an intention to function as a church , and it would be difficult
to say why it should not be considered a church in itself . 27
True and False Churches Today. In view of the question posed during the Reforma-
tion, what about the Roman Catholic Church today? Is it a true church? Here it seems
that we cannot simply make a decision regarding the Roman Catholic Church as a whole,
because it is far too diverse. To ask whether the Roman Catholic Church is a true church
or a false church today is somewhat similar to asking whether Protestant churches are
true or false today — there is great variety among them. Some Roman Catholic parishes
certainly lack both marks: there is no pure preaching of the Word and the gospel mes-
sage of salvation by faith in Christ alone is not known or received by people in the parish.
Participation in the sacraments is seen as a ‘work” that can earn merit with God. Such a
group of people is not a true Christian church. On the other hand, there are many Roman
Catholic parishes in various parts of the world today where the local priest has a genuine
saving knowledge of Christ and a vital personal relationship with Christ in prayer and
Bible study. His own homilies and private teaching of the Bible place much emphasis on
personal faith and the need for individual Bible reading and prayer. His teaching on the
sacraments emphasizes their symbolic and commemorative aspects much more than
it speaks of them as acts that merit some infusion of saving grace from God. In such a
case, although we would have to say that we still have profound differences with Roman
Catholic teaching on some doctrines , 28 nonetheless, it would seem that such a church
would have a close enough approximation to the two marks of the church that it would
be hard to deny that it is in fact a true church. It would seem to be a genuine congrega-
tion of believers in which the gospel is taught (though not purely) and the sacraments are
administered more rightly than wrongly.
Are there false churches within Protestantism? If we again look at the two distinguish-
ing marks of the church, in the judgment of this present writer it seems appropriate to
say that many liberal Protestant churches are in fact false churches today . 29 Is the gospel
27 The Salvation Army is an unusual case because it does not
observe baptism or the Lord's Supper, yet it seems in every other
way to be a true church. In this case the organization has sub-
stituted other means of signifying membership and continuing
participation in the church, and these other means of signify-
ing membership provide a substitute for baptism and the Lord s
Supper in terms of “membership controls.”
28 Significant doctrinal differences would still include mat-
ters such as the continuing sacrifice of the mass, the authority
of the pope and the church councils, the veneration of the Vir-
gin Mary and her role in redemption, the doctrine of purga-
tory, and the extent of the biblical canon.
29 A similar conclusion was expressed by J. Gresham
Machen as long ago as 1923: “The Church of Rome may
CHAPTER 44 * THE NATURE AND PURPOSES OF THE CHURCH
867
of works-righteousness and unbelief in Scripture that these churches teach any more
likely to save people than did Roman Catholic teaching at the time of the Reformation?
And is not their administration of the sacraments without sound teaching to anyone
who walks in the door likely to give as much false assurance to unregenerate sinners as
did the Roman Catholic use of the sacraments at the time of the Reformation? When
there is an assembly of people who take the name “Christian” but consistently teach that
people cannot believe their Bibles — indeed a church whose pastor and congregation
seldom read their Bibles or pray in any meaningful way, and do not believe or perhaps
even understand the gospel of salvation by faith in Christ alone, then how can we say
that this is a true church? 30
C. The Purposes of the Church
We can understand the purposes of the church in terms of ministry to God, ministry
to believers, and ministry to the world.
1. Ministry to God: Worship. In relationship to God the church’s purpose is to worship
him. Paul directs the church at Colossae to “sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs
with thankfulness in your hearts to God” (Col. 3:16). God has destined us and appointed
us in Christ “to live for the praise of his glory” (Eph. 1:12). Worship in the church is not
merely a preparation for something else: it is in itself fulfilling the major purpose of the
church with reference to its Lord. That is why Paul can follow an exhortation that we are
to be “making the most of the time” with a command to be filled with the Spirit and then
to be “singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart” (Eph. 5:16-19).
2. Ministry to Believers: Nurture. According to Scripture, the church has an obligation
to nurture those who are already believers and build them up to maturity in the faith.
Paul said that his own goal was not simply to bring people to initial saving faith but to
“present every man mature in Christ ” (Col. 1:28). And he told the church at Ephesus
that God gave the church gifted persons “to equip the saints for the work of ministry,
for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the
knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the
fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:12-13). It is clearly contrary to the New Testament pattern to
think that our only goal with people is to bring them to initial saving faith. Our goal as a
church must be to present to God every Christian “mature in Christ” (Col. 1:28).
3. Ministry to the World: Evangelism and Mercy. Jesus told his disciples that they should
“make disciples of all nations” (Matt. 28:19). This evangelistic work of declaring the gos-
represent a perversion of the Christian religion; but naturalistic
liberalism is not Christianity at all” ( Christianity and Liberalism
[Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1923], p. 52).
30 In the next chapter we shall discuss the question of the
purity of the church. Although Christians should not volun-
tarily associate with a false church, we must recognize that
among true churches there are more-pure and less-pure
churches (see discussion in chapter 45, below). It is also impor-
tant to note here that some liberal Protestant denominations
today can have many false churches within the denomination
(churches where the gospel is not preached or heard) and still
have some local congregations that preach the gospel clearly
and faithfully and are true churches.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
868
pel is the primary ministry that the church has toward the world. 31 Yet accompanying
the work of evangelism is also a ministry of mercy, a ministry that includes caring for the
poor and needy in the name of the Lord. Although the emphasis of the New Testament
is on giving material help to those who are part of the church (Acts 11:29; 2 Cor. 8:4; 1
John 3:17), there is still an affirmation that it is right to help unbelievers even if they do
not respond with gratitude or acceptance of the gospel message. Jesus tells us,
Love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and
your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for he is kind
to the ungrateful and the selfish. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.
(Luke 6:35-36)
The point of Jesus’ explanation is that we are to imitate God in being kind to those who
are being ungrateful and selfish as well. Moreover, we have the example of Jesus who
did not attempt to heal only those who accepted him as Messiah. Rather, when great
crowds came to him, “he laid his hands on every one of them and healed them” (Luke
4:40). This should give us encouragement to carry out deeds of kindness, and to pray for
healing and other needs, in the lives of unbelievers as well as believers. Such ministries
of mercy to the world may also include participation in civic activities or attempting
to influence governmental policies to make them more consistent with biblical moral
principles. In areas where there is systematic injustice manifested in the treatment of the
poor and/or ethnic or religious minorities, the church should also pray and — as it has
opportunity — speak against such injustice. All of these are ways in which the church
can supplement its evangelistic ministry to the world and indeed adorn the gospel that
it professes. But such ministries of mercy to the world should never become a substi-
tute for genuine evangelism or for the other areas of ministry to God and to believers
mentioned above.
4. Keeping These Purposes in Balance. Once we have listed these three purposes for the
church someone might ask, Which is most important? Or someone else might ask, Might
we neglect one of these three as less important than the others?
To that we must respond that all three purposes of the church are commanded by the
Lord in Scripture; therefore all three are important and none can be neglected. In fact, a
strong church will have effective ministries in all three of these areas. We should beware
of any attempts to reduce the purpose of the church to only one of these three and to say
that it should be our primary focus. In fact, such attempts to make one of these purposes
primary will always result in some neglect of the other two. A church that emphasizes
only worship will end up with inadequate Bible teaching of believers and its members
will remain shallow in their understanding of Scripture and immature in their Christian
lives. If it also begins to neglect evangelism the church will cease to grow and influence
others; it will become ingrown and eventually begin to wither.
31 1 do not mean to say that evangelism is more impor-
tant than worship or nurture, but only that it is our primary
ministry towards the world.
CHAPTER44 ■ THE NATURE AND PURPOSES OF THE CHURCH
869
A church that places the edification of believers as a purpose that takes precedence
over the other two will tend to produce Christians who know much Bible doctrine but
have spiritual dryness in their lives because they know little of the joy of worshiping God
or telling others about Christ.
But a church that makes evangelism such a priority that it causes the other two pur-
poses to be neglected will also end up with immature Christians who emphasize growth
in numbers but have less and less genuine love for God expressed in their worship and
less and less doctrinal maturity and personal holiness in their lives. All three purposes
must be emphasized continually in a healthy church.
However, individuals are different from churches in placing a relative priority on one
or another of these purposes of the church. Because we are like a body with diverse
spiritual gifts and abilities, it is right for us to place most of our emphasis on the fulfill-
ment of that purpose of the church that is most closely related to the gifts and interests
God has given to us. There is certainly no obligation for every believer to attempt to give
exactly one third of his or her time in the church to worship, one-third to nurturing other
believers, and one-third to evangelism or deeds of mercy. Someone with the gift of evan-
gelism should of course spend some time in worship and caring for other believers, but
may end up spending the vast majority of his or her time in evangelistic work. Someone
who is a gifted worship leader may end up devoting 90 percent of his time in the church
toward preparation for and leading of worship. This is only an appropriate response to
the diversity of gifts that God has given us.
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. When you think of the church as the invisible fellowship of all true believers
throughout all time, how does it affect the way you think of yourself as an indi-
vidual Christian? In the community in which you live, is there much visible unity
among genuine believers (that is, is there much visible evidence of the true nature
of the invisible church)? Does the New Testament say anything about the ideal size
for an individual church?
2. Would you consider the church that you are now in to be a true church? Have you
ever been a member of a church that you would think to be a false church? Do you
think there is any harm done when evangelical Christians continue to give the
impression that they think liberal Protestant churches are true Christian churches?
Viewed from the perspective of the final judgment, what good and what harm
might come from our failure to state that we think unbelieving churches are false
churches?
3. Did any of the metaphors for the church give you a new appreciation for the church
that you currently attend?
4. To which purpose of the church do you think you can most effectively contribute?
Which purpose has God placed in your heart a strong desire to fulfill?
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
870
SPECIAL TERMS
body of Christ
church
ekklesia
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter 1,
PP* 38-39. Complete bibliographical data may be found on pp. 1224-30.)
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1882-92 Litton, 363-86
1930 Thomas, 265 - 80
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1875-76
Pope, 3:259-87
1892-94
Miley, 2:385-94
1940
Wiley, 3:103-17, 126-27
1960
Purkiser, 393 -408
1983
Carter, 2:571-613
3. Baptist
1767
Gill, 2:558-74
1887
Boyce, 1:418-22
1907
Strong, 887-94
1976-83
Henry, 4:524-92
1983-85
Erickson, 1025-68
4. Dispensational
1947
Chafer, 4:30-153
1949
Thiessen, 305-13, 326-32
1986
Ryrie, 391-404,435 - 36
5. Lutheran
1917-24
Pieper, 3:397-425
1934
Mueller, 541 -56
6. Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1559
Calvin, 2:1009- 52 (4.1-2)
1861
Heppe, 657-70
1937-66
Murray, CW, 1:231-52; CW , ;
1938
Berkhof, 555-78
1962
Buswell, 2:216-26; 1:418-24
invisible church
marks of the church
visible church
CHAPTER 44 • THE NATURE AND PURPOSES OF THE CHURCH
871
7. Renewal (or charismatic/Pentecostal)
1988-92 Williams, 3:15-157
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
1. Roman Catholic: Traditional
1955 Ott, 270-324
2. Roman Catholic: Post-Vatican II
1980 McBrien, 2:565-730
Other Works
Banks, Robert J. Paul's Idea of Community: The Early House Churches in Their Historical
Setting. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980.
Bannerman, James. The Church of Christ. Cherry Hill, N.J.: Mack Publishing, 1972. (First
published in 1869.)
Berkouwer, G. C. The Church. Trans, by James E. Davidson. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1976.
Bock, Darrell L., and Craig A. Blaising, eds. Progressive Dispensationalism. Wheaton:
Victor, 1993.
Carson, D. A., ed. Biblical Interpretation and the Church: Text and Context. Exeter:
Paternoster, 1984.
. The Church in the Bible and the World. Grand Rapids: Baker, and Exeter:
Paternoster, 1987.
Clowney, Edmund. “Church” In NDT, pp. 140-43.
. The Doctrine of the Church. Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1969.
Feinberg, John S., ed. Continuity and Discontinuity: Perspectives on the Relationship Between
the Old and New Testaments. Wheaton: Crossway, 1988.
Gaffin, Richard B. “Kingdom of God.” In NDT, pp. 367-69.
Ladd, George Eldon. “The Kingdom and the Church.” In A Theology of the New Testament.
Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974, pp. 105-19.
Martin, Ralph P. The Family and the Fellowship: New Testament Images of the Church.
Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979.
Omanson, R. L. “Church, The.” In EDT, pp. 231-33.
Poythress, Vern. Understanding Dispensationalists. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1987.
Saucy, Robert. The Case for Progressive Dispensationalism. Grand Rapids: Zondervan,
1993.
. The Church in God's Program. Chicago: Moody, 1972.
Snyder, Howard A. The Community of the King. Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity
Press, 1977.
VanGemeren, Willem. The Progress of Redemption. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1988.
Watson, David C. I Believe in the Church. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
872
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
Ephesians 4:11—13: And his gifts were that some should be apostles, some prophets, some
evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for build-
ing up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of
the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.
HYMN
“The Church’s One Foundation”
The church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord;
She is his new creation by water and the Word:
From heav’n he came and sought her to be his holy bride;
With his own blood he bought her, and for her life he died.
Elect from ev’ry nation, yet one o’er all the earth,
Her charter of salvation one Lord, one faith, one birth;
One holy name she blesses, partakes one holy food.
And to one hope she presses, with ev’ry grace endued.
Though with a scornful wonder men see her sore oppressed,
By schisms rent asunder, by heresies distressed,
Yet saints their watch are keeping, their cry goes up, “How long?”
And soon the night of weeping shall be the morn of song.
The church shall never perish! Her dear Lord to defend.
To guide, sustain and cherish, is with her to the end;
Though there be those that hate her, and false sons in her pale,
Against or foe or traitor she ever shall prevail.
’Mid toil and tribulation, and tumult of her war.
She waits the consummation of peace forevermore;
Til with the vision glorious her longing eyes are blest.
And the great church victorious shall be the church at rest.
Yet she on earth hath union with God the Three in One,
And mystic sweet communion with those whose rest is won:
O happy ones and holy! Lord, give us grace that we,
Like them, the meek and lowly, on high may dwell with thee.
AUTHOR: SAMUEL J. STONE, 1866
Chapter
THE PURITY AND UNITY
OF THE CHURCH
What makes a church more or less pleasing
to God ? What kinds of churches should
we cooperate with or join?
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
A. More Pure and Less Pure Churches
In the previous chapter we saw that there are “true churches” and “false churches .”
In this chapter a further distinction must be made: there are more pure and less pure
churches.
This fact is evident from a brief comparison of Paul’s epistles. When we look at Phi-
lippians or 1 Thessalonians we find evidence of Paul’s great joy in these churches and
the relative absence of major doctrinal or moral problems (see Phil. 1:3-11; 4:10-16;
1 Thess. 1:2-10; 3:6-10; 2 Thess. 1:3-4; 2:13; cf. 2 Cor. 8:1-5). On the other hand,
there were all sorts of serious doctrinal and moral problems in the churches of Galatia
(Gal. 1:6-9; 3:1-5) and Corinth (1 Cor. 3:1-4; 4:18-21; 5:1-2, 6; 6:1-8; 11:17-22;
14:20-23; 15:12; 2 Cor. 1:23-2:11; 11:3-5, 12-15; 12:20-13:10). Other examples could
be given, but it should be clear that among true churches there are less pure and more pure
churches. This maybe represented as in figure 45.1.
False Churches True Churches
1 less more
pure pure
AMONG TRUE CHURCHES, THERE ARE LESS PURE
AND MORE PURE CHURCHES
Figure 45. 1
873
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
B. Definitions of Purity and Unity
We may define the purity of the church as follows: The purity of the church is its degree
of freedom from wrong doctrine and conduct , and its degree of conformity to God’s revealed
will for the church.
As we shall see in the following discussion, it is right to pray and work for the
greater purity of the church. But purity cannot be our only concern, or Christians
would have a tendency to separate into tiny groups of very “pure” Christians and tend
to exclude anyone who showed the slightest deviation in doctrine or conduct of life.
Therefore the New Testament also speaks frequently about the need to strive for the
unity of the visible church. This may be defined in the following way: The unity of the
church is its degree of freedom from divisions among true Christians.
The definition specifies “true Christians” because, as we saw in the previous chapter,
there are those who are Christian in name only, but have had no genuine experience of
regeneration by the Holy Spirit. Nonetheless, many of these people take the name “Chris-
tian” and many churches that are filled with such unbelievers still call themselves Chris-
tian churches. We should not expect or work for organizational or functional unity that
includes all of those people, and therefore there will never be unity with all churches that
call themselves “Christian.” But, as we shall also see in the following discussion, the New
Testament certainly encourages us to work for the unity of all true believers.
C. Signs of a More Pure Church
Factors that make a church “more pure” include:
1. Biblical doctrine (or right preaching of the Word)
2. Proper use of the sacraments (or ordinances)
3. Right use of church discipline
4. Genuine worship
5. Effective prayer
6. Effective witness
7. Effective fellowship
8. Biblical church government
9. Spiritual power in ministry
10. Personal holiness of life among members
11. Care for the poor
12. Love for Christ
There may be other signs than these, but at least these can be mentioned as factors
that increase a church’s conformity to God’s purposes. Of course, churches can be more
pure in some areas and less pure in others — a church may have excellent doctrine and
sound preaching, for example, yet be a dismal failure in witness to others or in meaning-
ful worship. Or a church may have a dynamic witness and very God-honoring times of
worship but be weak in doctrinal understanding and Bible teaching.
Most churches will tend to think that the areas in which they are strong are the most
important areas, and the areas where they are weak are less important. But the New Tes-
CHAPTER 45 * THE PURITY AND UNITY OF THE CHURCH
875
tament encourages us to work for the purity of the church in all of these areas. Christ’s
goal for the church is “ that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing
of water with the word, that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without
spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (Eph.
5:26-27). Paul’s ministry was one of “warning every man and teaching every man in
all wisdom, that we may present every man mature in Christ” (Col. 1:28). Moreover,
Paul told Titus that elders must “be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also
to confute those who contradict it” (Titus 1:9), and he said that false teachers “must be
silenced” (Titus 1:11). Jude urged Christians to “contend for the faith which was once
for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). Proper use of the sacraments is commanded in
1 Corinthians 11:17-34, and right use of church discipline to protect the purity of the
church is required in 1 Corinthians 5:6-7, 12-13.
The New Testament also mentions a number of other factors: we are to strive for
spiritual worship (Eph. 5:18-20; Col. 3:16-17), effective witness (Matt. 28:19-20; John
13:34-35; Acts 2:44-47; 1 John 4:7), proper government of the church (1 Tim. 3:1-13),
spiritual power in ministry (Acts 1:8; Rom. 1:16; 1 Cor. 4:20; 2 Cor. 10:3-4; Gal. 3:3-5;
2 Tim. 3:5; James 5:16), personal holiness (1 Thess. 4:3; Heb. 12:14), care for the poor
(Acts 4:32-35; Rom. 15:26; Gal. 2:10), and love for Christ (1 Peter 1:8; Rev. 2:4). In fact,
all Christians are to “strive to excel in building up the church” (1 Cor. 14:12), an exhorta-
tion that applies not only to an increase in the number of church members, but also (and
in fact primarily) to the “edification” or growth of the church toward Christian maturity.
The force of all of these passages is to remind us that we are to work for the purity of the
visible church.
Of course, if we are to work for the purity of the church, especially of the local church
of which we are a part, we must recognize that this is a process, and that any church of
which we are a part will be somewhat impure in various areas. There were no perfect
churches at the time of the New Testament and there will be no perfect churches until
Christ returns. 1 This means that Christians have no obligation to seek the purest church
they can find and stay there, and then leave it if an even purer church comes to their
attention. Rather, they should find a true church in which they can have effective min-
istry and in which they will experience Christian growth as well, and then should stay
there and minister, continually working for the purity of that church. God will often
bless their prayers and faithful witness and the church will gradually grow in many areas
of purity.
But we must realize that not all churches will respond well to influences that would
bring them to greater purity. Sometimes, in spite of a few faithful Christians within a
church, its dominant direction will be set by others who are determined to lead it on
another course. Unless God graciously intervenes to bring reformation, some of these
churches will become cults, and others will just die and close their doors. But more
commonly these churches will simply drift into liberal Protestantism.
This is recognized by the Westminster Confession of Faith:
“The purest Churches under heaven are subject both to mixture
and error” (25.5).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
876
It is helpful at this point to remember that classical liberal Protestantism is human-
istic, and its approaches are primarily man-centered rather than God-centered. 2 When
a church begins to stray from faithfulness to Christ, this will be evident not only in
the shift to impure doctrine (which can sometimes be concealed from church members
by the use of evasive language) but also in the daily life of the church: its activities, its
preaching, its counseling, and even the casual conversations among members will tend to
become more and more man-centered and less and less God-centered. There will tend to
be a repeated emphasis on the typical kinds of self-help advice given in popular journals
and by secular psychologists. There will be a horizontal orientation as opposed to a verti-
cal or God-centered orientation, there will be fewer and fewer extended times of prayer
and less and less emphasis on the direct application of Scripture to daily situations, but
more emphasis on simply being a caring and sensitive person, and on affirming others
and acting in love toward them. The conversation and activities of the church will have
very little genuine spiritual content — little emphasis on the need for daily prayer for
individual concerns and for forgiveness of sins, little emphasis on daily personal reading
of Scripture, and little emphasis on moment-by-moment trust in Christ and knowing the
reality of his presence in our lives. Where there are admonitions to moral reformation,
these will often be viewed as human deficiencies that people can correct by their own
discipline and effort, and perhaps encouragement from others, but these moral aspects of
life will not primarily be viewed as sin against a holy God, sin which can only effectively
be overcome by the power of the Holy Spirit working within. When such humanistic
emphases become dominant in a church, it has moved far toward the “less-pure” end of
the scale in many of the areas listed above, and it is moving in the direction of becoming
a false church.
D. New Testament Teaching on the Unity of the Church
There is a strong emphasis in the New Testament on the unity of the church. Jesus’
goal is that “there shall be one flock, one shepherd ” (John 10:16), and he prays for all future
believers “that they may all be one” (John 17:21). This unity will be a witness to unbeliev-
ers, for Jesus prays “that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that
you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me” (John 17:23).
Paul reminds the Corinthians that they are “called to be saints together with all those
who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours” (1
Cor. 1:2). Then Paul writes to Corinth, “I appeal to you, brethren, by the name of our
Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and that there be no dissensions among you, but
that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment” (1 Cor. 1:10; cf. v. 13).
He encourages the Philippians, “complete my joy by being of the same mind, having
the same love, being in full accord and of one mind” (Phil. 2:2). He tells the Ephesians that
Christians are to be “eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph.
4:3), and that the Lord gives gifts to the church “for building up the body of Christ, until
2 See the remarkably accurate analysis by J. Gresham
Machen, Christianity and Liberalism (repr. ed., Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1968; first published in 1923), esp. pp. 64-68.
CHAPTER 45 • THE PURITY AND UNITY OF THE CHURCH
877
we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature
manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” (Eph. 4:12-13).
Paul can command the church to live in unity because there already is an actual spiri-
tual unity in Christ which exists among genuine believers. He says, “There is one body
and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord,
one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, who is above all and through all and
in all” (Eph. 4:4-6). And though the body of Christ consists of many members, those
members are all “one body” (1 Cor. 10:17; 12:12-26).
Because they are jealous to protect this unity of the church, the New Testament writers
give strong warnings against those who cause divisions:
I appeal to you, brethren, to take note of those who create dissensions and dif-
ficulties, in opposition to the doctrine which you have been taught; avoid them.
For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. (Rom.
16:17-18)
Paul opposed Peter to his face because he separated from Gentile Christians and began eat-
ing only with Jewish Christians (Gal. 2.T1— 14). Those who promote “strife . . . dissension,
party spirit . . . shall not inherit the kingdom of God” (Gal. 5:20-21). And Jude warns that
those who “set up divisions” are “worldly people, devoid of the Spirit” (Jude 19).
Consistent with this New Testament emphasis on the unity of believers is the fact
that the direct commands to separate from other people are always commands to sepa-
rate from unbelievers, not from Christians with whom one disagrees. When Paul says,
“Therefore come out from them, and be separate from them” (2 Cor. 6:17), it is in support
of his opening command of that section, “Do not be mismated with unbelievers” (2 Cor.
6:14). And Paul tells Timothy that he is to “avoid such people” (2 Tim. 3:5), referring
not to believers but to unbelievers, those who are “lovers of pleasure rather than lovers
of God, holding the form of religion but denying the power of it” (2 Tim. 3:4-5). He
says that these people are “men of corrupt mind and counterfeit faith” (2 Tim. 3:8). Of
course, there is a kind of church discipline that requires separation from an individual
who is causing trouble within the church (Matt. 18:17; 1 Cor. 5:11 - 13), and there may
be other reasons for which Christians conclude that separation is required, 3 but it is
important to note here, in discussing the unity of the church, that there are no direct
New Testament commands to separate from Christians with whom one has doctrinal
differences (unless those differences involve such serious heresy that the Christian faith
itself is denied). 4
These passages on church unity tell us that, in addition to working for the purity of
the visible church, we are also to work for the unity of the visible church. Yet we must real-
ize that such unity does not actually require one worldwide church government over all
Christians. In fact, the unity of believers is often demonstrated quite effectively through
voluntary cooperation and affiliation among Christian groups. Moreover, different types
of ministries and different emphases in ministry may result in different organizations, all
3 See the discussion on reasons for separation in section F heretical teachers who were not proclaiming the true gospel at
below, pp. 879-83. all; see discussion below.
4 2 John 10 forbids Christians to give.a greeting to itinerant
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
878
under the universal headship of Christ as Lord of the church. Therefore the existence of
different denominations, mission boards, Christian educational institutions, college min-
istries, and so forth is not necessarily a mark of disunity of the church (though in some
cases it maybe), for there maybe a great deal of cooperation and frequent demonstrations
of unity among such diverse bodies as these. (I think the modern term parachurch orga-
nization is unfortunate, because it implies that these organizations are somehow “beside”
and therefore “outside of” the church, whereas in reality they are simply different parts
of the one universal church.) Moreover, many Christians argue that there should not be
a worldwide government of the church, because the New Testament pattern of church
government never shows elders having authority over any more than their own local con-
gregations (see chapter 47 below). In fact, even in the New Testament the apostles agreed
that Paul should emphasize missionary work to the Gentiles while Peter would emphasize
missionary work to the Jews (Gal. 2:7), and Paul and Barnabas went their separate ways
for a time because of a disagreement over whether they should take Mark with them (Acts
15:39-40), though certainly they had unity in every other way. 5
E. Brief History of Organizational Separation in the Church
There are sometimes reasons why the outward or visible unity of the church cannot be
maintained. A brief survey of the history of organizational separation in the church may
highlight some of these reasons, 6 and help explain where present-day denominational
divisions came from.
During the first thousand years of the church there was for the most part outward
unity. There had been some minor divisions during controversies with groups like the
Montanists (second century) and the Donatists (fourth century), and there was a minor
separation by some Monophysite churches (fifth and sixth centuries), but the prevailing
sentiment was one of strong opposition to division in the body of Christ. For example,
Irenaeus, a second century bishop, said about those who cause divisions in the church,
“No reformation able to be effected by them will be of great enough importance to
compensate for the damage arising from their schism” (Against Heresies 4.33.7).
The first major division in the church came in A.D. 1054 when the Eastern (now
Orthodox) church separated from the Western (Roman Catholic) church. The reason
was that the pope had changed a church creed simply on his own authority, 7 and the
Eastern church protested that he had no right to do that.
The Reformation in the sixteenth century then separated the Western church into
Roman Catholic and Protestant branches, yet there was often a strong reluctance to cause
5 Scripture hints that Paul was right and Barnabas wrong in 6 From this point to the end of the chapter much of
this controversy, since it tells us that Paul and Silas left Antioch the material has been taken from the article, “Separation,
“being commended by the brethren to the grace of the Lord” Ecclesiastical” by Wayne Grudem, prepared for The Tyndale
(Acts 15:40), whereas nothing similar is said about Barnabas. Encyclopedia of Christian Knowledge (Wheaton, 111.: Tyn-
This incident is simply reported in Acts but is not strong evi- dale House, copyright 1971, but never published). Used by
dence for the appropriateness of diversification of ministry, permission.
since the report of a “sharp contention” (v. 39) between Paul and 7 See the discussion of the filioque clause in chapter 14,
Barnabas indicates that we should not think of them as entirely pp. 246 - 47.
free from fault.
CHAPTER 45 • THE PURITY AND UNITY OF THE CHURCH
879
formal division. Martin Luther wanted to reform the church without dividing it, but he
was excommunicated in 1521. The Anglican (Episcopalian) church did not separate from
Rome, but was excommunicated in 1570; thus it can say, “We suffer schism, we did not
cause it.” On the other hand, there were many Protestants, especially among the Anabap-
tists, who wanted to form churches of believers only, and began as early as 1525 to form
separate churches in Switzerland and then other parts of Europe.
In the centuries following the Reformation, Protestantism splintered into hundreds
of smaller groups. Sometimes leaders of the new groups regretted such divisions: John
Wesley, although he was the founder of Methodism, claimed that he lived and died a
member of the Anglican church. It was often the case that matters of conscience or reli-
gious freedom forced the division, as with the Puritans and many Pietist groups. On the
other hand, sometimes language differences among immigrant groups in America led to
the founding of separate churches.
Have the reasons for separation into different organizations and denominations
always been proper ones? Although there have almost always been strong theological
differences in major church divisions, one fears that too often, especially in more recent
history, the real motives for beginning or maintaining separation have been selfish ones,
and that John Calvin may have been correct in saying, “Pride or self-glorification is the
cause and starting point of all controversies, when each person, claiming for himself
more than he is entitled to have, is eager to have others in his power.” 8 Moreover, he says,
“Ambition has been, and still is, the mother of all errors, of all disturbances and sects.” 9
In the mid-twentieth century the ecumenical movement sought greater organizational
unity among denominations, but without noteworthy success. It by no means received
wholehearted approval or support from evangelicals. On the other hand, since the 1960s,
the growth of the charismatic movement across almost all denominational lines, the
rise of neighborhood Bible study and prayer groups, and a greatly diminished doctrinal
awareness among laypeople, have brought about a remarkable increase in actual unity of
fellowship — even between Protestants and Catholics — at the local level.
Although the previous paragraphs spoke of separation in the sense of (1) the forma-
tion of separate organizations , there are two other, more severe kinds of separation that
should be mentioned: (2) “No cooperation in this case a church or Christian organiza-
tion refuses to cooperate in joint activities with other churches (activities such as evange-
listic campaigns or joint worship services or mutual recognition of ordination). (3) “No
personal fellowship”: this involves the extremely strict avoidance of all personal fellow-
ship with members of another church, and prohibits any joint prayer or Bible study, and
sometimes even ordinary social contact, with members of another church group. We will
discuss the possible reasons for these kinds of separation in the following section.
F. Reasons for Separation
As we examine the motives people have had for church separation throughout history,
and as we compare those motives with the New Testament requirements that we seek
Commentary on 1 Cor. 4:6.
Commentary on Num. 12:1.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
880
both the unity and the purity of the visible church, we can find both right and wrong rea-
sons for separation . Wrong reasons would include such things as personal ambition and
pride, or differences on minor doctrines or practices (doctrinal or behavioral patterns
that would not affect any other doctrine and that would not have a significant effect on
the way one lives the Christian life). 10
On the other hand, there are some reasons for separation that we may consider to be
right (or possibly right, depending on the specific circumstances) . In most cases these
reasons will flow from the need to work for the purity of the church as well as its unity.
These reasons for separation can be considered in three categories: (1) doctrinal reasons;
(2) reasons of conscience; (3) practical considerations. In the following section, I have
listed some situations where it seems to me that Christians would be required to leave a
church. Then I have listed some other situations that seem to me less clear, in which some
Christians may think it wise to leave a church, and others will think it unwise. In these
less-clear cases, I have generally not drawn any conclusions, but simply listed the kinds
of factors that Christians will want to consider.
1. Doctrinal Reasons. A need for separation may arise when the doctrinal position of a
church deviates from biblical standards in a serious way. This deviation maybe in official
statements or in actual belief and practice, insofar as that can be determined. But when
does doctrinal deviation become so serious that it requires withdrawing from a church
or forming a separate church? As we noted above, there are no commands in the New
Testament to separate from any true church, so long as it is still a part of the body of
Christ. Paul's response even to people in erring churches (even in churches like the one
at Corinth, which tolerated serious doctrinal and moral error, and for a time tolerated
some who rejected Paul's apostolic authority) is not to tell faithful Christians to separate
from those churches, but to admonish the churches, work for their repentance, and pray
for them. Of course there are commands to discipline those who cause trouble within
the church, sometimes by excluding them from church fellowship (1 Cor. 5:11-13; 2
Thess. 3:14-15; Titus 3:10-11), but there are no instructions to leave the church and
cause division if this cannot be done immediately (see Rev. 2:14-16, 20-25; cf. Luke
9:50; 11:23).
Second John 10-11, which forbids the receiving of false teachers, makes perhaps the
strongest statement in the entire New Testament: “Do not take him into your house
or welcome him. Anyone who welcomes him shares in his wicked work'' (NIV). But it
should be noted that such a visitor is teaching a serious heresy about the person of Christ,
one that prevents people from having saving faith. (John is talking about anyone who
“does not abide in the doctrine of Christ” and “does not have God” [v. 9].) Moreover,
this verse refers to false teachers, not to all individuals who hold false beliefs, because it
speaks of someone who comes to you and “does not bring this doctrine” (v. 10; cf. v. 7,
“Many deceivers have gone out into the world, men who will not acknowledge the com-
ing of Jesus Christ in the flesh”). John even uses the word antichrist for such teachers.
10 See chapter 1, pp. 29-30, on the differences between major
and minor doctrines.
CHAPTER 45 • THE PURITY AND UNITY OF THE CHURCH
Finally, the greeting John has in mind refers either to an official church greeting or one
that would give an appearance of endorsement of this doctrine, because the prohibition
talks about someone who “ comes to you and does not bring this doctrine ” (v. 10), which
suggests that the person in view is a traveling teacher who comes not to an individual
home but to address the church as a whole. 11
On the principle of separation from unbelievers or from fundamental error that
would involve the denial of the Christian faith, Christians would seem to be required
on doctrinal grounds to withdraw from a church and join or form a new organization
only when the doctrinal error is so serious and so pervasive that the parent church has
become a false church , no longer part of the body of Christ. This would be a church which
is no longer a fellowship of true believers, no longer a true part of the body of Christ, or
no longer a place where those who believe its teachings will find salvation. 12 In the case
of leaving a false church, those who separate will claim that in fact they have not left the
true church, but that they are the true church, and that the parent organization has left
by means of its error. In fact, both Luther and Calvin eventually said that the Roman
Catholic Church was not a true church.
However, even when withdrawal or separation is not absolutely required, many Chris-
tians may find that it is wise or expedient to withdraw before the church has become a
false church, but when serious doctrinal deviation occurs. For instance, some would
argue that doctrinal deviation has become intolerable whenever heretical views on major
doctrines (such as the Trinity, the person of Christ, the atonement, the resurrection,
etc.) can be advocated by a church leader without causing him to be subject to church
discipline or to exclusion from the fellowship of the church. In other cases many would
say that separation should occur when the church as a body publicly approves of some
serious doctrinal or moral error (such as endorsing a doctrinal error in a church creed or
statement of faith). However, other Christians would not think separation to be wise or
expedient in such cases, but would advocate praying and working for revival and refor-
mation within the church, and giving clear public statements of disagreement with any
doctrinal error that has been tolerated. In such cases, those who decide to stay and those
who decide they must leave should both recognize that God may call different Christians
to different roles and ministries, and therefore to different decisions, and we would do
well to give considerable freedom to others to seek God’s wisdom in such a case and to
obey it as they best understand it for their own lives.
2. Matters of Conscience. In the area of conscience, if a Christian had no freedom to
preach or teach as his or her conscience, informed by Scripture, would dictate, it might
be thought that separation was necessary or at least wise. But caution and great humility
are in order here: individual judgment may be distorted, especially if it is not informed
by the consensus of faithful believers throughout history, and by the counsel of believers
in the present.
n See the discussion in John Stott, The Epistles of John, TNTC Confession of Faith adds, “and some have so degenerated, as
(London: Tyndale Press, 1964), pp. 212—15. to become no Churches of Christ, but synagogues of Satan”
12 After saying that “The purist Churches under heaven (25.5).
are subject both to mixture and error,” the Westminster
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
882
Moreover, the command in 2 Corinthians 6:14 not to be yoked together with unbe-
lievers could also require a person to separate if the parent church became so dominated
by those who gave no evidence of saving faith that such “yoking together” could not be
avoided. In this passage the prohibition against being “yoked together” with unbelievers
forbids not mere association or even acceptance of help (cf. Luke 9:50, but also 3 John 7),
but rather the giving up of control over one's activities and the loss of freedom to act in obe-
dience to God , for these restraints are what is implied in the metaphor of being “yoked”
together. Some people might also find it necessary or at least wise to leave a church on
the basis of conscience if staying implied approval of some unbiblical doctrine or prac-
tice within the church, and thereby encouraged others to follow that wrong doctrine or
practice. But others may think it right to stay in the church and voice clear disapproval
of the faulty doctrine.
In other cases, some have argued that it is required to leave a denomination when a
higher governing authority in that denomination, which one has promised to obey, com-
mands an action which is clearly sinful (that is, an action which is clearly contrary to
Scripture). In such a case some would say that leaving the denomination is the only way
to avoid doing either the sinful act which is commanded or the sinful act of disobedience
to those in authority. But this does not seem to be a necessary requirement, for many
Scripture passages could be cited showing that disobedience to a higher authority is not
wrong when one is commanded to sin (see Acts 5:29; Dan. 3:18; 6:10), and that one may
disobey but remain in the parent church until forced out.
3. Practical Considerations. Christians may decide to separate from a parent church if,
after prayerful consideration, it seems that staying in the parent church will very likely
result in more harm than good. This could be because their work for the Lord would
become frustrated and ineffectual due to opposition to it from within the parent church,
or because they would find little or no fellowship with others in that church. Moreover,
some may decide that staying in the church would harm the faith of other believers or
would hinder unbelievers from coming to true faith because their continued affilia-
tion with the parent church would seem to imply approval of false teachings within that
church. Again, Christians might find themselves in situations where they have prayed
and worked for change for some time but there seems to be no reasonable hope for change
in the parent church, perhaps because the present leadership group is resistant to cor-
rection from Scripture, is firmly entrenched, and is self-perpetuating. In all of these
situations much prayer and mature judgment will be required, because withdrawing
from a church, especially by people who have been there a long time or have established
leadership functions in the church, is a serious action.
4. Are There Times When Cooperation and Personal Fellowship Are Prohibited?
Finally, when should Christians take stronger steps than those mentioned above and
engage in the kind of separation that we earlier called “no cooperation” or “no personal
fellowship”? The biblical passages we have looked at seem to require that Christians
practice “no cooperation” in certain activities with another group only when the other
group is an unbelieving one, and then, it seems, only when the unbelieving group shares
CHAPTER 45 - THE PURITY AND UNITY OF THE CHURCH
883
control of the activity (this is implied in the metaphor of being “yoked together” in 2 Cor.
6:14). Of course, it may be found wise or expedient on other grounds to decide not to
cooperate in a particular function, but non-cooperation would not seem to be required
except when the other group is an unbelieving one. Certainly opposition to activities such
as evangelistic campaigns by other true believers would be seen by the New Testament
authors as divisiveness and a failure to demonstrate the unity of the body of Christ. 13
The third and most extreme kind of separation, the avoidance of all personal fellow-
ship with members of another entire church group, is never commanded in the New
Testament. Such an extreme measure of “no fellowship” is only implied in serious cases
of church discipline of individuals, not in cases of differences with entire churches.
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. In what areas is your own church “more pure”? In what areas do you think it is “less
pure”?
2. On a scale of 1 to 10 (1 equals less pure; 10 equals more pure), where would you
rank your church in each of the categories that mark a more-pure church?
3. What do you think that you should be doing in order to work for greater purity in
your own church? Does the fact that you recognize a specific need in the church
mean that God is calling you (rather than someone else) to meet that need?
4. Do you know of other churches in your area that you would consider more pure
than your own? What are the reasons that you might think it right to stay in your
own church even though it may not be the most pure church you know of?
5. Are there marks of a more-pure church that evangelicals generally in this century
have been negligent in emphasizing?
6. Since the first century, do you think that by and large the church has continued
to increase in purity over time? Can you give specific reasons to support your
answer?
7. In your lifetime, what encouraging signs do you see that the church is increasing
in purity? What signs do you see that the church is increasing in unity?
8. In what ways do you think your own local church could grow in unity among its
members?
9. In what ways could your church demonstrate greater unity with other true churches
in the same geographical area? What do you think are the barriers to that unity (if
any)? In what ways could that unity be expressed? What might be the benefits of
such expressions of unity?
13 The New Testament authors would probably also think it New Testament, such as the form of church government, the
tragic that most divisions among Protestants have come about exact nature of Christ’s presence in the Lord’s Supper, and the
or been maintained today because of differences over some of details of the end times. (Many people would want to add to that
the least emphasized and least clearly taught doctrines in the list: differences over the proper subjects for baptism.)
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
884
10. Are you in a church where you have wondered if God would have you leave and join
another church? After reading this chapter, do you now think that you should stay
in your present church or leave it? Has there been significant change for the better
in your church in the last ten years? If you knew that the church were to remain
substantially the same for the next ten years, would you decide to stay now or to
leave it?
1 1 . What are some ways in which the worldwide unity of true believers is already being
expressed and demonstrated? What would the church around the world look like
if there were much greater demonstration of the unity of the church? What would
be the result in the world as a whole?
12. If a community already has several active and effective evangelical churches, is
there any justification for another evangelical denomination to attempt to plant
its own church in that community?
13. Do you think it hinders evangelism and witness to society generally when the pop-
ular culture thinks of unbelieving or false churches and believing churches both
as “Christians”? Can anything be done to change that impression?
14. What kinds of unity and cooperation can appropriately be demonstrated with
believers within the Roman Catholic Church today? What are the limits to such
cooperation?
SPECIAL TERMS
Eastern church unity of the church
purity of the church Western church
separation
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter 1,
pp. 38-39. Complete bibliographical data may be found on pp. 1224-30.)
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1882-92 Litton, 380-86, 413-18
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1875-76 Pope, 3:267-79
1940 Wiley, 3:112-13
1983 Carter, 2:594-95
CHAPTER 45 • THE PURITY AND UNITY OF THE CHURCH
885
3. Baptist
1983-85 Erickson, 1129-46
4. Dispensational
(no explicit treatment)
5. Lutheran
1917-24 Pieper, 3:423-27
1934 Mueller, 556-62
6. Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1559 Calvin, 2:1011-53 (4.1-2)
1861 Heppe, 670 - 72
1887- 1921 Warfield, SSW, 1:299-307
1937-66 Murray, CW, 1:269-91; CW, 2:321-36
1962 Buswell, 1:421-24
7. Renewal (or charismatic/Pentecostal)
1988-92 Williams, 3:25-35
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
1. Roman Catholic: Traditional
1955 Ott, 290-309
2. Roman Catholic: Post-Vatican II
1980 McBrien, 2:854—58
Other Works
Bromiley, G. W. “Unity.” In EDT, pp. 1 127-28.
Carson, Donald A. “Evangelicals, Ecumenism and the Church.” In Evangelical Affirmations.
Ed. by Kenneth S. Kantzer and Carl F. H. Henry. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990,
pp. 347-85.
Puritan and Reformed Studies Conference. Approaches to Reformation of the Church.
London: The Evangelical magazine, 1965. Contains papers by D. W. Marshall, D. P.
Kingdon, J. I. Packer, G. S. R. Cox, S. M. Houghton, and D. M. Lloyd-Jones.
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
Ephesians 4:14-16: So that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried
about with every wind of doctrine, by the cunning of men, by their craftiness in deceitful
wiles. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the
head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every joint with
which it is supplied, when each part is working properly, makes bodily growth and upbuilds
itself in love.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
886
HYMN
“Blest Be the Tie That Binds”
This hymn speaks of the unity or the “tie” that binds the hearts of Christians together
in love. It continues to speak of fellowship as like the fellowship of heaven: it is “like to
that above.” It also speaks of sharing in prayer and concern for each other and bearing of
one another’s burdens. The hymn goes on to speak of our hope that we will one day be
united in “perfect love and friendship” for eternity in heaven.
Blest be the tie that binds
Our hearts in Christian love:
The fellowship of kindred minds
Is like to that above.
Before our Father’s throne
We pour our ardent prayers;
Our fears, our hopes, our aims, are one,
Our comforts and our cares.
We share our mutual woes,
Our mutual burdens bear,
And often for each other flows
The sympathizing tear.
When we asunder part,
It gives us inward pain;
But we shall still be joined in heart,
And hope to meet again.
This glorious hope revives
Our courage by the way,
While each in expectation lives,
And longs to see the day.
From sorrow, toil and pain,
And sin, we shall be free;
And perfect love and friendship reign
Through all eternity.
AUTHOR: JOHN FAWCETT, 1782
Chapter
THE POWER OF THE CHURCH
What kind of authority does the church have?
How should church discipline function?
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
When we look at the powerful governments of the world and at other business and
educational organizations that have great influence, and then consider our local churches,
or even our denominational headquarters, the church may seem to us to be weak and
ineffective. Moreover, when we recognize the rapid growth of evil that is seen daily in
our society, we may wonder if the church has power to make any changes at all.
On the other hand, in some countries the officially recognized church has great influ-
ence on the conduct of national affairs. This was certainly true of the influence of the
Roman Catholic Church in former times in some southern European and Latin Ameri-
can countries (and is still true today to some extent). It was true of the Church of England
in previous centuries, and of John Calvin’s church in Geneva, Switzerland, while he was
alive, and of the church founded by the pilgrims in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in
1620 . Situations like these where the church appears to have great influence cause us to
ask whether Scripture places any limitations on the church’s power.
We may define the power of the church as follows: The power of the church is its
God-given authority to carry on spiritual warfare , proclaim the gospel, and exercise church
discipline.
Although these three areas overlap and could be treated in any order, since the cate-
gory of “spiritual warfare” is the broader category it will be treated first. This perspective
on the church’s power also reminds us that the power of the church, unlike the worldly
influence exercised by human armies and governments, directly affects the spiritual
realm.
887
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
A. Spiritual Warfare
Paul reminds the Corinthians, “For though we live in the world we are not carrying
on a worldly war, for the weapons of our warfare are not worldly but have divine power to
destroy strongholds” (2 Cor. 10:3-4). These weapons, used against demonic forces that
hinder the spread of the gospel and the progress of the church, include such things as
prayer, worship, the authority to rebuke demonic forces, the words of Scripture, faith,
and righteous conduct on the part of the members of the church. (Paul gives further
details about our spiritual conflict and the armor we wear for it in Eph. 6:10- 18.)
When we consider this spiritual power in a broad sense, it certainly includes the power
of the gospel to break through sin and hardened opposition and awaken faith in the
hearts of unbelievers (see Rom. 10:17; James 1:18; 1 Peter 1:23). But this power also
includes spiritual power that will render demonic opposition to the gospel ineffective.
We see examples of this in Acts 13:8-11, where Paul pronounced judgment on Elymas
the magician, who was opposing the preaching of the gospel, and in Acts 16:16-18, where
Paul rebuked an evil spirit in the soothsaying girl who was annoying Paul while he pro-
claimed the gospel. 1 Such spiritual power to defeat evil opposition was seen frequently in
the early church, such as in the freeing of Peter from prison (Acts 12:1 - 17), and perhaps
also in the subsequent judgment on King Herod Agrippa I (Acts 12:20-24). 2
Yet Paul realizes that he can use this spiritual power not only against those outside
the church who oppose the gospel, but also against those within the church who are
active opponents of his apostolic ministry. He says about some arrogant troublemakers
in the church, “I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills, and I will find out not the talk
of these arrogant people but their power. For the kingdom of God does not consist in
talk but in power” (1 Cor. 4:19-20). Such power was not to be trifled with, for it was
the same power of the Holy Spirit that had brought death to Ananias and Sapphira (Acts
5:1 - 11) and blindness to Elymas (Acts 13:8-11). Paul did not wish to use this power in
a judgmental capacity, but he was prepared to do so if necessary. Later he wrote again
to the Corinthians that his actions when present would be as powerful as his letters
when absent (2 Cor. 10:8-11), and he warned those who opposed his authority and had
sinned publicly and not repented, “If I come again I will not spare them — since you
desire proof that Christ is speaking in me For we are weak in him, but in dealing
with you we shall live with him by the power of God” (2 Cor. 13:2-4). He then adds
a final reminder of his reluctance to use this authority, telling them that he is writing
before he comes “in order that when I come I may not have to be severe in my use of
the authority which the Lord has given me for building up and not for tearing down”
(2 Cor. 13:10).
^esus often rebuked demonic spirits that created distur-
bances when he was ministering to people: see Mark 1:23-26;
5:1-13, et al.
2 The text does not specify that Herod’s death was in any
way connected to the “earnest prayer” (Acts 12:5) that was
made for Peter by the church, but the fact that the narrative
about Herod’s death follows immediately upon the story of
his killing James the brother of John with the sword and his
putting Peter in prison certainly hints at the fact that God
intended this as a judgment upon one of the primary enemies
of the church, showing that no opposition could stand against
the progress of the gospel. This understanding is also sup-
ported by the fact that the sentence immediately following the
narrative of Herod’s death is, “But the word of God grew and
multiplied” (Acts 12:24).
CHAPTER 46 • THE POWER OF THE CHURCH
889
Now we may question whether the church today has the same degree of spiritual
power that the apostles Peter or Paul did. Certainly there is a distinction between the
apostles and the other early Christians even in the book of Acts (note that immediately
after the death of Ananias and Sapphira “many signs and wonders” were done “by the
hands of the apostles,” but “None of the rest dared join them, but the people held them
in high honor,” Acts 5:12-13). Moreover, Paul did not instruct any leaders of the church
at Corinth, or even Timothy or Titus, to exercise that spiritual power at Corinth against
his opponents. He spoke about the power which the Lord “has given me ” (2 Cor. 13:10),
not about the power which the Lord had given to the church or to Christians generally.
On the other hand, Paul did direct the Corinthian church to exercise church disci-
pline in a case of incest in the church at Corinth, and to do it “when you are assembled,
and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus” (1 Cor. 5:4). Moreover, the
descriptions of spiritual warfare in Ephesians 6:10-18 and 2 Corinthians 10:3-4 seem
applicable to Christians generally, and few today would deny that the church has author-
ity to pray against and to speak with authority against demonic opposition to the work of
the gospel. 3 So there would seem to be at least some significant degree of spiritual power
against evil opposition that God is willing to grant to the church in every age (includ-
ing the present one). Perhaps it is impossible to define more specifically the degree of
spiritual power God will grant to the church in times of conflict against evil, but we do
not need to know the details in advance: our calling is simply to be faithful to Scripture
in praying and in exercising church discipline, and then to leave the rest in God’s hands,
knowing that he will grant sufficient power to accomplish his purposes through the
church.
B. The Keys of the Kingdom
The phrase “the keys of the kingdom” occurs only once in the Bible, in Matthew 16:19,
where Jesus is speaking to Peter: “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and
whatever you shall bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven and whatever you shall
loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven” (NASB). What is the meaning of these
“keys of the kingdom of heaven”? 4
Elsewhere in the New Testament a key always implies authority to open a door and give
entrance to a place or realm . Jesus says, “Woe to you lawyers! for you have taken away the
key of knowledge; you did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were enter-
ing” (Luke 11:52). Moreover, Jesus says in Revelation 1:18, “I have the keys of Death and
Hades,” implying that he has the authority to grant entrance and exit from those realms.
(Cf. also Rev. 3:7; 9:1; 20:1; also the messianic prediction in Isa. 22:22.)
The “keys of the kingdom of heaven” therefore represent at least the authority to
preach the gospel of Christ (cf. Matt. 16:16) and thus to open the door of the kingdom of
heaven and allow people to enter.
3 See chapter 20, pp. 419-33, on conflict with demonic of heaven is adapted from the article, “Keys of the Kingdom”
forces in general, and p. 421 on the question of “strategic level by Wayne Grudem, in EDT, pp. 604-5, and is used here by
spiritual warfare.” permission.
4 The rest of this section discussing the keys of the kingdom
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
890
Peter first used this authority by preaching the gospel at Pentecost (Acts 2:14-42).
But the other apostles also were given this authority in a primary sense (they wrote the
gospel in permanent form in the New Testament). And all believers have this “key” in
a secondary sense, for they can all share the gospel with others, and thereby open the
kingdom of heaven to those who will enter it.
But is there any other authority, in addition to this, that Jesus implies by the phrase
“the keys of the kingdom of heaven”? There are two factors suggesting that the author-
ity of the keys here also includes the authority to exercise discipline within the church:
(1) The plural keys” suggests authority over more than one door. Thus, more than
simply entrance into the kingdom is implied; some authority within the kingdom is
also suggested. (2) Jesus completes the promise about the keys with a statement about
“binding” and “loosing,” which closely parallels another saying of his in Matthew 18,
in which binding” and “loosing” mean placing under church discipline and releasing
from church discipline:
If he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a
tax-gatherer. Truly I say to you, whatever you shall bind on earth shall have
been bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed
in heaven. (Matt. 18:17-18 NASB)
But if “binding” and “loosing” clearly refer to church discipline in Matthew 18, then it
seems likely that they would also refer to church discipline in Matthew 16, where Jesus’
words are very similar. 5
This understanding of binding and loosing in terms of church discipline also fits the
context of Matthew 16:19, for, on this understanding, after promising to build his church
(v. 18), Jesus promises to give not only the authority to open the door of entrance into
the kingdom, but also some administrative authority to regulate the conduct of people
once they are inside. 6 Therefore it seems that “the keys of the kingdom of heaven” which
Jesus promised to Peter in Matthew 16:19 included both (1) ability to admit people to the
kingdom through preaching the gospel, and (2) authority to exercise church discipline
for those who do enter.
In Matthew 16:16- 19, Jesus does not indicate whether the authority of the keys will
later be given to others besides Peter. But certainly the authority to preach the gospel
is given to others at a later time, and in Matthew 18:18 Jesus does state explicitly that
the authority to exercise church discipline is given to the church generally whenever it
5 The statement in Matt. 16:19 uses singular pronouns for
“whatever” and “you” (referring to Peter), while Matt. 18:18
uses plurals (referring to Christians generally), but the same
Greek words are used for “bind” ( deo ) and “loose” ( lud ), and
the grammatical construction (periphrastic future perfect) is
the same.
6 Some have argued that binding and loosing do not refer
to actions of church discipline, but to an authority to make
various rules for conduct, because in the rabbinic literature
that comes from Jewish teachers around the time of Jesus the
words bind and loose are sometimes used for forbidding and
permitting various kinds of conduct. This interpretation does
not seem persuasive, however, because these rabbinic state-
ments are a much more distant parallel than the statement of
Jesus himself in Matt. 18:18, where church discipline is clearly
in view. Moreover, it is difficult to know whether any of the
rabbinic parallels pre-date the time of the New Testament, or
to show that such words would have functioned as technical
terms in the ordinary vocabulary of Jesus and his hearers — in
fact, Matt. 18:18 shows that they did not function as technical
terms in that way, because they were used rather to refer to
church discipline in that verse.
CHAPTER 46 • THE POWER OF THE CHURCH
meets and corporately carries out such discipline (“Tell it to the church,” Matt. 18:17).
Thus both aspects of the authority of the keys, though first given to Peter, were soon
expanded to include the authority given to the church as a whole. In preaching the
gospel and in exercising discipline the church now exercises the authority of the keys of
the kingdom.
What persons or actions are subject to the kind of church discipline implied by the
authority of the keys? In both Matthew 16:19 and 18:18, the term “whatever” is neuter in
Greek, and seems to indicate that Jesus is speaking not specifically to persons (“whoever,”
for which a masculine plural would be ordinarily expected), but rather more generally to
situations and relationships that come up within the church. This would not exclude the
authority to exercise discipline over individuals, but the phrase is broader than that, and
includes specific actions that are subject to discipline as well.
Yet the authority of the keys with respect to church discipline is not completely
unlimited. It will only be effective against true sin (cf. Matt. 18:15), sin as defined by
Gods Word. The church does not have authority on its own to legislate what is mor-
ally right and wrong in an absolute sense, for the authority to define right and wrong
belongs to God alone (see Rom. 1:32; 2:16; 3:4-8; 9:20; Ps. 119:89, 142, 160; Matt.
5:18). The church can only declare and teach what God has already commanded in his
Word. Nor can the authority of the keys involve authority to forgive sins in any absolute
sense, because in Scripture it is clear that that can only be done by God himself (Isa.
43:25; 55:7; Mark 2:7, 10; Ps. 103:3; 1 John 1:9). 7 Therefore the authority to carry out
discipline in the church is an authority that must be carried out in accordance with the
standards of Scripture.
Is it possible to be any more specific about the kind of spiritual authority that is
involved in this use of the keys of the kingdom of heaven? Both Matthew 16:19 and
18:18 use an unusual Greek verbal construction (a periphrastic future perfect). It is
best translated by the NASB, “Whatever you shall bind on earth shall have been bound
in heaven, and whatever you shall loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.” 8
Several other examples of this construction show that it indicates not just a future
action (“shall be bound”), for which a common Greek tense was available (future
passive), but rather an action that would be completed before some future pointy with
effects that would continue to be felt. 9 Thus, Jesus is teaching that church discipline
will have heavenly sanction. But it is not as if the church must wait for God to endorse
its actions after the actions have occurred. Rather, whenever the church enacts disci-
pline it can be confident that God has already begun the process spiritually. Whenever
it releases from discipline , forgives the sinner, and restores personal relationships, the
church can be confident that God has already begun the restoration spiritually (cf.
John 20:23). In this way Jesus promises that the spiritual relationship between God
and the person subject to discipline will be immediately affected in ways consistent
with the direction of the church’s disciplinary action. Legitimate church discipline,
7 In John 20:23, the forgiveness of sins by the disciples is 8 See the grammatical discussion in D. A. Carson, “Mat-
best understood as freeing from church discipline and restor- thew,” EBC , 8:370-72.
ing personal relationships in a sense similar to the “loosing” 9 See examples in Luke 12:52; Gen. 43:9; 44:32; Ex. 12:6;
of Matt. 16:19 and 18:18. Sirach 7:25; Hermas, Similitudes 5.4.2; Letter ofAristeas 40.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
892
therefore, involves the awesome certainty that corresponding heavenly discipline has
already begun.
Moreover, this teaching on the power of the keys has a significant application to indi-
vidual Christians who begin to be subject to the discipline of a true church: Christians
should submit to this discipline and not run from it, because God himself has also put
them under discipline for that sin.
C. The Power of the Church and the Power of the State
The previous sections have discussed spiritual power and spiritual warfare to be exer-
cised by the church. But should the church ever use physical force (weapons and armies,
for example) to carry out its mission? The phrase commonly used to refer to the idea of
physical, worldly warfare is “to take up the sword.”
There are several indications in Scripture that the church must never take up the
sword to carry out its purposes in the new covenant age. This was a dreadful mistake
made in the Crusades, when church-sponsored armies marched across Europe and Asia
to attempt to reclaim the land of Israel. In these cases the church was trying to use physi-
cal force to bring about its triumph over earthly territories. But Jesus said, “My kingdom
is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight” (John 18:36 NIV). The church has
the power of the keys, which is spiritual power. It is to carry out spiritual battles using
spiritual weapons, but is not to use the power of the sword to accomplish its purposes.
“The weapons of our warfare are not worldly” (2 Cor. 10:4).
Certainly God does give to civil government the right to bear the sword, that is, to use
force to punish evil in the world (Rom. 13:1-7). But there is no indication that the power
of government is to be used to enforce adherence to Christianity upon any people. 10
Moreover, there are several indications that Jesus refused to use the power of physical
force to compel people to accept the gospel. For example, when a Samaritan village would
v not receive Jesus, James and John asked, “Lord, do you want us to bid fire come down
from heaven and consume them?” (Luke 9:54). But Jesus “rebuked them” (v. 55) for even
making that suggestion. Jesus came the first time to offer the gospel to all who would
receive it, not to execute punishment on those who rejected it. This is why he could say,
“For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might
be saved through him” (John 3:17). He will one day come again in judgment, at the end of
/ the church age, but during this age it is not the prerogative of the church to use physical
force to carry out judgment.
Jesus clearly made a distinction between the authority granted to the government and
the authority that God exercises in our personal allegiance to him when he said, “Render
therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar s, and to God the things that are God’s”
(Matt. 22:21). And though Jesus recognized the authority of civil government, he refused
to usurp that authority himself, telling someone, “Man, who made me a judge or divider
over you?” with respect to a matter of family inheritance (Luke 12:13-14).
10 Edmund Clowney rightly observes, “We may not suppose Biblical Theology of the Church,” in The Church in the Bible and
that Christ denied to his apostles the right to bring in his king- the World, ed. by D. A. Carson [Exeter: Paternoster, and Grand
dom with the sword, but conceded that right to Pilate” (“The Rapids: Baker, 1987], p. 33).
CHAPTER 46 • THE POWER OF THE CHURCH
893
A further reason why the government should not use force to require allegiance to
Christianity is that in the new covenant, membership in the church and allegiance to
Christ must be voluntary. They cannot be compelled by family or by the state. In fact,
faith in Christ, to be truly held and practiced, cannot be compelled by force. If it is com-
pelled, it changes its essential quality and is no longer a voluntary act of the individual,
and cannot be true faith.
From this it also follows that the civil government should not enforce laws requiring or pro-
hibiting kinds of church doctrine , or abridging the people's freedom to worship as they choose.
On the other hand, the church does not and should not rule over the state, as if it were some
kind of higher authority over the state; it is not. Rather, the authority of the church and that
of the state belong to distinct spheres (Matt. 22:21; John 18:36; 2 Cor. 10:3-4), and each
should respect the authority God has given the other in its own sphere of operation.
These limitations on the activities of the church and the state are different from the
practice of the Catholic Church through much of the Middle Ages, where it often had
more power than the civil government. These principles also differ from the practice of
the Church of England, which is subject to the authority of the Queen and Parliament in
the appointment of bishops and any change in doctrinal standards. The failure to respect
the distinct roles of church and state is seen in many Roman Catholic countries today,
where the church still has strong influence on the government, and in the compulsory
membership in state-sponsored Protestant churches of Northern Europe after the Refor-
mation, a situation that caused many emigrants to flee to America for religious freedom.
However, it should be said that the degree of state-enforced religion in Protestant
or Catholic countries is mild indeed compared to state-sponsored and state-enforced
religion in most Muslim countries today, and in many Hindu and Buddhist countries
as well. In fact, it is difficult to find genuine freedom of religion apart from the strong
influence of healthy evangelical Christianity in any country around the world (except
where various religions are so weak or so evenly balanced that no one religion has
dominant political power). Whenever Christians are involved in the political realm,
they ought clearly to affirm freedom of religion as a political policy that is nonne-
gotiable, and they should be willing to defend that freedom for religions other than
their own as well. The Christian faith can stand on its own two feet and compete very
well in the market-place of ideas in any society and in any culture, provided it has the
freedom to do so.
Finally, what has been said above should not be misunderstood as a prohibition against
Christians attempting to bring positive moral influence on government and attempting
to persuade governments to make laws consistent with biblical standards of morality.
It is right for Christians to attempt to persuade governments to make laws that protect
families and private property and the lives of human beings — laws that both outlaw and
punish murder, theft, and the breaking of contracts (things that violate the Ten Com-
mandments), as well as prohibit homosexual "marriage," incest, slander, drug abuse,
abortion, and other things that are inconsistent with biblical standards of morality. These
things are far different from requiring belief in certain types of church doctrine or theo-
logical conviction, and from requiring that people attend certain kinds of church or
worship services. The latter are clearly “religious” activities in the narrow sense in that
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
they pertain to our relationship to God and our beliefs about him. 1 1 Governments should
refrain from making laws about these things.
D. Church Discipline
Since church discipline is one aspect of the use of the power of the church, it is appro-
priate here to give some discussion of the biblical principles relevant to the practice of
church discipline.
1. The Purpose of Church Discipline.
a. Restoration and Reconciliation of the Believer Who Is Going Astray: Sin hinders
fellowship among believers and with God. In order for reconciliation to occur, the sin
must be dealt with. Therefore, the primary purpose of church discipline is to pursue the
twofold goal of restoration (of the offender to right behavior) and reconciliation (between
believers, and with God). 12 Just as wise parents discipline their children (Prov. 13:24: “He
who loves [his son] is diligent to discipline him”), and just as God our Father disciplines
those whom he loves (Heb. 12:6; Rev. 3:19), so the church in its discipline is acting in love
to bring back a brother or sister who has gone astray, reestablishing that person in right
fellowship and rescuing him or her from destructive patterns of life. In Matthew 18:15,
the hope is that discipline will stop at the first step, when someone goes alone: “If he lis-
tens to you, you have gained your brother.” The phrase “you have gained your brother”
implies that those carrying out discipline should keep the goal of personal reconciliation
among Christians always in mind. Paul reminds us that we are to “restore” the sinning
brother or sister “in a spirit of gentleness” (Gal. 6:1), and James encourages us to “bring
back a sinner from the error of his way” (James 5:20).
In fact, if church members were actively involved in giving private words of gentle
admonition and in praying for one another when the first clear evidence of sinful con-
duct is seen, very little formal church discipline would have to be carried out, because the
process would begin and end with a conversation between two people that never becomes
known to anyone else.
n The fact that Christians should try to influence govern-
ment to make laws consistent with biblical standards is indi-
cated by passages such as Matt. 6:10; 14:4; Acts 24:25; and 1
Tim. 2:1-4. We may hope that the moral standards of Scrip-
ture will also eventually gain general consent from most of the
people of a given society, since those moral standards have also
been inscribed on their hearts and therefore they have a wit-
ness in their consciences that these standards are correct (see
Rom. 2:14-15). It is also the case that God holds all societies
and cultures responsible for obeying his moral standards, and
often in the Old Testament God’s prophets pronounced judg-
ments upon not only the people of Israel but also upon immoral
pagan societies, even though they did not have his written laws
(see Deut. 9:5; Isa. 13-23; Ezek. 25-32; Dan. 4:27; Amos 1-2;
Obadiah [written to Edom] ; Jonah [prophesied to Nineveh] ;
Nahum [prophesied to Nineveh] ; Hab. 2; Zeph. 2). In fact, civil
governments are sent by God “to punish those who do wrong
and to praise those who do right” (1 Peter 2:14).
12 In their excellent book on church discipline, Church
Discipline That Heals (Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity
Press, 1985; originally published as Healing the Wounded ),
John White and Ken Blue note that a failure to keep recon-
ciliation as the primary goal of church discipline has led to
many abuses of the process in the history of the church (see
esp. pp. 45-56). But they themselves say that “true reconcilia-
tion never takes place without change in the parties involved”
(p. 46). Therefore I have combined reconciliation and restora-
tion in this first section.
CHAPTER46 ■ THE POWER OF THE CHURCH
895
Even when the final step of “excommunication” (that is, putting someone out of the
fellowship or “communion” of the church) is taken, it is still with the hope that repentance
will result. Paul delivered Hymenaeus and Alexander to Satan “that they may learn not to
blaspheme ” (1 Tim. 1:20), and the man living in incest at Corinth was to be delivered to
Satan “that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus” (1 Cor. 5:5). 13
If Christians who must take steps of church discipline will continue to remember this
first purpose — the reconciliation of believers who are going astray with each other and
with God, and their restoration to right patterns of life — then it will be much easier to
continue to act in genuine love for the parties involved, and feelings of anger or desires
for revenge on the part of those who have been hurt, which often lie near the surface, will
much more easily be avoided.
b. To Keep the Sin From Spreading to Others: Although the primary goal of church
discipline is restoration and reconciliation for the erring believer, in this present age rec-
onciliation and restoration will not always come about. But whether restoration comes
about or not, the church is told to carry out discipline because two other purposes are
served as well.
One other purpose is that the sin will be kept from spreading to others. The author of
Hebrews tells Christians to see to it that “no ‘root of bitterness 5 spring up and cause trou-
ble, and by it the many become defiled” (Heb. 12:15). This means that if conflict between
persons is not resolved quickly, the effects may spread to many others — something that
sadly seems to be true in many cases of church division. Paul also says, “A little leaven
leavens the whole lump,” and tells the Corinthians to put out of the church a man living
in incest (1 Cor. 5:2, 6-7), lest his sin affect the whole church. If that man were not dis-
ciplined, the effects of the sin would spread to many others who were aware of it and saw
that the church paid little attention to it. This would cause many to think that perhaps
that sin was not as bad as they had thought, and others might be tempted to commit
similar or related kinds of sin. Moreover, if discipline against one specific offense is not
carried out, then it will be much more difficult for the church to carry out discipline if a
similar kind of sin is committed by someone else in the future.
Paul also told Timothy that elders who persist in sin are to be rebuked in the presence
of all, “so that the rest may stand in fear” (1 Tim. 5:20) — that is, so that many others
would realize that the sin will not be tolerated but will receive discipline both from the
church and from God himself. In fact, Paul rebuked Peter publicly, in order that others
would not follow Peter’s bad example of separating himself and eating only with Jewish
believers (Gal. 2:11).
c. To Protect the Purity of the Church and the Honor of Christ: A third purpose of
church discipline is that the purity of the church is to be protected, so that Christ will not
be dishonored. Of course, no believer in this age has a completely pure heart, and we all
13 The unusual phrase “deliver to Satan” in these verses Putting someone out of the church puts that person back into
seems to mean “put out of the church” since that is clearly the kingdom of this sinful age, which is ruled by Satan,
what Paul tells the Corinthians to do in 1 Cor. 5:2, 7, 13.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
896
have remaining sin in our lives. But when a church member continues to sin in a way that
is outwardly evident to others, especially to unbelievers, 14 this clearly brings dishonor to
Christ. It is similar to the situation of Jews who disobeyed God’s law and led unbelievers
to scoff and blaspheme God’s name (Rom. 2:24: “The name of God is blasphemed among
the Gentiles because of you”).
This is why Paul is shocked that the Corinthians have not disciplined the man who
continued in willful sin that was publicly known in the church (1 Cor. 5:1-2: “And you
are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn?”). He is also greatly distressed to know that
“brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers” (1 Cor. 6:6). Rather than
allowing such moral blemishes on the character of the church, Peter encourages believ-
ers to “be zealous to be found by [Christ] without spot or blemish, and at peace” (2 Peter
3:14). And our Lord Jesus wants to present to himself a church “without spot or wrinkle
. . . holy and without blemish” (Eph. 5:27), for he is the head of the church, and its charac-
ter reflects on his reputation. Even angels and demons look at the church and behold the
wisdom of God expressed in it (Eph. 3:10); therefore (Eph. 4:1) Paul encourages Christians
to be “eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:3).
This is a very serious matter. Since the Lord Jesus is jealous for his own honor, if the
church does not exercise proper discipline, he will do it himself, as he did at Corinth, where
the Lord’s discipline resulted in sickness and death (1 Cor. 11:27-34), and as he warned he
would do both at Pergamum (Rev. 2:14- 15) and at Thyatira (Rev. 2:20). In these last two
cases the Lord was displeased with the whole church for tolerating outward disobedience
and not exercising discipline: “But I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jeze-
bel , who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and beguiling my servants to practice
immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols” (Rev. 2:20; cf. w. 14- 16). 15
2. For What Sins Should Church Discipline Be Exercised? On the one hand, Jesus’
teaching in Matthew 18:15-20 tells us that if a situation involving personal sin against
someone else cannot be resolved in a private or small group meeting, then the matter
must be brought to the church:
If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him
alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen,
take one or two others along with you, that every word may be confirmed by
the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to
the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a
Gentile and a tax collector. (Matt. 18:15- 17)
In this case the matter has progressed from a private and informal situation to a public
and much more formal process of discipline by the whole church.
14 But also to angels (see Eph. 3:10; 1 Tim. 5:21). leaven which might infect the whole lump, for vindicating
15 The purposes of church discipline discussed above are the honor of Christ, and the holy profession of the gospel,
well summarized in the Westminster Confession of Faith, and for preventing the wrath of God, which might justly
chapter 30, paragraph 3: “Church censures are necessary, for fall upon the church, if they should suffer his covenant, and
the reclaiming and gaining of offending brethren, for deter- the seals thereof, to be profaned by notorious and obstinate
ring of others from the like offenses, for purging out of that offenders.”
CHAPTER 46 * THE POWER OF THE CHURCH
897
On the other hand, there does not seem to be any explicit limitation specified for the
kinds of sin that should be subject to church discipline. The examples of sins subject to
church discipline in the New Testament are extremely diverse: divisiveness (Rom. 16:17;
Titus 3:10), incest (1 Cor. 5:1), laziness and refusing to work (2 Thess. 3:6- 10), disobey-
ing what Paul writes (2 Thess. 3:14-15), blasphemy (1 Tim. 1:20), and teaching heretical
doctrine (2 John 10-11).
Nonetheless, a definite principle appears to be at work: all sins that were explicitly
disciplined in the New Testament were publicly known or outwardly evident sins, 16 and
many of them had continued over a period of time. The fact that the sins were publicly
known meant that reproach was being brought on the church, Christ was being dis-
honored, and there was a real possibility that others would be encouraged to follow the
wrongful patterns of life that were being publicly tolerated.
There is always the need, however, for mature judgment in the exercise of church
discipline, because there is lack of complete sanctification in all our lives. Furthermore,
when we realize that someone is already aware of a sin and struggling to overcome it,
a word of admonition may in fact do more harm than good. We should also remember
that where there are issues of conduct on which Christians legitimately disagree, Paul
encourages a wide degree of tolerance (Rom. 14:1-23).
3. How Should Church Discipline Be Carried Out?
a. Knowledge of the Sin Should Be Kept to the Smallest Group Possible: This seems
to be the purpose in Matthew 18:15-17 behind the gradual progression from a private
meeting, to a meeting with two or three others, to telling the entire church. The fewer
people who know about some sin, the better, because repentance is easier, fewer people
are led astray, and less harm is done to the reputation of the person, the reputation of the
church, and the reputation of Christ. 17
b. Disciplinary Measures Should Increase in Strength Until There Is a Solution: Once
again in Matthew 18 Jesus teaches us that we cannot stop simply with a private conver-
sation if that has not brought satisfactory results. He requires that the wronged person
first go alone, and then take one or two others (Matt. 18:15-16). Moreover, if a Christian
thinks that he or she has wronged someone else (or even if that other person thinks that
he or she has been wronged), Jesus requires that the person who has done the wrong (or
is thought to have done the wrong) go to the person who considers himself the victim
of wrongdoing (Matt. 5:23). This means that whether we have been wronged or others
think they have been wronged, it is always our responsibility to take the initiative and go
to the other person. Jesus does not allow us to wait for the other person to come to us.
After a private meeting and a small group meeting, Jesus does not specify that the elders
or officers of the church are next to be consulted as a group, but certainly this intermediate
16 One exception was the secret sin of Ananias and Sap- into the church age, “and great fear came upon the whole
phira in Acts 5:1 - 11. In this situation the Holy Spirit (vv. 3, church” (v. 11).
8) was so powerfully present that he brought an intrusion of 17 However, see section c below on the requirement for
final judgment, when the secrets of all hearts will be disclosed, public disclosure of the serious sins of a church leader.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
898
step seems to be appropriate, because Jesus may simply be summarizing the process with-
out necessarily mentioning every possible step in it. In fact, there are several examples of
small group admonition in the New Testament which are carried out by elders or other
church officers (see 1 Thess. 5:12; 2 Tim. 4:2; Titus 1:13; 2:15; 3:10; James 5:19-20).
Moreover, the principle of keeping the knowledge of sin to the smallest group possible
would certainly encourage this intermediate step as well.
Finally, if the situation cannot be resolved Jesus says to “tell it to the church” (Matt.
18:17). In this case the church would be assembled to hear the facts of the case and to
come to a decision. Since Jesus allows for the possibility that the person “refuses to lis-
ten even to the church” (v. 17), the church may have to meet once to decide what to say
to the offender, and then meet again to exclude that person from the fellowship of the
church. 18
When Jesus gives these directions about church discipline, he reminds the church that
his own presence and his own power are behind the decisions made by the church: “Again
I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them
by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in
the midst of them” (Matt. 18:19-20). Jesus promises to be present in church gatherings
generally, but specifically here with respect to the church being gathered for discipline of
an offending member. And Paul similarly tells the Corinthians to discipline the erring
member when they are assembled “ with the power of our Lord Jesus ” (1 Cor. 5:4). This
is not an activity to be taken lightly, but is carried out in the presence of the Lord, the
spiritual component of it actually being carried out by the Lord himself.
If this ever must be done, the whole church will then know that the erring person is no
longer considered a member of the church, and that person would not be allowed to take
Communion, since partaking in the Lords Supper is a sign of partaking in the unity of
the church (1 Cor. 10:17: “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for
we all partake of the one bread”).
There are other passages in the New Testament that speak of avoiding fellowship with
the excommunicated person. Paul tells the Corinthians, “I wrote to you not to associate
with any one who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of immorality or greed, or is
an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or robber — not even to eat with such a one” (1 Cor. 5:11).
He tells the Thessalonians, “Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord
Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is living in idleness and not in
accord with the tradition that you received from us” (2 Thess. 3:6). Moreover, he says,
“If any one refuses to obey what we say in this letter, note that man, and have nothing to
do with him, that he may be ashamed. Do not look on him as an enemy, but warn him as
a brother” (2 Thess. 3:14-15). Second John 10-11 also prohibits greeting or welcoming
into the house anyone who is promoting false teaching. These instructions are apparently
given to prevent the church from giving to others the impression that it approves of the
disobedience of the erring person.
l8 l Cor. 5:4 also requires that the church be assembled for
this final step in church discipline.
CHAPTER 46 • THE POWER OF THE CHURCH
c. Discipline of Church Leaders: In one passage Paul gives special directives concerning
the discipline of church elders:
Never admit any charge against an elder except on the evidence of two or three
witnesses. As for those who persist in sin, rebuke them in the presence of all, so
that the rest may stand in fear. In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and of
the elect angels I charge you to keep these rules without favor, doing nothing
from partiality. (1 Tim. 5:19-21)
Paul here gives a special caution to protect elders from individual attacks: action regard-
ing wrongdoing in this case should require the evidence of two or three witnesses. “Those
who persist in sin” 19 are to be rebuked “in the presence of all This is because the bad
example of wrongful conduct by elders will very likely have a widespread negative effect
on others who see their lives. Then Paul reminds Timothy to do “nothing from partial-
ity” in this situation, a very helpful warning, since Timothy was probably a close friend
to many of the elders in the church at Ephesus.
Paul’s command to rebuke a sinning elder publicly means that some statement of the
nature of the offense must be made to the church (“ rebuke them in the presence of all,” v.
20). 20 On the other hand, not every detail of the sin has to be disclosed to the church. A
helpful guideline is that the church should be told enough that (1) they will understand
how serious the offense was, (2) they will be able to understand and support the disci-
pline process, and (3) they will not subsequently feel the sin was minimized or covered
up if more details somehow leak out later.
Such a public disclosure of the sin of a leader will signal to the congregation that
the leaders of the church will not hide such matters from them in the future. This will
increase the confidence of the church in the integrity of the leadership board. It will also
allow the sinning leader to begin the gradual process of rebuilding relationships and trust
with the congregation, because he will not have to deal with people who have a hundred
different speculations about what his sin was, but with people who know the specific sin,
and can see the genuine repentance and change regarding that area of sin in his life.
What about the serious sins of people who are not church leaders? Scripture gives
no command to disclose publicly the sins of people who are ordinary members but not
recognized leaders in the church. Leaders, however, are treated differently because their
lives are to be “above reproach” (1 Tim. 3:2), and their lives should be examples for other
Christians to imitate (see 1 Tim. 4:12). 21
19 This is apparently the sense of tous harmartanontas in 1
Tim. 5:20, since the present participle gives the sense of con-
tinuing in an action over a period of time.
20 When churches have to discipline a church leader, an easy
mistake to make is failing to take Pauls command seriously,
and thereby failing to give adequate disclosure to the church
of the nature of the sin involved. If that happens, the congrega-
tion only hears that a leader was removed from office because
of some sin (or maybe a general category of sin is mentioned).
But this is not really an effective public rebuke. Because it is so
vague, it will only result in confusion, speculation, and gossip.
Moreover, serious divisions can arise in the church because
in the absence of information some people will think the dis-
cipline process too harsh and others will think it too lenient,
and the church will not be united in supporting the process.
21 I understand “above reproach” to mean that their lives
are such that no charge of serious wrongdoing can be right-
fully brought against them.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
900
d. Other Aspects of Church Discipline: Once discipline has occurred, as soon as there
is repentance at any stage of the process, the Christians who have known about the dis-
cipline should welcome the repentant person back quickly into the fellowship of the
church. Paul says, “You should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be over-
whelmed by excessive sorrow. ... I beg you to reaffirm your love for him” (2 Cor. 2:7-8;
cf. 7:8— 11). Once again, our purpose in church discipline should never be to punish out
of a desire for vengeance, but always to restore and heal.
The attitude with which discipline is carried out at any stage is also very important.
It must be done with gentleness and humility, and with a genuine appreciation for our
own weakness and with a fear that we might fall into similar sins. “If a man is overtaken
in any trespass, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Look to
yourself lest you too be tempted ” (Gal. 6:1).
It is unwise to set any timetable in advance, telling people how long the discipline
process is expected to last. This is because it is impossible for us to predict how long it
will be until the Holy Spirit brings about deep, genuine repentance and a change in the
condition of the person’s heart that led to the sin in the first place.
Finally, we should notice that immediately following the passage on church discipline
in Matthew 18:15-20, Jesus strongly teaches the need for personal forgiveness of those
who sin against us (Matt. 18:21-35). We are to forgive those who harm us “seventy
times seven” (v. 22), and Jesus tells us that our heavenly Father will punish us severely if
we do not forgive our brother from the heart (v. 35). We should see the passage on church
discipline and this passage as complementary, not contradictory. As individuals we must
always forgive in our hearts and not bear grudges. Yet we can certainly forgive someone
in our hearts and still seek church discipline for the good of the person who is commit-
ting a sin, for the good of the church, for the honor of Christ, and because God’s Word
commands it.
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. Have you previously thought of the church as rather weak or rather strong in its
influence on the affairs of the world? How has your thinking changed as a result
of this chapter? Do you now think there is any hope for transforming society apart
from the strong redemptive influence of the church?
2. Have you previously thought of yourself as holding any of the “keys of the kingdom
of heaven”? Do you in fact have some of those keys now? What are you doing with
them?
3. In what ways could your church exercise its spiritual power against the forces of
the enemy more effectively? In what ways could you use this power more effectively
yourself?
4. What is the strongest enemy to the effective proclamation of the gospel in your com-
munity now? How might the power of the church be used against that enemy?
CHAPTER 46 • THE POWER OF THE CHURCH
901
5. If you accept the principles that the church should not rule the state and the state
should not rule over or restrict the freedom of the church, are these principles
being played out effectively in your own country or local situation? What could
be done to increase conformity to these principles? (Do you agree with these
principles?)
6. Are you aware of situations where a gentle word of admonition has resulted in a
positive change in your own behavior or the behavior of another Christian? Are
you aware of situations where church discipline has gone a step or two further than
this and has resulted in restoration of the erring person? If you are aware of situ-
ations where the practice of church discipline has not brought a good result, what
could have been done differently to bring about a better result?
7. If a church refuses to carry out church discipline at all for a number of years,
even though there is an evident need for it, what will be the harmful results in the
church? Are you aware of situations where those harmful results have occurred?
8. Have there been times when you wished that someone would have come to you
earlier with a word of admonition or counsel concerning an area of sin that you
were unaware of or that you were uncertain about? If so, why didn’t that happen?
9. Are there now any relationships in your life where Matthew 5:23 and Matthew
18:15 combine to tell you that you have an obligation to go to another person and
seek to make the situation right?
SPECIAL TERMS
binding and loosing power of the church
excommunication to take up the sword
keys of the kingdom
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter 1,
pp. 38-39. Complete bibliographical data maybe found on pp. 1224-30.)
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1882-92 Litton, 402-13, 418-27
1930 Thomas, 281-97, 434-46
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1940 Wiley, 3:136-37
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
902
3. Baptist
1767 Gill, 2:607-20
1907 Strong, 924-26
4. Dispensational
1986 Ryrie, 433-35
5. Lutheran
1917-24 Pieper, 1:530-31; 3:178-83, 416-20
6. Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1559 Calvin, 2:1149-1240 (4.8-12)
1724-58 Edwards, 2:118-22
1861 Heppe, 684-94
1878 Dabney, 873-87
1937-66 Murray, CW, 1:253-59
1938 Berkhof, 593-603
7. Renewal (or charismatic/Pentecostal)
1988-92 Williams, 3:120-23, 265-85
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
1. Roman Catholic: Traditional
1955 Ott, 417-25
2. Roman Catholic: Post-Vatican II
1980 McBrien, 2:817-48
Other Works
Adams, Jay E. Handbook of Church Discipline . Grand Rapids: Ministry Resources Library,
1986.
Bauckham, Richard. The Bible in Politics: How to Read the Bible Politically. Louisville:
Westminster/ John Knox, 1989.
DeKoster, L. “Church Discipline.” In EDT, p. 238.
Eidsmoe, John. God and Caesar: Christian Faith and Political Action . Westchester, 111.:
Crossway, 1984.
Grudem, W. A. “Keys of the Kingdom.” In EDT, pp. 604-6.
Laney, J. Carl. A Guide to Church Discipline. Minneapolis: Bethany, 1985.
Linder, R. D. “Church and State.” In EDT, pp. 233-38.
Robertson, O. Palmer. “Reflections on New Testament Testimony Concerning Civil Dis-
obedience.” /El'S. Vol. 33, No. 3 (Sept., 1990), pp. 331-51.
Schaeffer, Francis. A Christian Manifesto. Westchester, 111.: Crossway, 1981.
Stott, John R. W. The Preacher's Portrait: Some New Testament Word Studies. Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1961.
White, John, and Ken Blue. Church Discipline That Heals: Putting Costly Love into Action.
(First published as Healing the Wounded.) Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press,
1985.
CHAPTER 46 • THE POWER OF THE CHURCH
903
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
2 Corinthians 10:3-4: For though we live in the world we are not carrying on a worldly
war, for the weapons of our warfare are not worldly but have divine power to destroy
strongholds.
HYMN
“Onward Christian Soldiers”
This hymn does not talk about earthly warfare with swords and shields, but with the
spiritual warfare of prayer and praise, and the enemies are not earthly unbelievers but
Satan and his demonic hosts: “Hell's foundations quiver at the shout of praisej/Brothers,
lift your voices, loud your anthems raise .”
The hymn pictures the church moving as a worldwide army of God against the forces
of Satan, and it proclaims the unity of the church as well: “We are not divided, all one
body we, /One in hope and doctrine, one in charity.” It is a triumphant, joyful song of
spiritual warfare by a church that will not be divided and will not be defeated.
Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus going on before:
Christ the royal Master leads against the foe;
Forward into battle, see his banners go.
Refrain:
Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus going on before.
At the sign of triumph Satan’s host doth flee;
On then, Christian soldiers, on to victory:
Hell’s foundations quiver at the shout of praise;
Brothers, lift your voices, loud your anthems raise.
Like a mighty army moves the church of God;
Brothers, we are treading where the saints have trod;
We are not divided, all one body we,
One in hope and doctrine, one in charity.
Crowns and thrones may perish, kingdoms rise and wane,
But the church of Jesus constant will remain;
Gates of hell can never ’gainst that church prevail;
We have Christ’s own promise, and that cannot fail.
Onward, then ye people, join our happy throng,
Blend with ours your voices in the triumph song;
Glory, laud, and honor unto Christ the King;
This through countless ages men and angels sing.
AUTHOR: SABINE BARING-GOULD, 1865
Chapter
CHURCH GOVERNMENT
How should a church be governed?
How should church officers be chosen?
Should women serve as pastors of churches?
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
Churches today have many different forms of government. The Roman Catholic
Church has a worldwide government under the authority of the Pope. Episcopalian
churches have bishops with regional authority, and archbishops over them. Presbyte-
rian churches grant regional authority to presbyteries and national authority to general
assemblies. On the other hand, Baptist churches and many other independent churches
have no formal governing authority beyond the local congregation, and affiliation with
denominations is on a voluntary basis.
Within local churches, Baptists often have a single pastor with a board of deacons, but
some have a board of elders as well. Presbyterians have a board of elders and Episcopa-
lians have a vestry. Other churches simply have a church board.
Is there a New Testament pattern for church government? Is any one form of church
government to be preferred over another? These are the questions addressed in this
chapter.
However, at the outset it must be said that the form of church government is not a
major doctrine like the Trinity, the deity of Christ, substitutionary atonement, or the
authority of Scripture. Although I believe, after examining the New Testament evidence,
that one particular form of church government is preferable to the others, nevertheless,
each form has some weaknesses as well as strengths. And church history attests that
several different forms of government have worked fairly well for several centuries. More-
over, while some aspects of church government seem to be reasonably clear from the New
Testament, other matters (such as the way in which church officers should be chosen)
are less clear, mainly because the New Testament evidence on them is not extensive, and
thus our inferences from this evidence are less certain. It seems to me, then, that there
904
CHAPTER 47 • CHURCH GOVERNMENT
ought to be room for evangelical Christians to differ amicably over this question, in the
hope that further understanding may be gained. And it also seems that individual Chris-
tians — while they may have a preference for one system or another, and while they may
wish at appropriate times to argue forcefully for one system over another — should nev-
ertheless be willing to live and minister within any of several different Protestant systems
of church government in which they may find themselves from time to time.
But I do not mean to say that this is an entirely unimportant matter. In this area
as well as others, a church may be more or less pure. If there are clear New Testament
patterns regarding some aspects of church government, then there will be negative con-
sequences in our churches if we disregard them, even if we cannot foresee all of those
consequences at the present time. Therefore Christians are certainly free to speak and
write on this subject in order to work for increased purity in the church.
In this chapter we shall first survey the New Testament data concerning church offi-
cers, especially apostle , elder ; and deacon. Then we shall ask how church officers should
be chosen. After that we shall look at two controversial questions: Which form of church
government — if any — is closest to the New Testament pattern? And, may women serve
as officers in the church?
A. Church Officers
For purposes of this chapter, we will use the following definition: A church officer is
someone who has been publicly recognized as having the right and responsibility to perform
certain functions for the benefit of the whole church.
According to this definition, elders and deacons would be considered officers in a
church, as would the pastor (if that is a distinct office). The church treasurer and church
moderator would also be officers (these titles may vary from church to church). All of
these people have had public recognition, usually at a service in which they are “installed”
or “ordained” in an office. In fact, they need public recognition in order to fulfill their
responsibilities: for example, it would not be appropriate for people to wonder from week
to week who was to receive the offering and deposit it in the bank, or for various people
to argue that they had been gifted to take that responsibility in any particular week! The
orderly functioning of the church requires that one person be recognized as having that
responsibility. Similarly, the pastor who is responsible to do Bible teaching each Sunday
morning must be recognized as having the right and responsibility to do that (at least,
in most forms of church government). If this were not the case, then many people might
prepare sermons and all claim the right to preach, or on some Sundays no one might
prepare. Similarly, in order for people to follow the elders of the church and look to them
for guidance, they must know who the elders are.
By contrast, many other people exercise gifts in the church, but we do not say they
have an “office” because they do not need formal public recognition for their gifts to
function. Those who have a gift of “helps” (see 1 Cor. 12:28), or who have a gift of espe-
cially strong faith, or a gift of “distinguishing between spirits” (1 Cor. 12:10), or a gift
of exhorting or contributing (Rom. 12:8) do not need public recognition in order to
function effectively in the church.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
906
In the material that follows, we shall see that the New Testament discusses one church
office which was limited to the time when the early church was founded (the office of
apostle), and two other church offices which continue throughout the church age (the
offices of elder and deacon).
1. Apostle. Earlier in this book we saw that the New Testament apostles had a unique kind
of authority in the early church: authority to speak and write words which were “words of
God” in an absolute sense. To disbelieve or disobey them was to disbelieve or disobey God.
The apostles, therefore, had the authority to write words which became words of Scripture. 1
This fact in itself should suggest to us that there was something unique about the office of
apostle, and that we would not expect it to continue today, for no one today can add words
to the Bible and have them be counted as Gods very words or as part of Scripture. 2
In addition, the New Testament information on the qualifications of an apostle and
the identity of the apostles also leads us to conclude that the office was unique and lim-
ited to the first century, and that we are to expect no more apostles today. 3 We shall see
this as we ask the following questions: What were the requirements for being an apostle?
Who were the apostles? How many apostles were there? And are there apostles today?
At the outset it must be made clear that the answers to these questions depend on
what one means by the word apostle . Today some people use the word apostle in a very
broad sense, to refer to an effective church planter, or to a significant missionary pioneer
(“William Carey was an apostle to India,” for example). If we use the word apostle in
this broad sense, everyone would agree that there are still apostles today — for there are
certainly effective missionaries and church planters today.
The New Testament itself has three verses in which the word apostle (Gk. apostolos )
is used in a broad sense, not to refer to any specific church office, but simply to mean
“messenger.” In Philippians 2:25, Paul calls Epaphroditus “your messenger ( apostolos ) and
minister to my need”; in 2 Corinthians 8:23, Paul refers to those who accompanied the
offering that he was taking to Jerusalem as “messengers [apostoloi] of the churches”; and in
John 13:16, Jesus says, “Nor is he who is sent [apostolos] greater than he who sent him.”
But there is another sense for the word apostle. Much more frequently in the New Tes-
tament the word refers to a special office, “apostle of Jesus Christ .” In this narrow sense of
the term, there are no more apostles today, and we are to expect no more. This is because
of what the New Testament says about the qualifications for being an apostle and about
who the apostles were.
a. Qualifications of an Apostle: The two qualifications for being an apostle were (1) hav-
ing seen Jesus after his resurrection with one’s own eyes (thus, being an “eyewitness of the
resurrection”), and (2) having been specifically commissioned by Christ as his apostle. 4
^ee chapter 3, pp. 60-64, and chapter 4, pp. 76 - 77, for a Testament and Today (Eastbourne, U.K.: Kingsway, and
discussion of the authority of the apostles. Westchester, 111.: Crossway, 1988), pp. 269-76, and is used
2 See chapter 3, pp. 64-69, for a discussion of the closing of by permission,
the New Testament canon. 4 These two qualifications are discussed in detail in the
3 The material from this point through p. 912 has been classic essay by J. B. Lightfoot, “The Name and Office of an
taken from Wayne Grudem, The Gift of Prophecy in the New Apostle,” in his commentary, The Epistle of St. Paul to the
CHAPTER 47 • CHURCH GOVERNMENT
907
The fact that an apostle had to have seen the risen Lord with his own eyes is indicated
by Acts 1:22, where Peter said that person to replace Judas “must become with us a wit-
ness to his resurrection .” Moreover, it was “to the apostles whom he had chosen” that “he
presented himself alive after his passion by many proofs, appearing to them during forty
days” (Acts 1:2-3; cf. 4:33).
Paul makes much of the fact that he did meet this qualification even though it
was in an unusual way (Christ appeared to him in a vision on the road to Damascus
and appointed him as an apostle: Acts 9:5-6; 26:15-18). When he is defending his
apostleship he says, “Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?” (1 Cor. 9:1).
And when recounting the people to whom Christ appeared after his resurrection, Paul
says, “Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely
born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an
apostle” (1 Cor. 15:7-9).
These verses combine to indicate that unless someone had seen Jesus after the
resurrection with his own eyes, he could not be an apostle.
The second qualification, specific appointment by Christ as an apostle, is also evi-
dent from several verses. First, though the term apostle is not common in the gos-
pels, the twelve disciples are called “apostles” specifically in a context where Jesus is
commissioning them, “sending them out” to preach in his name:
And he called to him his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean
spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every infirmity. The
names of the twelve apostles are these. . . . These twelve Jesus sent out, charging
them, “. . . preach as you go, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ ” (Matt.
10:1-7)
Similarly, Jesus commissions his apostles in a special sense to be his “witnesses ... to
the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). And in choosing another apostle to replace Judas, the
eleven apostles did not take the responsibility on themselves, but prayed and asked the
ascended Christ to make the appointment:
“Lord, who knows the hearts of all men, show which one of these two you have
chosen to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas
turned aside ” And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias; and
he was enrolled with the eleven apostles. (Acts 1:24-26)
Paul himself insists that Christ personally appointed him as an apostle. He tells how,
on the Damascus Road, Jesus told him that he was appointing him as an apostle to the
Gentiles: “I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you to serve and to bear
witness . . . delivering you from the people and from the Gentiles — to whom I send
you” (Acts 26:16-17). He later affirms that he was specifically appointed by Christ as an
apostle (see Rom. 1:1; Gal. 1:1; 1 Tim. 1:12; 2:7; 2 Tim. 1:11).
Galatians (first published 1865; repr. Grand Rapids: Zondervan,
1957), pp. 92-101; see also K. H. Rengstorf, “apostolos,” TDNT,
1:398-447.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
908
b. Who Were Apostles? The initial group of apostles numbered twelve — the eleven origi-
nal disciples who remained after Judas died, plus Matthias, who replaced Judas: “And
they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias; and he was enrolled with the eleven
apostles” (Acts 1:26). So important was this original group of twelve apostles, the “charter
members” of the office of apostle, that we read that their names are inscribed on the foun-
dations of the heavenly city, the New Jerusalem: “And the wall of the city had twelve foun-
dations, and on them the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb” (Rev. 21:14).
We might at first think that such a group could never be expanded, that no one could
be added to it. But then Paul clearly claims that he, also, is an apostle. And Acts 14:14 calls
both Barnabas and Paul apostles: “when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of it ”
So with Paul and Barnabas there are fourteen “apostles of Jesus Christ.” 5
Then James the brother of Jesus (who was not one of the twelve original disciples)
seems to be called an apostle in Galatians 1:19: Paul tells how, when he went to Jerusalem,
“I saw none of the other apostles except James the Lord’s brother.” 6 Then in Galatians
2:9 James is classified with Peter and John as “pillars” of the Jerusalem church. And in
Acts 15:13-21, James, along with Peter, exercises a significant leadership function in
the Jerusalem Council, a function which would be appropriate to the office of apostle.
Furthermore, when Paul is listing the resurrection appearances of Jesus he once again
readily classifies James with the apostles:
Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely
born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called
an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. (1 Cor. 15:7-9)
Finally, the fact that James could write the New Testament epistle which bears his
name would also be entirely consistent with his having the authority which belonged to
the office of apostle, the authority to write words which were the words of God. All these
considerations combine to indicate that James the Lord’s brother was also commissioned
by Christ as an apostle. That would bring the number to fifteen “apostles of Jesus Christ”
(the twelve plus Paul, Barnabas, and James).
Were there more than these fifteen? There may possibly have been a few more, though
we know little if anything about them, and it is not certain that there were any more.
5 If the apostles’ writings were accepted as Scripture, some-
one may wonder why the extrabiblical document called The
Epistle of Barnabas is not included in Scripture. The answer is
that nearly unanimous scholarly opinion has concluded that it
was not written by Barnabas, but by some unknown Christian
who probably lived in Alexandria between A.D. 70 and 100.
The epistle claims that much of the Old Testament, including
animal sacrifices, much of the Mosaic law, and the construc-
tion of a physical temple, were mistakes that were contrary to
God’s will (see ODCC, p. 134). (Text and translation are found
in Kirsopp Lake, translator, The Apostolic Fathers [Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, and London: Heinemann,
1970], 1:335-409).
6 It is not absolutely necessary to translate the verse this way,
including James among the apostles. (The NIV reads, “I saw
none of the other apostles — only James, the Lord’s brother.”)
Yet the translation “except James the Lord’s brother” seems
clearly preferable, because (1) the Greek phrase is ei me, which
ordinarily means “except” (BAGD, p. 22, 8a), and in the great
majority of New Testament uses designates something that is
part of the previous group but is “excepted” from it; and (2)
in the context of Gal. 1:18, it would not make much sense for
Paul to say that when he went to Jerusalem he saw Peter, and
no other people except James — or Peter, and no other church
leaders except James — for he stayed there “fifteen days” (Gal.
1:18). So he must mean he saw Peter, and no other apostles
except James. But this classifies James with the apostles. See
discussion in E. D. Burton, The Epistle to the Galatians , ICC
(Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1920), p. 60. (Burton says, “ei me
means here, as always before a noun, Except’” [ibid.].)
CHAPTER 47 ■ CHURCH GOVERNMENT
909
Others, of course, had seen Jesus after his resurrection (“Then he appeared to more than
five hundred brethren at one time,” 1 Cor. 15:6). From this large group it is possible that
Christ appointed some others as apostles — but it is also very possible that he did not.
The evidence is not sufficient to decide the issue.
Romans 16:7 says, “Greet Andronicus and Junias , my kinsmen and my fellow prison-
ers; they are men of note among the apostles , and they were in Christ before me.” Because
there are several translation problems in the verse, no clear conclusions can be reached.
“Men of note” may be also translated “men noted by” (the apostles). “Junias” (a man’s
name) may also be translated “Junia” (a woman’s name). 7 “Apostles” here may not mean
the office “apostles of Jesus Christ,” but may simply mean “messengers” (the broader
sense which the word takes in Phil. 2:25; 2 Cor. 8:23; John 13:16). The verse has too little
clear information to allow us to draw a conclusion.
Others have been suggested as apostles. Silas (Silvanus) and sometimes Timothy are
mentioned because of 1 Thessalonians 2:6: “though we might have made demands as
apostles of Christ .” Does Paul include Silas and Timothy here, since the letter begins,
“Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy” (1 Thess. 1:1)?
It is not likely that Paul is including Timothy in this statement, for two reasons.
(1) He says just four verses earlier, “we had already suffered and been shamefully
treated at Philippi, as you know” (1 Thess. 2:2), but this refers to the beating and
imprisonment which happened just to Paul and Silas, not to Timothy (Acts 16:19).
So the “we” in verse 6 does not seem to include all of the people (Paul, Silvanus,
Timothy) mentioned in the first verse. The letter in general is from Paul, Silas and
Timothy, but Paul knows that the readers will naturally understand the appropriate
members of the “we” statements when he does not mean to include all three of them
in certain sections of the letter. He does not specify “we — that is, Silas
and I — had already suffered and been shamefully treated at Philippi, as you know,”
because the Thessalonians will know who the “we” are that he is talking about.
(2) This is also seen in 1 Thessalonians 3:1-2, where the “we” certainly cannot include
Timothy:
Therefore when we could bear it no longer, we were willing to be left behind at
Athens alone, and we sent Timothy, our brother and God’s servant in the gospel
of Christ, to establish you in your faith and to exhort you. (1 Thess. 3:1-2)
In this case, the “we” refers either to Paul and Silas, or else just to Paul alone (see Acts
17:14- 15; 18:5). Apparently Silas and Timothy had come to Paul in Athens “as soon as
7 For an extensive discussion of whether to translate “Junias”
or “Junia” here, see John Piper and Wayne Grudem, eds., Recov-
ering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (Wheaton: Crossway,
1991), pp. 79-81, 214, 221-22. Some have claimed that Junia
was a common womans name in ancient Greece, but this is
incorrect, at least in written Greek literature: A computer search
of 2,889 ancient Greek authors over thirteen centuries (ninth
century B.C. -fifth century A.D.) turned up only two exam-
ples of Junia as a womans name, one in Plutarch (c. A.D. 50-
c. 120) and one in the church father Chrysostom (A.D.
347-407), who referred to Junia as a woman in a sermon on
Rom. 16:7. It is not common as a man’s name either, since this
search found only one example of Junias as a man’s name, in
Epiphanius (A.D. 315-403), bishop of Salimis in Cyprus, who
refers to Junias in Rom. 16:7 and says he became bishop of Apa-
meia in Syria (Index of Disciples 125.19-20; this quotation is
the most significant, since Epiphanius knows more informa-
tion about Junias). The Latin text of the church father Origen
(d. A.D. 252) also refers to Junias in Rom. 16:7 as a man (J. P.
Migne, Patrologia Graeca, vol. 14, col. 1289). Therefore the avail-
able data give some support to the view that Junias was a man,
but the information is too sparse to be conclusive.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
910
possible” (Acts 17:15) — though Luke does not mention their arrival in Athens — and
Paul had sent them back to Thessalonica again to help the church there. Then he himself
went to Corinth, and they later joined him there (Acts 18:5).
It is most likely that “We were willing to be left behind at Athens alone” (1 Thess.
3:1), refers to Paul alone, both because he picks up the argument again in verse 5 with
the singular “I” (“When I could bear it no longer, I sent that I might know your faith,”
1 Thess. 3:5), and because the point concerning extreme loneliness in Athens would
not be made if Silas had stayed with him. 8 In fact, in the previous paragraph, Paul
means “I,” for he says, “We wanted to come to you — I, Paul, again and again — but
Satan hindered us” (1 Thess. 2:18). Apparently he is using “we” more frequently in this
epistle as a courteous way of including Silas and Timothy, who had spent so much time
in the Thessalonian church, in the letter to that church. But the Thessalonians would
have had little doubt who was really in charge of this great mission to the Gentiles, and
on whose apostolic authority the letter primarily (or exclusively) depended.
So it is just possible that Silas was himself an apostle, and that 1 Thessalonians 2:6
hints at that. He was a leading member of the Jerusalem church (Acts 15:22), and could
well have seen Jesus after his resurrection, and then been appointed as an apostle. But
we cannot be very certain.
The situation with Timothy is different, however. Just as he is excluded from the “we”
of 1 Thessalonians 2:2 (and 3:1-2), so he seems to be excluded from the “we” of 1 Thes-
salonians 2:6. Moreover, as a native of Lystra (Acts 16:1-3) who had learned of Christ
from his grandmother and mother (2 Tim. 1:5), it seems impossible that he would have
been in Jerusalem before Pentecost and would there have seen the risen Lord and come to
believe in him, and then suddenly have been appointed as an apostle. In addition, PauVs
pattern of address in his letters always jealously guards the title “apostle" for himself never
allowing it to be applied to Timothy or others of his traveling companions (note 2 Cor.
1:1; Col. 1:1: “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus . . . and Timothy our brother ”; and then Phil.
1:1: “Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus”). So Timothy, as important a role as he
had, should not rightly be considered one of the apostles.
This gives us a limited but somewhat imprecisely numbered group who had the office
“apostles of Jesus Christ.” There seem to have been at least fifteen, and perhaps sixteen
or even a few more who are not recorded in the New Testament.
Yet it seems quite certain that there were none appointed after Paul. When Paul lists
the resurrection appearances of Christ, he emphasizes the unusual way in which Christ
appeared to him, and connects that with the statement that this was the “last” appear-
ance of all, and that he himself is indeed “the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an
apostle.”
He appeared to Cephas (Peter), then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more
than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom are still alive, though
8 See the discussion in Leon Morris, The First and Second plural is used almost throughout, whereas in most of his letters
Epistles to the Thessalonians , NIC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, Paul prefers the singular” (p. 98; cf. pp. 46-47). Morris takes the
1959), pp. 98-99. Morris says, “The practice in this epistle dif- plurals here to refer only to Paul himself,
fers somewhat from that in the Pauline epistles generally. The
CHAPTER 47 • CHURCH GOVERNMENT
911
some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last
of all as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the
apostles, unfit to be called an apostle. (1 Cor. 15:5-9)
c. Summary: The word apostle can be used in a broad or narrow sense. In a broad sense,
it just means “messenger” or “pioneer missionary.” But in a narrow sense, the most com-
mon sense in the New Testament, it refers to a specific office, “apostle of Jesus Christ.”
These apostles had unique authority to found and govern the early church, and they
could speak and write words of God. Many of their written words became the New
Testament Scriptures.
In order to qualify as an apostle, someone (1) had to have seen Christ with his own
eyes after he rose from the dead, and (2) had to have been specifically appointed by
Christ as an apostle. There was a limited number of apostles, perhaps fifteen or sixteen
or a few more — the New Testament is not explicit on the number. The twelve original
apostles (the eleven plus Matthias) were joined by Barnabas and Paul, very probably
James, perhaps Silas, and maybe even Andronicus and Junias or a few unnamed others.
It seems that no apostles were appointed after Paul, and certainly, since no one today
can meet the qualification of having seen the risen Christ with his own eyes, there are
no apostles today. 9 In place of living apostles present in the church to teach and govern
it, we have instead the writings of the apostles in the books of the New Testament. Those
New Testament Scriptures fulfill for the church today the absolutely authoritative teach-
ing and governing functions which were fulfilled by the apostles themselves during the
early years of the church.
Though some may use the word apostle in English today to refer to very effective
church planters or evangelists, it seems inappropriate and unhelpful to do so, for it simply
confuses people who read the New Testament and see the high authority that is attrib-
uted to the office of “apostle” there. It is noteworthy that no major leader in the his-
tory of the church — not Athanasius or Augustine, not Luther or Calvin, not Wesley or
Whitefield — has taken to himself the title of “apostle” or let himself be called an apostle.
If any in modern times want to take the title “apostle” to themselves, they immediately
9 Someone may object that Christ could appear to someone
today and appoint that person as an apostle. But the founda-
tional nature of the office of apostle (Eph. 2:20; Rev. 21:14) and
the fact that Paul views himself as the last one whom Christ
appeared to and appointed as an apostle (“last of all, as to one
untimely born,” 1 Cor. 15:8), indicate that this will not happen.
Moreover, God’s purpose in the history of redemption seems to
have been to give apostles only at the beginning of the church
age (see Eph. 2:20).
Another objection to the idea that there are no apostles
today, one that comes especially from people in the charis-
matic movement, is the argument that the “fivefold ministry”
of Eph. 4:11 should continue today, and we should have (1)
apostles, (2) prophets, (3) evangelists, (4) pastors, and (5)
teachers, since Paul says that Christ “gave some as apostles,
and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as
pastors and teachers” (Eph. 4:11 NASB).
However, Eph. 4:11 talks about a one-time event in the
past (note the aorist kai edoken, “and he gave”), when Christ
ascended into heaven (vv. 8- 10) and then at Pentecost poured
out initial giftings on the church, giving the church apostles,
prophets, evangelists, and pastor-teachers (or pastors and
teachers) . Whether or not Christ would later give more people
for each of these offices cannot be decided from this verse alone ,
but must be decided based on other New Testament teachings
on the nature of these offices and whether they were expected
to continue. In fact, we see that there were many proph-
ets, evangelists, and pastor-teachers established by Christ
throughout all of the early churches, but there was only one
more apostle given after this initial time (Paul, “last of all,” in
unusual circumstances on the Damascus Road).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
912
raise the suspicion that they may be motivated by inappropriate pride and desires for
self-exaltation, along with excessive ambition and a desire for much more authority in
the church than any one person should rightfully have.
2. Elder (Pastor/Overseer/Bishop).
a. Plural Elders: The Pattern in All New Testament Churches: The next church office
to be considered is that of “elder.” Although some have argued that different forms of
church government are evident in the New Testament, 10 a survey of the relevant texts
shows the opposite to be true: there is quite a consistent pattern of plural elders as the
main governing group in New Testament churches. For instance, in Acts 14:23 we read,
“And when they had appointed elders 11 for them in every church, with prayer and fasting,
they committed them to the Lord in whom they believed” This is on Paul’s first mission-
ary journey, when he is returning through the cities of Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch. It
indicates that Paul’s normal procedure from the time of his first missionary journey was
to establish a group of elders in each church shortly after the church began. We know
that Paul also established elders in the church at Ephesus, for we read, “From Miletus he
sent to Ephesus and called to him the elders of the church” (Acts 20:17). Moreover, Paul’s
apostolic assistants apparently were instructed to carry out a similar process, for Paul
wrote to Titus, “This is why I left you in Crete, that you might amend what was defective,
and appoint elders in every town as I directed you” (Titus 1:5). Shortly after a church has
been established, once again we see elders being established in office, in “every town” in
which there was a church. And Paul reminded Timothy of the time “when the elders laid
their hands upon you” (1 Tim. 4:14).
James writes, “Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let
them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord” (James 5:14). This
is a significant statement because the epistle of James is a general letter written to many
churches, all the believers scattered abroad, whom James characterizes as “the twelve
tribes in the Dispersion” (James 1:1). It indicates that James expected that there would
be elders in every New Testament church to which his general epistle went — that is, in all
the churches in existence at that time .
A similar conclusion can be drawn from 1 Peter. Peter writes, “So I exhort the elders
among you. . . . Tend the flock of God that is your charge ...” (1 Peter 5:1-2). First Peter
is also a general epistle, written to dozens of churches scattered throughout four Roman
provinces in Asia Minor (see 1 Peter 1:1; Bithynia and Pontus constituted one Roman
province). Far from expecting different kinds of church government when he was writ-
ing (around A.D. 62, more than thirty years after Pentecost), Peter assumes that all these
churches, whether founded by Paul or by others, whether predominantly Gentile or pre-
dominantly Jewish or evenly divided in their make-up, would have elders leading them.
Moreover, there were elders in the Jerusalem church (Acts 11:30; 15:2), and, though the
word elders is not used, there is a plurality of leaders in the congregation to which the
10 See, for example, Millard Erickson, Christian Theology ; Greek word presbyteros , which also was used in other contexts
p. 1084. to mean simply an older person.
u The word translated “elder” in the New Testament is the
CHAPTER 47 • CHURCH GOVERNMENT
epistle to the Hebrews is directed, for the author says, “Obey your leaders and submit to
them; for they are keeping watch over your souls, as men who will have to give account”
(Heb. 13:17).
Two significant conclusions may be drawn from this survey of the New Testament
evidence. First, no passage suggests that any church, no matter how small, had only one
elder. The consistent New Testament pattern is a plurality of elders “in every church”
(Acts 14:23) and “in every town” (Titus 1:5). 12 Second, we do not see a diversity of forms
of government in the New Testament church, but a unified and consistent pattern in
which every church had elders governing it and keeping watch over it (Acts 20:28; Heb.
13:17; 1 Peter 5:2-3).
b. Other Names for Elders: Pastors, Overseers, Bishops: Elders are also called “pastors”
or “bishops” or “overseers” in the New Testament. The least commonly used word (at least
in the noun form) is pastor (Gk. poimen). It may be surprising to us to find that this word,
which has become so common in English, only occurs once in the New Testament when
speaking about a church officer. In Ephesians 4:11, Paul writes, “And his gifts were that
some should be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers.” The
verse is probably better translated “pastor-teachers” (one group) rather than “pastors and
teachers” (suggesting two groups) because of the Greek construction (though not every
New Testament scholar agrees with that translation). 13 The connection with teaching sug-
gests that these pastors were some (or perhaps all) of the elders who carried on the work of
teaching, for one qualification for an elder is that he be “able to teach” (1 Tim. 3:2).
Although the noun pastor ( poimen ) is not used of church officers elsewhere in the New
Testament, 14 the related verb which means “to act as a shepherd” or “to act as a pastor”
(Gk. poimaino ) is applied to elders in Paul’s address to the Ephesian elders. He tells them
“to shepherd the church of God” (Acts 20:28, literally translating the verb poimaino), and
in the same sentence he referred to God’s people as “all the flock,” using another related
noun (Gk. poimniott ) which means “a flock of sheep.” So Paul directly charges these
Ephesian elders to act as shepherds or “pastors.” 15
The same verb is used in 1 Peter 5:2 where Peter tells the elders to “ shepherd ( poimaino)
the flock of God that is your charge” (author’s translation). Then two verses later Jesus is
12 Some have suggested that perhaps there was one elder in
every “house church” in a town, and that all of those elders from
the different house churches together constituted the elders that
Titus was to appoint in each town. If this was true, perhaps some
support could be given for the idea of one pastor (“elder”) over
every church.
In response to this suggestion, we must note that this is
a theory without any evidence to support it, for no verse in
the New Testament hints at the idea that there was one elder
in each “house church.” In terms of supporting evidence,
this suggestion stands in the same category as the statement,
“Perhaps all the elders in Crete were blind in the left eye.” Of
course, scholars can say “perhaps” to any event for which there
is no evidence, but such statements should carry no weight in
our attempts to determine what pattern of church government
actually existed in the first century.
13 The phrase “some pastors and teachers” has one definite
article in front of two nouns joined by kai (“and”), a construc-
tion that always in Greek indicates that the two nouns are
viewed by the writer as unified in some way. This construc-
tion often is used where two nouns refer to the same person
or thing, but it is sometimes used of two different persons or
groups viewed as a unity. In either case, the phrase ties together
“pastors” and “teachers” more closely than any other titles.
l4 It is used several times to speak of a “shepherd” who
cares for his sheep, however.
15 The English word pastor is derived from a Latin term that
means “one who cares for sheep,” and the English word pastor
earlier meant “shepherd” in the literal sense of one who took
care of sheep (see Oxford English Dictionary, Vol. P, p. 542).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
914
called the chief pastor or “chief shepherd” (Gk. archipoimen, 1 Peter 5:4), implying quite
clearly that Peter also viewed the elders as shepherds or “pastors” in the church. Therefore,
although the noun pastor is only used once to refer to elders, the related verb is used twice
in passages that explicitly identify the task of shepherding with the office of elder.
Another term used for elders in the New Testament is a Greek word episkopos , which is
variously translated as “overseer” or “bishop,” depending on the individual passage and
the English translation. 16 But this word also seems quite clearly to be another term for
elders in New Testament usage. For example, when Paul has called to him the elders of
the church at Ephesus (Acts 20:17), he says to them, “Take heed to yourselves and to all
the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers (Gk. episkopos)” (Acts 20:28).
Paul quite readily refers to these Ephesian elders as “overseers” (or “bishops”).
In 1 Timothy 3:1-2, Paul writes, “If any one aspires to the office of bishop , he desires
a noble task. Now a bishop must be above reproach. . . .” We must remember that Paul
is writing to Timothy when Timothy is at Ephesus (see 1 Tim. 1:3, “remain at Ephesus”)
and we already know from Acts 20 that there are elders at Ephesus (Acts 20:17-38).
Furthermore, in 1 Timothy 5:17, we see that elders were ruling the church at Ephesus
when Timothy was there, because it says, “Let the elders who rule well be considered
worthy of double honor.” Now the “bishops” in 1 Timothy 3:1 -2 also are to rule over the
church at Ephesus because one qualification is that “He must manage his own household
well ... for if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how can he care
for God’s church?” (1 Tim. 3:4-5). So here it also seems that “bishop” or “overseer” is
simply another term for “elder,” since these “bishops” fulfill the same function as elders
quite clearly do elsewhere in this epistle and in Acts 20.
In Titus 1:5, Paul tells Titus to “appoint elders in every town” and gives some qualifi-
cations (v. 6). Then in the very next sentence (v. 7), he gives reasons for those qualifica-
tions, and he begins by saying, “For a bishop , as God’s steward, must be blameless.” Here
again he uses the word “bishop” to refer to the elders whom Titus was to appoint, giving
another indication that the terms elder and bishop were interchangeable.
Finally, in Philippians 1:1, Paul writes “To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at
Philippi, with the bishops and deacons.” Here it also seems appropriate to think that
“bishops” is another name for “elders,” because there certainly were elders at Philippi,
since it was Paul’s practice to establish elders in every church (see Acts 14:23). And if
there were elders ruling in the church at Philippi, it is unthinkable that Paul would write
to the church and single out bishops and deacons — but not elders — if their offices were
both different from that of the elders. Therefore, by “bishops and deacons” Paul must
have meant the same thing as “elders and deacons.” 17 Although in some parts of the
church from the second century A.D. onward, the word bishop has been used to refer to
a single individual with authority over several churches, this was a later development of
the term and is not found in the New Testament itself.
16 The NIV regularly uses “overseer” instead of “bishop” to cer in the Church is called indifferently ‘bishop’ (episkopos)
translate episkopos. and ‘elder’ or ‘presbyter’ ( presbyteros )” (St. Paul's Epistle to the
17 Even the Anglican scholar J. B. Lightfoot, says, “It is a fact Philippians [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1953 ; first published
now generally recognised by theologians of all shades of opin- 1868], p. 95; on pp. 95-99 Lightfoot discusses the data to sup-
ion, that in the language of the New Testament the same offi- port this conclusion).
CHAPTER 47 * CHURCH GOVERNMENT
915
c. The Functions of Elders: One of the major roles of elders in the New Testament is to
govern the New Testament churches. In 1 Timothy 5:17 we read, “Let the elders who rule
well be considered worthy of double honor.” Earlier in the same epistle Paul says that an
overseer (or elder) “must manage his own household well, keeping his children submis-
sive and respectful in every way; for if a man does not know how to manage his own
household, how can he care for God’s church?” (1 Tim. 3:4-5).
Peter also indicates a ruling function for elders when he exhorts them:
Tend the flock of God that is your charge, not by constraint but willingly, not
for shameful gain but eagerly, not as domineering over those in your charge
but being examples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd is manifested
you will obtain the unfading crown of glory. Likewise you that are younger be
subject to the elders. (1 Peter 5:2-5)
The fact that they are to act as shepherds of the flock of God, and the fact that they are
not to domineer (that is, not to rule harshly or oppressively) strongly suggest that elders
have ruling or governing functions in the churches to which Peter is writing. This is
consistent with his charge that especially those who are younger should “be subject to
the elders” (v. 5). 18
Although Hebrews 13:17 does not name elders, certainly there are some church offi-
cers with governing authority over the church, for the author says, “ Obey your leaders
and submit to them; for they are keeping watch over your souls, as men who will have to
give account.” Since the New Testament gives no indication of any other officers in the
church with this kind of authority, it is reasonable to conclude that the congregation is
to submit to and obey its elders. (This conclusion is also consistent with the description
of responsibilities Paul gives to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20:28.)
In addition to governing responsibility, elders also seem to have had some teaching
responsibilities in the New Testament churches. In Ephesians 4:11, elders are referred to
as “pastor-teachers” (or, on an alternative translation, pastors who are viewed as quite
closely united to teachers). And in 1 Timothy 3:2, an overseer (elder) must be “an apt
teacher ” Then in 1 Timothy 5:17, Paul says, “Let the elders who rule well be considered
worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching” Here
Paul seems to imply that there is a special group of elders who “labor in preaching and
teaching.” This means at least that there are some among the elders who give more time
to the activities of preaching and teaching, and may even mean that there are some who
“labor” in the sense of earning their living from that preaching and teaching. The same
conclusions can be drawn from Titus, where Paul says that an elder “must hold firm to
the sure word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and
also to confute those who contradict it” (Titus 1:9). 19
18 For a defense of the view that church officers and not just who is able to explain God’s Word privately. So perhaps not all
older people are referred to in 1 Peter 5:5, see Wayne Grudem, elders are called to do public teaching— perhaps not all have
The First Epistle of Peter t pp. 192-93. gifts for teaching in that specific way. What is clear here is that
19 Paul never says that all the elders are to be able to teach Paul wants to guarantee that elders have a mature and sound
publicly or to preach sermons to the congregation, and it would understanding of Scripture and can explain it to others,
be reasonable to think that an “apt teacher” could be someone
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
916
Elders, then, had responsibility to rule and to teach in New Testament churches.
d. Qualifications for Elders: When Paul lists the qualifications for elders, it is signifi-
cant that he combines requirements concerning character traits and heart attitudes with
requirements that cannot be fulfilled in a short time but will only become evident over
a period of several years of faithful Christian living:
Now a bishop must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, sensi-
ble, dignified, hospitable, an apt teacher, no drunkard, not violent but gentle, not
quarrelsome, and no lover of money. He must manage his own household well,
keeping his children submissive and respectful in everyway; for if a man does not
know how to manage his own household, how can he care for God’s church? He
must not be a recent convert, or he may be puffed up with conceit and fall into
the condemnation of the devil; moreover he must be well thought of by outsiders,
or he may fall into reproach and the snare of the devil. (1 Tim. 3:2-7)
Similar but differently worded qualifications are found in Titus 1:6-9, where Paul
says that Titus is to appoint elders in every town:
If any man is blameless, the husband of one wife, and his children are believers
and not open to the charge of being profligate or insubordinate. For a bishop, as
God’s steward, must be blameless; he must not be arrogant or quick-tempered
or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, but hospitable, a lover of goodness,
master of himself, upright, holy, and self-controlled; he must hold firm to the
sure word as taught, so that he maybe able to give instruction in sound doctrine
and also to confute those who contradict it. (Titus 1:6-9)
Those who are choosing elders in churches today would do well to look carefully at
candidates in the light of these qualifications, and to look for these character traits and
patterns of godly living rather than worldly achievement, fame, or success. Especially
in churches in western industrial societies, there seems to be a tendency to think that
success in the world of business (or law, or medicine, or government) is an indication
of suitability for the office of elder, but this is not the teaching of the New Testament.
It reminds us that elders are to be “examples to the flock” in their daily lives, and that
would certainly include their own personal relationships with God in Bible reading,
prayer, and worship. Just as Paul could say, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Cor.
11:1; cf. 2 Tim. 3:10-11), and just as he could command Timothy to “set the believers an
example in speech and conduct, in love, in faith, in purity” (1 Tim. 4:12), and just as he
could tell Titus, “Show yourself in all respects a model of good deeds, and in your teaching
show integrity, gravity, and sound speech that cannot be censured” (Titus 2:7), so the
pattern is to be continued in the lives of all church leaders today. It is not optional that
their lives be examples for others to follow; it is a requirement.
e. What Is the Meaning of “Husband of One Wife”? The qualification “the husband
of one wife ” (1 Tim. 3:2; Titus 1:6) has been understood in different ways. Some people
CHAPTER 47 • CHURCH GOVERNMENT
have thought that it excludes from the office of elder men who have been divorced and
have then married someone else, since they have then been the husband of two wives.
But this does not seem to be a correct understanding of these verses. A better interpreta-
tion is that Paul was prohibiting a polygamist (a man who presently has more than one
wife) from being an elder. Several reasons support this view: (1) All the other qualifica-
tions listed by Paul refer to a mans present status , not his entire past life. For example,
1 Timothy 3:1-7 does not mean “one who has never been violent,” but “one who is not
now violent, but gentle.” It does not mean “one who has never been a lover of money,”
but “one who is not now a lover of money.” It does not mean “one who has been above
reproach for his whole life,” but “one who is now above reproach.” If we made these
qualifications apply to ones entire past life, then we would exclude from office almost
everyone who became a Christian as an adult, for it is doubtful that any non- Christian
could meet these qualifications.
(2) Paul could have said “having been married only once” if he had wanted to, but
he did not. 20 (3) We should not prevent remarried widowers from being elders, but that
would be necessary if we take the phrase to mean “having been married only once.” The
qualifications for elders are all based on a man’s moral and spiritual character, and there
is nothing in Scripture to suggest that a man who remarried after his wife had died has
lower moral or spiritual qualifications. 21 (4) Polygamy was possible in the first century.
Although it was not common, polygamy was practiced, especially among the Jews. The
Jewish historian Josephus says, “For it is an ancestral custom of ours to have several wives
at the same time.” 22 Rabbinic legislation also regulated inheritance customs and other
aspects of polygamy. 23
Therefore it is best to understand “the husband of one wife” to prohibit a polygamist
from holding the office of elder. The verses say nothing about divorce and remarriage
with respect to qualifications for church office.
20 The Greek expression for “having been married only once”
would be hapax gegamemenos, using the word “once” ( hapax )
plus a perfect participle, giving the sense, “having been married
once and continuing in the state resulting from that marriage.”
(Such a construction is found, for example, in Heb. 10:2, and a
similar construction is found in Heb. 9:26. Related expressions
with aorist verbs are found in Heb. 6:4; 9:28; and Jude 3.)
Another way Paul could have expressed the idea of having
been married only once is using a perfect participle of ginomai
to say “having been a husband of one wife” ( gegonds mias gun-
aikos an$r). This is, in fact, the force of the requirement for wid-
ows in 1 Tim. 5:9, “having been the wife of one husband” (the
force of the perfect participle gegonuia carries over from the
previous phrase, and all the qualifications for enrolling widows
in 1 Tim. 5:9-10 speak of past history in their lives). But in 1
Tim. 3:2 and Titus 1:6 the sense is different, because present
tense forms of eimi (“to be”) are used: (literally) “It is necessary
for a bishop to be blameless, the husband of one wife ”
21 Some interpreters in the early church did try to exclude
remarried widowers from church office (see, for example,
Apostolic Constitutions 2.2 ; 6.17 [third or fourth century A.D.] ,
and Apostolic Canons 17 [fourth or fifth century A.D.]), but
these statements reflect not a biblical perspective but a false
asceticism which held that celibacy in general was superior to
marriage. (These texts can be found in the Ante-Nicene Fathers
series, 7:396, 457, and 501.)
However, Chrysostom (d. A.D. 407) understood 1 Tim.
3:2 to prohibit polygamy, not second marriages after death or
divorce (see his Homilies on 1 Tim. 3:2).
22 Josephus, Antiquities 17.14; in 17.19 he lists the nine
women who were married to King Herod at the same time.
23 See Mishnah, Yebamoth 4:11; Ketuboth 10:1, 4, 5; San-
hedrin 2:4; Kerithoth 3:7; Kiddushin 2:7; Bechoroth 8:4. Other
evidence on Jewish polygamy is found in Justin Martyr, Dia-
logue with Trypho , chapter 134. Evidence for polygamy among
non-Jews is not as extensive but is indicated in Herodotus (d.
420 B.C.) 1.135; 4.155; 2 Macc. 4:30 (about 170 B.C.); Tertul-
lian. Apology 46.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
918
f. The Public Installation of Elders: In connection with the discussion of elders Paul
says, “Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands” (1 Tim. 5:22). Although the context
does not specify a process of selection of elders, the immediately preceding context
(1 Tim. 5:17-21) deals entirely with elders, and laying on of hands would be an appro-
priate ceremony for setting someone apart to the office of elder (note the laying on of
hands to ordain or establish people in certain offices or tasks in Acts 6:6; 13:3; 1 Tim.
4:14). Therefore the setting apart of elders seems the most likely possibility for the
action Paul has in mind. In this case he would be saying, “Do not be hasty in ordaining
people as elders.” This would be consistent with a process whereby deacons also are
to be “tested first; then if they prove themselves blameless let them serve as deacons”
(1 Tim. 3:10). Although Paul did ordain elders quite soon after the establishment of
each church (Acts 14:23), here he cautions that such appointment should not be rushed,
lest a mistake be made. And in the entire process, the church must be careful not to
judge as the world judges, for “man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord
looks on the heart” (1 Sam. 16:7; cf. 2 Cor. 5:16). This necessity for evaluation of spiri-
tual condition was also evident when the apostles encouraged the church at Jerusalem
to pick out “seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may
appoint to this duty” (Acts 6:3). Among those chosen was “Stephen, a man full of faith
and of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 6:5).
We should also note that the appointment of elders in Paul’s early churches was
accompanied by “prayer and fasting,” perhaps in connection with the process of selec-
tion of the elders. (Note the example of Jesus who “went out to the mountain to pray;
and all night he continued in prayer to God” before he chose his twelve disciples [Luke
6:12-13]. ) 24
3. Deacon. The word deacon is a translation of the Greek word diakonos, which is the
ordinary word for “servant” when it is used in contexts not dealing with church officers.
Deacons are mentioned clearly in Philippians 1:1: “To all the saints in Christ Jesus
who are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons .” But there is no specification of their
function, other than to indicate that they are different from the bishops (elders). Deacons
are also mentioned in 1 Timothy 3:8- 13 in a more extensive passage:
Deacons likewise must be serious, not double-tongued, not addicted to much
wine, not greedy for gain; they must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear
conscience. And let them also be tested first; then if they prove themselves
blameless let them serve as deacons. The women [or ‘wives’; the Greek can take
either meaning] likewise must be serious, no slanderers, but temperate, faithful
in all things. Let deacons be the husband of one wife, and let them manage their
24 We have not discussed the office held by Timothy and egated authority from the apostles to supervise early churches
Titus under the category of apostle or under the category of while they were being established. Since there is today no liv-
elder. This is because Timothy and Titus, together with some ing apostle to whom people like this would be accountable and
of Paul’s other co-workers, are not apostles, but neither are they from whom they would derive their authority, we should not
elders or deacons. They seem to fall in an unusual category expect to have any apostolic assistants like this in the church
that we might call “apostolic assistants,” for they had some del- today either.
CHAPTER 47 • CHURCH GOVERNMENT
children and their households well; for those who serve well as deacons gain a
good standing for themselves and also great confidence in the faith which is in
Christ Jesus. (1 Tim. 3:8-13)
The function of deacons is not spelled out here, but the qualifications for deacons
suggest some functions. For instance, they seem to have had some responsibility in car-
ing for the finances of the church, since they had to be people who were “not greedy for
gain” (v. 8). They perhaps had some administrative responsibilities in other activities
of the church as well, because they were to manage their children and their households
well (v. 12). They may also have ministered to the physical needs of those in the church
or community who needed help (see discussion of Acts 6 below). Moreover, if verse 11
speaks of their wives (as I think it does), then it would also be likely that they were
involved in some house-to-house visitation and counseling, because the wives are to be
“no slanderers.” It would do no good for deacons if their wives (who would no doubt
also be involved in prayer and counseling with the deacons) spread confidential mat-
ters around the church. But these are only suggestions of possible areas of responsibility
hinted at in this passage.
The noun deacon is not itself used in Acts 6:1—6, but a related verb (Gk. diakoned,
“to serve”) is found in verse 2: “It is not right that we should give up preaching the word
of God to serve tables.” Here the apostles who ruled over the Jerusalem church found
it necessary to delegate some administrative responsibilities to others. In this case, the
responsibilities included the distribution of food to widows who were in need. It seems
appropriate to think of these seven men as “deacons” even though the name deacon had
perhaps not yet come to be applied to them as they began this responsibility, for they
seem to be given tasks which fit well with the responsibilities of deacons hinted at in
1 Timothy 3:8-12.
There are other texts in which it is difficult to know whether the New Testament is
speaking about a deacon as a special church officer or is simply using the word to refer
to a “servant” in a general sense. This is the difficulty in Romans 16:1, where Phoebe is
called a “servant” or a “deaconess” or “deacon” (this type of Greek noun has the same
form in both masculine and feminine genders, so it is simply a question of which Eng-
lish word is most appropriate) of the church at Cenchreae. Because Paul's requirement
for deacons was that they be “the husband of one wife” (1 Tim. 3:12), the translation
“servant” seems preferable in Romans 16:1 ( diakonos takes this sense in Rom. 13:4;
15:8; and 1 Cor. 3:5). 25 In general, the verses on deacons show that they had recognized
offices to “serve” the church in various ways. Acts 6:1-6 suggests that they had some
25 Some have argued that 1 Tim. 3:11 refers to women dea-
cons: “The women likewise must be serious, no slanderers, but
temperate, faithful in all things.” However, if Timothy and the
church at Ephesus knew that women could be deacons, it would
seem very strange for Paul to have to add a separate verse that
talked specifically about women deacons, and then specify
nothing more about them than would have been required if the
verse had not been there at all. Moreover, it would seem very
odd for Paul to sandwich only one verse about women deacons
in the middle of five verses (three preceding and two follow-
ing) about men who are deacons. On the other hand, a verse
referring to the wives of deacons in the middle of a list of quali-
fications for deacons would be very appropriate: Paul elsewhere
includes family conduct as one aspect of the requirement for
church office (1 Tim. 3:2, 4-5). It is true that Paul simply says
“the wives” rather than “their wives,” but Greek frequently
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
920
administrative responsibilities, but were nevertheless subject to the authority of those
who had rule over the entire church.
It is significant that nowhere in the New Testament do deacons have ruling author-
ity over the church as the elders do, nor are deacons ever required to be able to teach
Scripture or sound doctrine.
4. Other Offices? In many churches today, there are other offices, such as treasurer,
moderator (one responsible for chairing church business meetings), or trustees (in some
forms of church government, these are people who have legal accountability for the prop-
erty owned by the church). Moreover, churches with more than one paid staff member
may have some staff members (such as music director, education director, youth worker,
etc.) who are “publicly recognized as having the right and responsibility to perform cer-
tain functions in the church,” and who thus fit our definition of church officer, and who
may even be paid to perform such functions as a full-time occupation, but who may not
be elders or deacons in the church.
There does not seem to be any reason to say that these should not be offices in the
church as well, even though all of them could probably be put in the category of either
elder or deacon (most of those mentioned above could be deacons with specific respon-
sibilities, or the moderator could also be an elder who simply moderates church business
meetings). Nevertheless, if these or other similar offices seem helpful for the function-
ing of the church, there seems to be no reason why they should not be established. Yet if
they are established, it would be necessary to see that they not overshadow the impor-
tance of the offices specifically named in Scripture, and that they not have any authority
that is not subject to the governing authority of those officers that are clearly named in
Scripture. If significant influence or authority is gained by those who have offices not
named in Scripture, then it is much less likely that people in the congregation or the
office holders themselves will look to Scripture and find detailed descriptions of how
they should act or how they should be chosen. This would tend to diminish the effective
authority of Scripture to govern the church in the area of church leadership.
B. How Should Church Officers Be Chosen?
In the history of the church there have been two major types of process for the selec-
tion of church officers — selection by a higher authority, or selection by the local congre-
gation. The Roman Catholic Church has its officers appointed by a higher authority: the
Pope appoints cardinals and bishops, and the bishops appoint priests in local parishes.
This is a “hierarchy” or system of government by a priesthood 26 that is distinct from the
omits possessive adjectives when the person named (brother, ed. John Piper and Wayne Grudem (Wheaton, 111.: Crossway,
sister, father, mother, etc.) would have an obvious relationship 1991), pp. 213 - 14, 219-221, and p. 505, n. 13; and, in the same
to the person being discussed in the immediate context. volume, George W. Knight III, “The Family and the Church:
For two views of this verse, and two views on whether How Should Biblical Manhood and Womanhood Work Out in
women should be deacons today, see Thomas R. Schreiner, Practice?” pp. 353-54.
“The Valuable Ministries of Women in the Context of Male 26 The word hierarchy means “government by priests,” and
Leadership: A Survey of Old and New Testament Examples derives from the Greek words for “priest” ( hierus ) and “rule”
and Teaching,” Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood , ( arche ) .
CHAPTER 47 • CHURCH GOVERNMENT
921
laypeople in the church. This system claims an unbroken line of descent from Christ and
the apostles, and claims that the present priesthood stands as Christ’s representatives in
the church. Although the Church of England (the Episcopalian Church in the United
States) does not submit to government by the Pope or have cardinals, it does have some
similarities to the hierarchical system of the Roman Catholic Church, since it is governed
by bishops and archbishops, and its clergy are thought of as priests. It also claims direct
succession from the apostles, and priests and bishops are appointed by a higher authority
outside the local parish. 27
In distinction from this system of appointment by higher authority, in most other
Protestant groups church officers are chosen by the local church, or by some group
within the local church, even though the form of church government may vary in other
significant ways (see below). Since this is an area in which there is no absolutely decisive
biblical text, we ought to be patient with some diversity among evangelicals on this issue.
However, there are several reasons why it seems most appropriate that church officers
(such as elder and deacon, and certainly including the “pastor”) should be chosen or at
least affirmed or recognized in some way by the whole congregation:
(1) In the New Testament, there are several examples where church officers were
apparently chosen by the whole congregation. In Acts 6:3, the apostles do not themselves
pick out the seven early deacons (if we see them as deacons), but say to the whole church,
“ Pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom,
whom we may appoint to this duty.” The initial selection of these men was done by the
whole congregation. When a replacement was chosen for Judas to be numbered among
the apostles, the whole congregation of 120 persons (see Acts 1:15) made the initial selec-
tion of two, from whom the Lord himself indicated which one he would appoint: “And
they put forward two, Joseph called Barsabbas, who was surnamed Justus, and Matth-
ias” (Acts 1:23). At the end of the Jerusalem council, the whole church had a part with
the apostles and elders in choosing representatives to convey the decisions to the other
churches, for the choosing and sending was done by “the apostles and elders, with the
whole church ” (Acts 15:22; cf. “in assembly,” v. 25). Moreover, when some of the churches
sent an offering with Paul to be taken to the Jerusalem church, the churches also sent a
representative to accompany Paul, one who, according to Paul, “has been appointed by
the churches to travel with us in this gracious work” (2 Cor. 8:19). 28
It may be objected that Paul and Barnabas “appointed” elders in every church (Acts
14:23), and Paul also told Titus to “ appoint elders in every town” (Titus 1:5). Does this
not seem more like the Roman Catholic or Anglican system than a system of congrega-
tional choice? Yet even those verses need not imply that the apostles alone made the selec-
tion, but could certainly include congregational consultation and even consent before an
official appointment or installation was made (as with the appointment in Acts 6:3, 6).
The word appoint may also mean “install.” 29
27 The Methodist Church in the United States also has no statement to that effect: Paul just says that he had been
appointment of local clergy by bishops, and has some similari- “appointed by the churches,” and certainly does not mention
ties to the Episcopal Church, from which it came. any higher authority outside the churches.
28 Of course, this church representative may have been 29 See BAGD, p. 881.
appointed only by officers within the church, but there is
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
922
(2) Another reason for congregational participation in the selection of church officers
is that in the New Testament generally, final governing authority seems to rest not with
any group outside the church or any group within the church, but with the church as
a whole. The final step in church discipline before excommunication is to “tell it to the
church ” (Matt. 18:17). Excommunication, or the act of excluding someone from the fel-
lowship of the church, is done when the whole congregation is “assembled” (1 Cor. 5:4),
and is therefore apparently done by the entire congregation. One other consideration that
is suggestive, but not conclusive, is the fact that the epistles that are written to churches
are not sent to the elders or some other group of leaders within the churches, but are
all written to entire churches, and the whole congregation is encouraged to read and
expected to give heed to these epistles (Rom. 1:7; 1 Cor. 1:2; 2 Cor. 1:1; cf. 2 Cor. 1:13;
Col. 4:16; 1 Tim. 4:13). This means that the apostles relate directly to the congregations,
not to the congregations through the officers.
There are also some practical reasons that can be mentioned:
(3) If the entire congregation selects the officers of the church, there is more account-
ability to the congregation. Paul assumed some level of accountability when he provided
for the fact that “two or three witnesses” could bring a charge of wrongdoing against
an elder (1 Tim. 5:19). This accountability provides an additional safeguard against
temptations to sin and excessive lust for power. 30
(4) Historically, false doctrine often seems to be adopted by the theologians of the
church first, by the pastors second, and by the informed laity, who are daily reading their
Bibles and walking with the Lord, last. Therefore, if the leadership begins to stray in doc-
trine or in life, and there is no election by the congregation, then the church as a whole has
no practical means of getting hold of the situation and turning it around. But if officers
are elected by the church, then there is a system of “checks and balances” whereby even the
governing authority of the church has some accountability to the church as a whole. 31
(5) Government works best when it has the consent of those governed (cf., in the Old
Testament, Ex. 4:29-31; 1 Sam. 7:5-6; 10:24; 2 Sam. 2:4; 1 Kings 1:39-40; and note the
mistake of Rehoboam in 1 Kings 12:1, 15).
These factors combine to indicate that although Scripture does not explicitly com-
mand one specific system of choosing church officers, it would seem most wise to have a
system whereby the entire church has a significant role in the selection and recognition
of the officers of the church — perhaps through a congregational vote, or through some
other process whereby congregational recognition is required before church officers can
assume office. 32
30 However, this situation also has a potential for abuse if a
few influential members exert influence to keep the pastor from
dealing with issues of sin in their own lives.
31 I am not using the phrase “checks and balances” to
reflect a preference for an American form of civil govern-
ment at this point, but intend the phrase to be understood
in a broader sense to mean safeguards that prevent excessive
power from being concentrated in the hands of any one indi-
vidual or group. (In fact, the system of plural elders which I see
represented in the New Testament is very different from the
concentration of power found in the office of the President of
the United States.)
32 When I mention a congregational vote I do not mean to
suggest the idea of a competitive election such as is found in
secular politics. It may simply involve a requirement that the
congregation vote to ratify candidates who have been nomi-
nated by a mature group within the church (such as the pres-
ent elders), or, on the other hand, it may involve a church-wide
election, or other processes may be used. Scripture is silent
regarding the actual process; therefore, God has decided to
CHAPTER 47 • CHURCH GOVERNMENT
923
Can anything else be said about the process of selecting officers? Some additional
congregational checks against excessive use of authority might be built into the selection
process. There is room for wide variation here, but provisions such as election to limited
terms of office, a requirement for a mandatory year off (except for full-time pastoral staff
members who are elders) every few years, a requirement for periodic reaffirmation of
election, and a provision in the nominating process whereby nominations can be made
by the members of the congregation (even if most nominations come from the elders
themselves), would all provide additional measures of accountability to the congrega-
tion without forfeiting any essential aspects of governing authority over the congregation
once elders are elected.
These factors would also provide some arguments against a self-perpetuating group
of elders which is not subject to election or periodic reconfirmation by the congregation,
but once again it must be said that no specific directives are listed in Scripture and there
is room for variation at this point.
C. Forms of Church Government
In discussing forms of church government there is some overlap with the previous
section on the method of choosing church officers, for the selection of officers is one very
important aspect of authority in the church. Different philosophies of church govern-
ment will be reflected in different methods used for selecting officers of the church, as
explained above.
This is evident in the fact that forms of church government can be broken down into
three large categories, which we may term “episcopalian,” “presbyterian,” and “congre-
gational.” The episcopalian forms have a government by a distinct category of church
officers known as a priesthood, and final authority for decision-making is found outside
the local church. 33 The Episcopal Church system is the primary representative among
Protestants of this form of government. The presbyterian forms have a government by
elders, some of whom have authority not only over their local congregation, but also,
through the presbytery and the general assembly, over all the churches in a region and
then in the denomination as a whole. The congregational forms of church government
all have final governing authority resting with the local congregation, although various
degrees of self-rule are given up through denominational affiliation, and the actual form
of local church government may vary considerably. We shall examine each of these forms
of government in the following discussion.
1. Episcopalian.
In the episcopalian system, an archbishop has authority over many bishops. They in
turn have authority over a “diocese,” which simply means the churches under the juris-
diction of a bishop. The officer in charge of a local parish is a rector (or sometimes a vicar,
leave the matter to the wisdom of each congregation in its own ernment. Sometimes an episcopalian form of government is
setting. called a “hierarchical” government, especially when referring
33 The Roman Catholic Church also has government by a to the Roman Catholic Church,
priesthood, and is therefore “episcopalian” in form of gov-
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
924
who is an “assistant” or one who substitutes for the rector). Archbishops, bishops, and
rectors are all priests, since they have all at one time been ordained to the episcopalian
priesthood (but in practice the rector is most often called the priest). 34
EPISCOPALIAN GOVERNMENT
Figure 47. 1
The argument for the episcopalian system is not that it is found in the New Testament,
but that it is a natural outgrowth of the development of the church which began in the
New Testament, and it is not forbidden by the New Testament. E. A. Litton writes, “No
order of Diocesan Bishops appears in the New Testament,” but immediately adds:
The evidence is in favour of the supposition that Episcopacy sprang from the
Church itself, and by a natural process, and that it was sanctioned by Saint John,
the last survivor of the Apostles. The Presbytery, when it assembled for consul-
tation, would naturally elect a president to maintain order; first temporarily, but
in time with permanent authority. . . . Thus it is probable that at an early period
an informal episcopate had sprung up in each church. As the Apostles were one
by one removed . . . the office would assume increased importance and become
invested with greater powers. 35
Moreover, since the office of bishop and the corresponding government structure
found in the Episcopalian Church is both historical and beneficial, Litton argues that it
should be preserved. Finally, the benefit of direct descent from the apostles is regarded
as a strong reason in favor of the episcopalian system. Litton says, “The Apostles are the
first link in the chain, and there is no reason why a succession, as regards to the external
commission, should not proceed from age to age, the existing body of ministers handing
down the official authority to their successors, and these latter in turn to theirs.” 36
But there are arguments that may be given on the other side of this question. (1)
It is significant that the office of “bishop” is not a distinct office in the New Testa-
34 However, Episcopalians understand the English word
priest to be equivalent to the term presbyter (the Greek term for
“elder”), while Roman Catholics understand the word priest dif-
ferently, relating it to the Old Testament priesthood in its duty
of offering sacrifices and representing the people to God and
God to the people.
35 Edward Arthur Litton, Introduction to Dogmatic Theol-
ogy y ed. by Philip E. Hughes (London: James Clarke, 1960; first
published in 2 vols., 1882, 1892), p. 401.
36 Ibid., p. 390.
CHAPTER 47 « CHURCH GOVERNMENT
925
ment, but is simply a synonym for the name “elder,” as Litton himself agrees. 37 There
is no single bishop in the New Testament, but bishops (or overseers) are always plural in
number. This should not be seen merely as an incidental fact, for even among the apostles
Jesus did not leave one with superior authority over the others, but left a group of twelve
who were equal in governing authority (and to whom others were later added, such as
Paul). Though some apostles, such as Peter, James, and Paul, had prominence among
the group, they did not have any greater authority than the others, and even Peter was
rebuked by Paul in Antioch (Gal. 2: 11). 38 This may well reflect the wisdom of Christ in
guarding against the abuse of power that inevitably comes when any one human being
has too much power without sufficient checks and balances from others. Just as Jesus
left a plurality of apostles to have ultimate (human) authority in the early church, so the
apostles always appointed a plurality of elders in every church, never leaving only one
person with governing authority.
(2) The theory of a group of bishops established to replace the apostles is not taught
in the New Testament, nor is there an implication of a need for physical continuity
of ordination through the laying on of hands by those who have been ordained in an
unbroken chain of succession from the apostles. For example, in Acts 13:3, it was not
the Jerusalem apostles who ordained Paul and Barnabas, but people in the church at
Antioch who laid hands on them and sent them out. In fact, there is very little evidence
that the apostles had any concern for a line of succession. Timothy apparently was
ordained not simply by Paul but also by a “council of elders” (1 Tim. 4:14), though
this may well have included Paul as well (see 2 Tim. 1:6). More importantly, ordaining
is ultimately from the Lord himself (Acts 20:28; 1 Cor. 12:28; Eph. 4:11), and there is
nothing in the nature of “ordaining” (when it is simply seen as public recognition of
an office) that requires that it be done only by those previously ordained in physical
descent from the apostles. If God has called an elder, he is to be recognized, and no
concern about physical descent needs to be raised. In addition, if one is convinced that
the local church should elect elders (see discussion above), then it would seem appro-
priate that the church that elected the elder — not an external bishop — should be the
group to confer the outward recognition at election by installing the person in office
or ordaining the pastor. 39
(3) While it may be argued that the development of an episcopalian system with single
bishops in authority over several churches was a beneficial development in the early
church, one may also argue that it was a deviation from New Testament standards and
a result of human dissatisfaction with the system of elected local elders that had been
established by the apostles and that had apparently worked very well from A.D. 30 to
100 throughout all of the New Testament church. But one’s evaluation of the historical
data will of course depend on one’s evaluation of earlier arguments for and against an
episcopalian system.
37 Ibid., p. 400. keys” in Matt. 16:19, see chapter 46, pp. 889-92.)
38 Roman Catholics argue that Peter had greater authority 39 Episcopalians, who favor appointment of officers by a
than the other apostles from the beginning, but the New Tes- bishop, would of course not agree with the premise of this last
tament evidence does not bear this out. (On the “power of the consideration.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
926
2. Presbyterian. In this system, each local church elects elders to a session (E in figure
47.2 stands for elder, and the dotted lines indicate that the whole congregation elects
the elders). The pastor of the church will be one of the elders in the session, equal in
authority to the other elders. This session has governing authority over the local church.
However, the members of the session (the elders) are also members of a presbytery, which
has authority over several churches in a region. This presbytery consists of some or all
of the elders in the local churches over which it has authority. Moreover, some of the
members of the presbytery are members of the “general assembly” which usually will
have authority over all the presbyterian churches in a nation or region. 40
PRESBYTERIAN GOVERNMENT
Figure 47.2
The arguments in favor of this presbyterian system are: (1) that those who have wis-
dom and gifts for eldership should be called on to use their wisdom to govern more than
just one local church, and (2) a national (or even worldwide) government of the church
shows the unity of the body of Christ. Moreover (3) such a system is able to prevent an
individual congregation from falling into doctrinal error much more effectively than any
voluntary association of churches. 41
The presbyterian system outlined above has many adherents among evangelical
Christians today, and it certainly works effectively in many cases. However, some
objections can be brought against this system: (1) Nowhere in Scripture do elders
have regularly established authority over more than their own local church. The pat-
tern is rather that elders are appointed in local churches and have authority over local
churches. Against this claim the Jerusalem council in Acts 15 is often mentioned, but
we should notice that this council was held in Jerusalem because of the presence of the
apostles. Apparently the apostles and the elders in Jerusalem, with the representatives
from Antioch (Acts 15:2), together sought God’s wisdom on this matter. And there
seems to have been some consultation with the whole church as well, for we read, at
40 In the Christian Reformed Church, the form of govern-
ment is similar to a presbyterian system, but the names of the
governing bodies are different: the elders in a local church are
called a consistory (instead of a session), the regional govern-
ing body is called a classis (instead of a presbytery ), and the
national governing assembly is called a synod (instead of a
general assembly).
41 A fuller defense of the presbyterian system of church
government is found in Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology ,
pp. 581-92.
CHAPTER 47 • CHURCH GOVERNMENT
the conclusion of the discussion, “Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders,
with the whole church , to choose men from among them and send them to Antioch
with Paul and Barnabas” (Acts 15:22). (If this narrative gives support to regional
government by elders, it therefore also gives support to regional government by whole
congregations!) This situation with the elders in Jerusalem is not a good pattern to
defend a system whereby elders have authority over more than their local churches:
the Jerusalem church did not send for all the elders in Judea, Samaria, and Galilee,
and call a meeting of “the Judean presbytery” or a “general assembly.” Although the
apostles in Jerusalem certainly had authority over all the churches, there is no indica-
tion that elders by themselves, even in the Jerusalem church, had any such authority.
And certainly there is no New Testament pattern for elders exercising authority over
any other than their own local churches. 42
(2) This system, in practice, results in much formal litigation, where doctrinal disputes
are pursued year after year all the way to the level of the general assembly. One wonders
if this should be characteristic of the church of Christ — perhaps so, but it seems to the
present author to be a system that encourages such litigation far more than is necessary
or edifying for the body of Christ.
(3) The effective power in church government seems, in practice, to be too removed
from the final control of the laypeople in the church. Although Berkhof, who defends
this system of government, affirms quite clearly that “the power of the church resides
primarily in the governing body of the local church,” 43 he also admits that, “the more
general the assembly, the more remote it is from the people/" 44 Thus the system is very
hard to turn around when it begins to go wrong since the laypersons who are not elders
have no vote in the session or the presbytery or the general assembly, and the governing
structure of the church is more removed from them than in other church government
structures.
(4) Although in some cases it is true that a doctrinally sound denomination with a
presbyterian system of government can keep a local church from going astray in its doc-
trine, in actuality very frequently the opposite has been true: the national leadership of
a presbyterian denomination has adopted false doctrine and has put great pressure on
local churches to conform to it.
(5) Although the presbyterian system does represent in one form the national or even
worldwide unity of Christ’s church, such unity can certainly be shown in other ways
than through this system of government. The churches with more purely congregational
forms of government do have voluntary associations that manifest this unity. In fact,
these associations involve all the people in the churches, not just the elders or the clergy,
42 On the other hand, advocates of a presbyterian system
could answer that nowhere in the New Testament do we find an
example of an independent church — every church in the New
Testament is subject to the worldwide governing authority of the
apostles. Of course, a defender of independent churches might
answer that we have no apostles today to exercise such authority.
However, if we are looking to the New Testament for a pattern,
the fact still remains that no independent churches are to be
found there, and we would expect that something rather than
nothing would replace a government by the apostles. This seems
to me to indicate that some sort of denominational authority
over local churches is still appropriate (though that will take
different forms in different denominations).
43 Berkhof, Systematic Theology p. 584.
44 Ibid., p. 591.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
928
as in a presbyterian system. The national meeting of a Baptist denomination, for exam-
ple, where large numbers of ministers and laypersons (who are not necessarily elders
or deacons, but just delegates from their churches) join together in fellowship might be
seen as a better demonstration of the unity of Christ’s body than a presbyterian general
assembly where only elders are present.
3. Congregational.
a. Single Elder (or Single Pastor): We can now look at five varieties of congregational
government for the church. The first one, which is currently the most common among
Baptist churches in the United States, is the “single elder” form of government. In this
kind of government the pastor is seen as the only elder in the church, and there is an
elected board of deacons who serve under his authority and give support to him (D in
figure 47.3 stands for deacon).
SINGLE-ELDER (SINGLE-PASTOR) GOVERNMENT
Figure 47.3
In this system, the congregation elects the pastor and also elects the deacons. The
amount of authority the pastor has varies greatly from church to church, and will gener-
ally increase the longer a pastor remains in a church. The authority of the deacon board
is often thought to be merely an advisory authority. In the way this system ordinarily
functions, especially in smaller churches, many decisions must be brought before the
congregation as a whole.
The arguments in favor of this system are clearly presented in A. H. Strong’s Sys-
tematic Theology ; a text that has been widely used in Baptist circles. 45 Strong gives the
following arguments:
(1) The New Testament does not require a plurality of elders, but the pattern of plural
elders seen in the New Testament was only due to the size of the churches at that time.
He says:
In certain of the New Testament churches there appears to have been a plurality
of elders There is, however, no evidence that the number of elders was uni-
45 A. H. Strong, Systematic Theology (Valley Forge, Pa.: Jud-
son Press, 1907), pp. 914-17. Strong was President of Rochester
Theological Seminary from 1872 to 1912.
CHAPTER 47 • CHURCH GOVERNMENT
form, or that the plurality which frequently existed was due to any other cause
than the size of the churches for which these elders cared. The New Testament
example, while it permits the multiplication of assistant pastors according to
need, does not require a plural eldership in every case. 46
In this quotation Strong shows that he would regard additional pastors hired by a larger
church to be elders as well, so that this system could be expanded beyond a single elder/
pastor to include two or more elder/pastors. But the crucial distinction is that the govern-
ing authority of the office of elder is possessed only by the professional pastor (s) of the church ,
and is not shared by any laypersons in the church. And we must realize that in practice,
the vast majority of churches that follow this pattern today are relatively small churches
with only one pastor; therefore, in actuality, this usually becomes a single elder form of
government. 47
(2) Strong adds that “James was the pastor or president of the church at Jerusalem,”
and cites Acts 12:17; 21:18; and Galatians 2:12 to show that this leadership by James was
a pattern which could then be imitated by other churches.
(3) Strong notes that some passages have “bishop” in the singular but “deacons” in
the plural, hinting at something similar to this common Baptist form of government. A
literal translation of the Greek text shows a singular definite article modifying “bishop”
in two verses: “ The bishop therefore must be without reproach” (1 Tim. 3:2, literal trans-
lation) and that “the bishop must be blameless” (Titus 1:7, literal translation), but by
contrast, we read, “ Deacons likewise must be serious . . .” (1 Tim. 3:8).
(4) Finally, the “angel of the church” in Revelation 2:1, 8, 12, 18; 3:1, 7, 14, according
to Strong, “is best interpreted as meaning the pastor of the church; and, if this be correct,
it is clear that each church had, not many pastors, but one.” 48
(5) Another argument, not made by Strong, is found in recent literature on church
growth. The argument is that churches need a strong single pastor in order to grow
rapidly. 49
Once again it must be said that this single elder form of government has also worked
very successfully in many evangelical churches. However, there can be objections to
the case presented by Strong and others.
(1) It seems inconsistent to argue that the New Testament falls short of giving a
clear command that all churches should have a plurality of elders when the passages
on qualifications of elders in 1 Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 1:5-7 are used as scriptural
46 Ibid„ pp. 915-16.
47 Another Baptist theologian, Millard Erickson, supports
Strong’s claim that the New Testament does not require plural
elders in a church. He says that the New Testament examples of
elders are “descriptive passages” that tell about a church order
that already existed, but that “churches are not commanded to
adopt a particular form of church order” ( Christian Theology,
p. 1084). Moreover, Erickson sees no one pattern of church
government in the New Testament, but says, “There may well
have been rather wide varieties of governmental arrange-
ments. Each church adopted a pattern which fit its individual
situation” (ibid.).
48 Strong, Systematic Theology, p. 916.
49 See, for example, C. Peter Wagner, Leading Your Church
to Growth (Ventura, Calif.: Regal, 1984). He says, “The prin-
cipal argument of this book is that if churches are going to
maximize their growth potential they need pastors who are
strong leaders Make no mistake about it: it is a rule” (p.
73). The book is filled with anecdotes and pronouncements
from church growth experts telling the reader that leader-
ship by a strong single pastor is essential to significant church
growth.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
930
requirements for church officers today. How can churches say that the qualifications
for elders found in these verses are commanded for us today but the system of plural
elders found in these very same verses is not commanded, but was required only in
that time and in that society? Though it could be objected that these are commands
written only to individual situations in Ephesus and Crete, much of the New Testa-
ment consists of apostolic commands written to individual churches on how they
should conduct themselves. Yet we do not therefore say that we are free to disobey
these instructions in other parts of the epistles. In fact, 1 Timothy and Titus give us a
great deal of material on the conduct of the local church, material which all believing
churches seek to follow.
Moreover, it seems to be quite unwise to ignore a clear New Testament pattern which
existed throughout all the churches for which we have evidence at the time the New Tes-
tament was written. When the New Testament shows us that no church was seen to have
a single elder (“in every church,” Acts 14:23; “in every town,” Titus 1:5; “let him call for
the elders” James 5:14; “I exhort the elders among you,” 1 Peter 5:1), then it seems unper-
suasive to say that smaller churches would have only had one elder. Even when Paul had
just founded churches on his first missionary journey, there were elders appointed “in
every church” (Acts 14:23). And “every town” on the island of Crete was to have elders,
no matter how large or small the church was.
In addition, there is an inconsistency in Strong’s argument when he says that the
large churches were those which had plural elders, for then he claims that “the angel of
the church in Ephesus” (Rev. 2:1) was a single pastor, according to this common Baptist
pattern. Yet the church at Ephesus at that time was exceptionally large: Paul, in founding
that church, had spent three years there (Acts 20:31), during which time tc all the residents
of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks” (Acts 19:10). The population of
Ephesus at that time was more than 250, OOO. 50
We may ask, why should we follow Strong and adopt as the norm a pattern of church
government which is nowhere found in the New Testament, and reject a pattern everywhere
found in the New Testament?
(2) James may well have acted as moderator or presiding officer in the church in
Jerusalem, for all churches will have some kind of designated leader like this in order to
conduct meetings. But this does not imply that he was the “pastor” of the church in Jeru-
salem in a “single elder” sense. In fact, Acts 15:2 shows that there were elders (plural) in
the church in Jerusalem, and James himself was probably numbered among the apostles
(see Gal. 1:19) rather than the elders.
(3) In 1 Timothy 3:2 and Titus 1:7, the Greek definite article modifying “bishop”
simply shows that Paul is speaking of general qualifications as they applied to any one
example. 51 In fact, in both cases which Strong cites we know there were elders (plural) in
50 Robert H. Mounce, The Book of Revelation , NIC (Grand after he said, “If any one aspires to the office of bishop, he
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977), p. 85. desires a noble task” (1 Tim. 3:1), or “if any man is blameless
51 In terms of Greek grammar, the use of the definite article . . .” (Titus 1:6).
here is best understood as a “generic” use, which is defined as The RSV gives a more appropriate translation for Eng-
a use of the article “to select a normal or representative indi- lish readers, reflecting this generic use, at these two verses:
vidual” (MHT 3, p. 180) . Paul’s use of the singular was natural “a bishop.”
CHAPTER 47 • CHURCH GOVERNMENT
the churches involved. 1 Timothy 3:2 is written to Timothy at Ephesus, and Acts 20:17
shows us that there were “elders” in the church at Ephesus. And even in 1 Timothy,
Paul writes, “Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, espe-
cially those who labor in preaching and teaching” (1 Tim. 5:17). With regard to Titus
1:7 we need only look to verse 5, where Paul directs Titus explicitly to “appoint elders in
every town.”
(4) The angels of the seven churches in Revelation 2-3 are unusual and rather weak
evidence for single elders. “The angel of the church in Ephesus” (Rev. 2:1) can hardly
mean that there was only one elder in that church, since we know there were “elders”
there in this very large church (Acts 20:17). The word “angel” used in the address to
the seven churches in Revelation 2-3 may simply designate a special messenger to each
church, perhaps even the human messenger who would take what John wrote to each
church, 52 or it may represent “the prevailing spirit of the church” rather than the ruling
official of the congregation, 53 or may even simply refer to an angel who was given special
care over each congregation. Even if it did represent a presiding officer of some sort in
each congregation, this “angel” is not shown to have any ruling authority or any func-
tions equivalent to today’s single pastor, or any functions equivalent to that of “elder”
in the New Testament churches. This passage does not furnish strong enough evidence
to dislodge the clear data throughout the New Testament showing plural elders in every
church, even in the church in Ephesus.
It is interesting that all of the New Testament passages cited by Strong (Acts 15, Jeru-
salem; 1 Tim. 3:2, Ephesus; Titus 1:7, Crete; Rev. 2-3, the seven churches, including
Ephesus) speak of situations in which the New Testament itself points quite clearly to a
plurality of elders in authority in the churches mentioned.
(5) The argument from church growth studies does not really prove that government
led by a single pastor is necessary, for at least three reasons: (a) We should not reject a pat-
tern supported in Scripture and adopt a different one just because people tell us that the
different pattern seems to work well in producing large churches — our role here, as in
all of life, should rather be to obey Scripture as closely as we can and expect God to bring
appropriate blessing as he wills, (b) There are many large churches with government by
plural elders (both Presbyterian churches and independent churches), so the argument
from pragmatic considerations is not conclusive, (c) C. Peter Wagner admits that strong
leaders can be found in various forms of church government, 54 and we must agree that a
system of plural elders in which all have equal authority does not prevent one elder (such
as the pastor) from functioning as a sort of “first among equals” and having a significant
leadership role among those elders.
(6) A common practical problem with a “single elder” system is either an excessive
concentration of power in one person or excessive demands laid upon him. In either
case, the temptations to sin are very great, and a lessened degree of accountability makes
yielding to temptation more likely. As was mentioned above, it was never the pattern in
52 The word angelos [“anger’] in Rev. 2:1 etal. can mean not leader within a variety of kinds of church government
only “angel” but also just “messenger.” ( Leading Your Church to Growth, pp. 94-95). Therefore it is
53 So Robert Mounce, The Book of Revelation, p. 85. not appropriate to take his study as an argument that solely
54 Wagner says at one point that a pastor can be a strong supports a single elder form of government.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
932
the New Testament, even with the apostles, to concentrate ruling power in the hands of
any one person.
Here it should be noted that the “single elder” view of church government really has no
more New Testament support than the “single bishop” (episcopalian) view. Both seem to
be attempts to justify what has already happened in the history of the church, not conclu-
sions that have grown out of an inductive examination of the New Testament itself.
(7) Finally, it should be noted that in actual practice the “single elder” system can
change and function more like a “plural elders” government, only those who func-
tion as elders are instead called “deacons.” This would happen if the deacons share
the actual governing authority with the pastor, and the pastor and other deacons see
themselves as accountable to the deacon board as a whole. The system then begins to
look like figure 47.4.
1
D D D D F^stor D D
Deacon Board
Congregation
THE PASTOR AND DEACONS MAY GOVERN TOGETHER AND THUS
FUNCTION LIKE A GOVERNMENT OF PLURAL ELDERS
Figure 47.4
The problem with this arrangement is that it does not use biblical terminology to
apply to the functions that people are carrying out, for “deacons” in the New Testament
never had governing or teaching authority in the church. The result in such a situation is
that people in the church (both the deacons and the other church members) will fail to
read and apply scriptural passages on elders to those who are in fact functioning as elders
in their church. Therefore these passages lose the direct relevance that they should have
in the church. In this case however, the problem could be solved by changing the name
“deacon” to “elder,” and considering the pastor an elder along with the others.
b. Plural Local Elders: Is there any kind of church government that preserves the pat-
tern of plural elders found in the New Testament and that avoids the expansion of elders’
authority beyond the local congregation? Although such a system is not distinctive of
any denomination today, it is found in many individual congregations. Using the con-
clusions reached to this point on the New Testament data, I would suggest figure 47.5 as
a possible pattern.
Within such a system the elders govern the church and have authority to rule over it,
authority which has been conferred by Christ himself, the head of the church, and by
the Holy Spirit (Acts 20:28; Heb. 13:17). In this system of government, there is always
more than one elder, a fact which distinguishes this form of government from the “single
CHAPTER 47 ■ CHURCH GOVERNMENT
933
elder system” discussed above. In a contemporary congregation, the “pastor” (or “senior
pastor”) would be one among the elders in this system. He does not have authority over
them, nor does he work for them as an employee. He has a somewhat distinct role in that
he is engaged in the full-time work of “preaching and teaching” (1 Tim. 5:17), and derives
part or all of his income from that work (1 Tim. 5:18). He also may frequently assume a
leadership role (such as chairman) among the elders, which would fit with his leadership
role among the congregation, but such a leadership role among the elders would not be
necessary to the system. In addition, the pastor will ordinarily have considerable author-
ity to make decisions and provide leadership in many areas of responsibility that have
been delegated to him by the elder board as a whole. Such a system would allow a pastor
to exercise strong leadership in the church while still having equal governing authority
with the other elders.
* Pastor
PLURAL LOCAL ELDER GOVERNMENT
Figure 47.5
The strength of this system of government is seen in the fact that the pastor does not
have authority on his own over the congregation, but that authority belongs collectively
to the entire group of elders (what may be called the elder board). Moreover, the pastor
himself, like every other elder, is subject to the authority of the elder board as a whole.
This can be a great benefit in keeping a pastor from making mistakes, and in supporting
him in adversity and protecting him from attacks and opposition. 55
In such a system, are there limitations that should be placed on the authority of the
elders? In the section above on the manner of choosing church officers, several reasons
were given to have some “checks and balances” that would put restrictions on the author-
ity of the officers of a church. 56 Those arguments are also helpful here in indicating that,
55 If the church has more than one pastor who is paid for
his work, these other associate or assistant pastors may or may
not be viewed as elders (depending on the qualifications of each
staff member and the policies of the church), but in either case,
it would be entirely consistent with this form of government
to have those associate pastors accountable to the senior pastor
alone in their day-to-day work, and he accountable to the elder
board with respect to his supervision of their activity.
56 The arguments given above (pp. 921-22) for restric-
tions on the authority of church officers may be summarized
as follows: (1) Church officers in the New Testament were
apparently chosen by the whole congregation. (2) The final
governing authority in New Testament churches seemed to
rest with the whole church. (3) Accountability to the con-
gregation provides a safeguard against temptations to sin.
(4) Some degree of control by the entire congregation pro-
vides a safeguard against the leadership falling into doctrinal
error. (5) Government works best with the consent of those
governed. In addition to those, there is another reason for
restricting the authority of church officers: (6) The doctrine
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
934
though elders have substantial governing authority over the church, it should not be unlim-
ited authority. Examples of such limitations might be suggested, such as: (1) they may be
elected rather than self-perpetuating; (2) they may have specific terms with a mandatory
year off the board (except for the pastor, whose continuing leadership responsibilities
require continuous participation as an elder); (3) some large decisions maybe required to
be brought to the whole church for approval. Regarding this third point, congregational
approval is already a biblical requirement for church discipline in Matthew 18:17 and for
excommunication in 1 Corinthians 5:4. The principle of congregational election of elders
would imply that the decision to call any pastor would also have to be approved by the
congregation as a whole. Major new directions in the ministry of the church, which will
require large-scale congregational support, may be brought to the church as a whole for
approval. Finally, it would seem wise to require congregational approval on such large
financial decisions as an annual budget, the decision to purchase property, or the deci-
sion to borrow money for the church (if that is ever done), simply because the church as a
whole will be asked to give generously to pay for these commitments. 57
In fact, the reasons for placing some limitations on the authority of church officers
may appear so strong that they would lead us to think that all decisions and all governing
authority should rest with the congregation as a whole. (Some churches have adopted a
system of almost pure democracy in governing the church, whereby everything must
come to the congregation as a whole for approval.) However, this conclusion ignores the
abundant New Testament evidence about the clear ruling and governing authority given
to elders in New Testament churches. Therefore, while it is important to have some rec-
ognized checks on the authority of elders, and to rest ultimate governing authority with
the congregation as a whole, it still is necessary, if we are to remain faithful to the New
Testament pattern, to have a strong level of authority vested in the elders themselves. 58
of the clarity of Scripture (see chapter 6) , and the doctrine of the
priesthood of all believers (whereby the New Testament affirms
that all Christians have access to God’s throne in prayer and all
share as members in a “royal priesthood” [1 Peter 2:9; cf. Heb.
10:19-25; 12:22-24]) combine to indicate that all Christians
have some ability to interpret Scripture and some responsibil-
ity to seek God’s wisdom in applying it to situations. All have
access directly to God in order to seek to know his will. The
New Testament allows for no special class of Christians who
have greater access to God than others. Therefore, it is right
to include all believers in some of the crucial decision-making
processes of the church. “In an abundance of counselors there
is safety” (Prov. 11:14).
57 It should be noted that a church government system with
a self-perpetuating group of elders, rather than one elected by
the congregation, would be very similar in function to this
system, but would not be as extensive in the checks and bal-
ances put on the authority of the elders. Such a church may
still wish to have some mechanism whereby the congregation
could remove elders who strayed from faithfulness to Scrip-
ture in serious ways.
58 When this kind of system functions in a large church,
it is important that a majority of the elder board be persons
who are not associate pastors in the church. This is because the
associate pastors are subject to the senior pastor in all of their
church work (he usually hires and fires them and sets their pay,
and they report to him). Therefore, if a majority of the elders
consists of these associate pastors, the interpersonal dynam-
ics involved will make it impossible for the senior pastor to be
subject to the authority of the elders as a group, and the system
will in fact function as a (somewhat disguised) form of “single
pastor” government, not as a plural elder government.
Someone may object that in a large church only full-time
staff members know enough about the life of the church
to be effective elders, but this is not a persuasive objec-
tion: Government by boards who are not closely involved
in the everyday activities of those whom they govern
works well in many realms of human activity, such as col-
lege and seminary boards, local school boards, boards of
directors of corporations, and even state and national gov-
ernments. All of these governing bodies direct policies and
give guidance to full-time administrators, and they are able
to obtain detailed information about specific situations
when the need arises. (I realize that all these systems can
work poorly, but my point is simply that they can work very
well when the right people are put in leadership positions.)
CHAPTER 47 • CHURCH GOVERNMENT
935
I have labeled this system one of “plural local elders” in order to distinguish it from a
presbyterian system where elders, when gathered on the level of the presbytery or general
assembly, have authority over more than their own local congregations. But in such a sys-
tem of elected local elders, can there be any wider associations with churches beyond the
local congregation? Yes, certainly. While churches with this system may choose to remain
entirely independent, most will enter into voluntary associations with other churches
of similar convictions in order to facilitate fellowship, pooling of resources for mission
activity (and perhaps for other things such as Christian camps, publications, theological
education, etc.). However, the only authority these larger associations would have over
the local congregation would be the authority to exclude an individual church from the
association, not the authority to govern its individual affairs.
c. Corporate Board: The remaining three forms of congregational church government
are not commonly used, but are sometimes found in evangelical churches. The first one
is patterned after the example of a modern corporation, where the board of directors
hires an executive officer who then has authority to run the business as he sees fit. This
form of government could also be called the “you-work-for-us” structure. It is depicted
in figure 47.6.
CORPORATE BOARD MODEL OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT
Figure 47.6
In favor of this structure it might be argued that this system in fact works well in con-
temporary businesses. However, there is no New Testament precedent or support for such a
form of church government. It is simply the result of trying to run the church like a modern
business, and it sees the pastor not as a spiritual leader, but merely as a paid employee.
Further objections to this structure are the fact that it deprives the pastor of sharing
in the ruling authority that must be his if he is to carry out his eldership responsibilities
effectively. Moreover, the members of the board are also members of the congregation
over whom the pastor is supposed to have some authority, but that authority is seriously
compromised if the leaders of the congregation are in fact his bosses.
d. Pure Democracy: This view, which takes congregational church government to its
logical extreme, can be represented as in figure 47.7.
In this system everything must come to the congregational meeting. The result is that
decisions are often argued endlessly, and, as the church grows, decision-making reaches a
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
936
point of near paralysis. While this structure does attempt to do justice to some of the pas-
sages cited above regarding the need for final governing authority to rest with the congrega-
tion as a whole, it is unfaithful to the New Testament pattern of recognized and designated
elders who have actual authority to rule the church in most situations.
Congregation
GOVERNMENT BY PURE DEMOCRACY
Figure 47.7
e. “No Government but the Holy Spirit”: Some churches, particularly very new churches
with more mystical or extremely pietistic tendencies, function with a church government
that looks something like figure 47.8.
NO GOVERNMENT BUT THE HOLY SPIRIT
Figure 47.8
In this case, the church would deny that any form of government is needed, it would
depend on all the members of the congregation being sensitive to the leading of the Holy
Spirit in their own lives, and decisions would generally be made by consensus. This form
of government never lasts very long. Not only is it unfaithful to the New Testament pat-
tern of designated elders with governing authority in the church, but it is also subject to
much abuse, because subjective feelings rather than wisdom and reason prevail in the
decision-making process.
4. Conclusions. It must be made clear, in concluding this discussion of church govern-
ment, that the form of government adopted by a church is not a major point of doctrine.
Christians have lived comfortably and ministered very effectively within several different
kinds of systems, and there are many evangelicals within each of the systems mentioned.
Moreover, a number of different types of church government systems seem to work fairly
well. Where there are weaknesses that appear to be inherent in the governing struc-
ture, individuals within the system generally recognize those weaknesses and attempt to
compensate for them in whatever ways the system will allow.
CHAPTER 47 • CHURCH GOVERNMENT
Nevertheless, a church can be more pure or less pure on this point, as in other areas. As
we are persuaded by Scripture concerning various aspects of church government, then
we should continue to pray and work for the greater purity of the visible church in this
area as well.
D. Should Women be Church Officers?
Most systematic theologies have not included a section on the question of whether
women can be church officers, because it has been assumed through the history of the
church, with very few exceptions, that only men could be pastors or function as elders
within a church. 59 But in recent years a major controversy has arisen within the evan-
gelical world: may women as well as men be pastors? May they share in all the offices of
the church? I have treated this question much more extensively elsewhere 60 but a brief
summary of the question can be given at this point.
We must affirm at the outset that the creation narrative in Genesis 1:27 views men and
women as equally created in the image of God. Therefore, men and women have equal value
to God, and should be seen by us as having absolutely equal value as persons, and equal
value to the church. Moreover, Scripture assures men and women of equal access to all the
blessings of salvation (see Acts 2:17- 18; Gal. 3:28). 61 This is remarkably affirmed in the
high dignity and respect which Jesus accorded to women in his earthly ministry. 62
We must also admit that evangelical churches have often failed to recognize the full
equality of men and women, and thereby have failed to count women equal in value to
men. The result has been a tragic failure to recognize that God often gives women equal
or greater spiritual gifts than men, a failure to encourage women to have full and free
participation in the various ministries of the church, and a failure to take full account
of the wisdom that God has given to women with respect to important decisions in the
life of the church. If the present controversy over women's roles in the church can result
in the eradication of some of these past abuses, then the church as a whole will benefit
greatly.
Yet the question remains, should women be pastors or elders in churches? (Or should
they fill roles equivalent to that of an elder in churches that have alternative forms of gov-
ernment?) My own conclusion on this issue is that the Bible does not permit women to
function in the role of pastor or elder within a church. This has also been the conclusion
of the vast majority of churches in various societies throughout history. The reasons that
seem to me to be most persuasive in answering this question are the following:
59 See William Weinrich, “Women in the History of the
Church: Learned and Holy, But Not Pastors,” in Recovering
Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response to Evangeli-
cal Feminism , ed. John Piper and Wayne Grudem (Wheaton,
111.: Crossway, 1991), pp. 263-79. See also Ruth A. Tucker and
Walter L. Liefeld, Daughters of the Church: Women and Min-
istry from New Testament Times to the Present (Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 1987).
60 See Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood , ed.
John Piper and Wayne Grudem. The position I have taken
in the following paragraphs is consistent with the “Dan-
vers Statement” issued in 1988 by the Council on Biblical
Manhood and Womanhood, based in Louisville, Kentucky,
USA.
61 See also Raymond C. Ortlund, Jr., “Male-Female Equal-
ity and Male Headship: Gen. 1 -3,” in Recovering Biblical Man-
hood and Womanhoody pp. 95-112.
62 See James A. Borland, “Women in the Life and Teachings
of Jesus,” in Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhoody
pp. 113-23.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
938
1. 1 Timothy 2:11-14. The single passage in Scripture that addresses this question most
directly is 1 Timothy 2:11-14:
Let a woman learn in silence with all submissiveness. I permit no woman to
teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent. For Adam was formed
first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and
became a transgressor.
Here Paul is speaking about the church when it is assembled (see vv. 8-9). In such a
setting, Paul says, “I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men” (v. 12).
These are the functions that are carried out by the elders of the church, and especially
by what we know as a pastor in contemporary church situations. 63 It is specifically these
functions unique to elders that Paul prohibits for women in the church. 64
Several objections have been brought against this position: 65
(a) It has been said that this passage applies only to a specific situation that Paul
is addressing, probably one where women were teaching heretical doctrine within the
church at Ephesus. But this objection is not persuasive, since there is no clear statement in
1 Timothy that says that women were actually teaching false doctrines. (1 Tim. 5:13 talks
about women who are gossiping, but does not mention false doctrine.) Moreover, Paul
does not simply tell certain women who are teaching false doctrine to be silent, but he
says, “I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men.” And finally, the reason
Paul gives for this prohibition is not the one proposed in this objection, but a far different
one: the situation of Adam and Eve before the fall, and before there was any sin in the
world (see v. 13), and the way in which a reversal in male and female roles occurred at the
time of the fall (see v. 14). These reasons are not limited to one situation in the church at
Ephesus, but have application to manhood and womanhood generally.
(b) Another objection is to say that Paul gave this prohibition because women were
not well educated in the first century, and therefore were not qualified for teaching or
governing roles in the church. But Paul does not give lack of education as a reason for
saying that women cannot “teach or . . . have authority over men,” but rather points back
to creation (vv. 13 - 14) . It is precarious to base an argument on a reason Paul did not give
instead of the reason he did give.
In addition, this objection misunderstands the actual facts of the ancient church and
the ancient world. Formal training in Scripture was not required for church leadership
in the New Testament church, because several of the apostles did not have formal bibli-
cal training (see Acts 4:13). On the other hand, the skills of basic literacy and therefore
the ability to read and study Scripture were available to men and women alike (note Acts
18:26; Rom. 16:1; 1 Tim. 2:11; Titus 2:3-4). There were many well-educated women in
the ancient world, and particularly in a cultural center such as Ephesus. 66
63 See discussion on pp. 915-16 above regarding the teaching
and ruling functions of elders in a church.
64 For a more extensive treatment of this passage, see Doug-
las Moo, “What Does It Mean Not to Teach or Have Authority
Over Men?: 1 Tim. 2:11-15,” in Recovering Biblical Manhood
and Womanhood, pp. 179-93.
65 For more extensive statements of these objections see the
books marked “Favors women as pastors” in the bibliography
at the end of this chapter, especially the books by Mickelsen,
Spencer, and Bilezikian.
66 See Piper and Grudem, Recovering Biblical Manhood and
Womanhood , p. 82.
CHAPTER 47 • CHURCH GOVERNMENT
939
Finally, those who make such an argument are sometimes inconsistent in that else-
where they point to women who had leadership positions in the ancient church, such
as Priscilla. This point is especially relevant to 1 Timothy 2, because Paul was writing
to Ephesus (1 Tim. 1:3), which was the home church of Priscilla and Aquila (see Acts
18:18-19, 21). It was in this very church at Ephesus that Priscilla knew Scripture well
enough to help instruct Apollos in A.D. 51 (Acts 18:26). Then she had probably learned
from Paul himself for another three years while he stayed at Ephesus teaching “the whole
counsel of God” (Acts 20:27; cf. v. 31; also 1 Cor. 16:19). No doubt many other women in
Ephesus had followed her example and also had learned from Paul. Although they later
went to Rome, we find Aquila and Priscilla back in Ephesus at the end of Paul’s life (2 Tim.
4:19), about A.D. 67. Therefore, it is likely that they were in Ephesus in A.D. 65, about the
time Paul wrote 1 Timothy (about fourteen years after Priscilla had helped instruct Apollos).
Yet Paul does not allow even well-educated Priscilla or any other well-educated women
at Ephesus to teach men in the public assembly of the church. The reason was not lack of
education, but the order of creation which God established between men and women.
2. 1 Corinthians 14 :33b -36. In a similar teaching, Paul says:
As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silence in the
churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as
even the law says. If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their
husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church. What!
Did the word of God originate with you, or are you the only ones it has reached?
(1 Cor. 14:33b-36)
In this section Paul cannot be prohibiting all public speech by women in the church,
for he clearly allows them to pray and prophesy in church in 1 Corinthians 11:5. There-
fore, it is best to understand this passage as referring to speech that is in the category
being discussed in the immediate context, namely, the spoken evaluation and judging of
prophecies in the congregation (see v. 29: “Let two or three prophets speak, and let the
others weigh what is said”). While Paul allows women to speak and give prophecies in the
church meeting, he does not allow them to speak up and give evaluations or critiques
of the prophecies that have been given, for this would be a ruling or governing function
with respect to the whole church. 67 This understanding of the passage depends on our
view of the gift of prophecy in the New Testament age, namely, that prophecy involves
not authoritative Bible teaching, and not speaking words of God which are equal to Scrip-
ture, but rather reporting something which God spontaneously brings to mind. 68 In this
way, Paul’s teachings are quite consistent in 1 Corinthians 14 and 1 Timothy 2: in both
cases he is concerned to preserve male leadership in the teaching and governing of the
church. 69
67 For a fuller discussion of this question, see D. A. Carson,
“‘Silent in the Churches’: On the Role of Women in 1 Cor.
14:33b-36,” in Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood ,
pp. 140-153. See also Wayne Grudem, The Gift of Prophecy in
the New Testament and Today ; pp. 217-24; also Wayne Grudem,
“Prophecy — Yes, but Teaching — No: Paul’s Consistent Advo-
cacy of Women’s Participation Without Governing Authority,”
JETS 30/1 (March 1987), pp. 11-23.
68 This view of the gift of prophecy is explained more fully
in chapter 53, pp. 1049-61.
69 One recent evangelical objection to this conclusion on
1 Cor. 14:33-36 is simply to say that these verses were not
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
3. 1 Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 1:5-9. Both 1 Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 1:5-9 assume
that elders are going to be men. An elder (or bishop/overseer) must be “the husband of
one wife” (1 Tim. 3:2; also Titus 1:6), and “must manage his own household well, keeping
his children submissive and respectful in everyway” (1 Tim. 3:4).
Some may object that these were directions given only for the cultural situation in
the ancient world, where women were not well educated, but the same response that was
given above concerning 1 Timothy 2 would apply in this case as well.
4. The Relationship Between the Family and the Church. The New Testament makes
frequent connections between the life of the family and the life of the church. Paul says,
“If a man does not know how to manage his own household, how can he care for God’s
church?” (1 Tim. 3:5). He says to Timothy, “Do not rebuke an older man but exhort him
as you would a father; treat younger men like brothers , older women like mothers , younger
women like sisters , in all purity” (1 Tim. 5:1-2). Several other passages could be cited,
but the close relationship between the family and the church should be clear.
Because of this connection, it is inevitable that leadership patterns in the family will
reflect leadership patterns in the church, and vice versa. It is very appropriate that, as
godly men fulfill their leadership responsibilities in the family, they should also ful-
fill leadership responsibilities in the church. Conversely, if patterns of female leadership
are established in the church, it will inevitably bring pressures toward greater female
leadership, and toward abdication of male leadership, within the family. 70
5. The Example of the Apostles. While the apostles are not the same as elders in local
churches, it is still important to realize that Jesus established a pattern of male leader-
ship in the church when he appointed twelve men as apostles. It is simply not true that
women have equal access to all offices in the church, for Jesus, the head of the church, is
a man. And the twelve apostles who will sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes
of Israel (see Matt. 19:28), and whose names are written forever on the foundations of
the heavenly city (Rev. 21:14), are all men. Therefore, there will be no eternal modeling
of equal roles for men and women at all levels of authority in the church . Rather, there is a
pattern of male leadership in the highest governing roles of the church, a pattern that will
be evident to all believers for all eternity.
One objection brought against this argument is the claim that the culture at that
time would not have allowed Jesus to choose six men and six women as apostles, or six
husband-wife teams as apostles, and this is the reason he did not do so. But such an
written by Paul and do not belong in the text of 1 Corinthians,
and are therefore not to be considered authoritative Scripture
for us today: see Gordon Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthi-
ans , pp. 699-708. Fee’s basic argument is that it is impossible to
reconcile this passage with 1 Cor. 11:5, where Paul clearly allows
women to speak in the church. (He also places much weight on
the fact that w. 34-35 are moved to the end of 1 Cor. 14 in some
ancient manuscripts.) But Fee does not give adequate consid-
eration to the view represented here, namely, that Paul is sim-
ply prohibiting women from the authoritative task of judging
prophecies in the assembled church. Fee’s position is surprising
in light of the fact that no ancient manuscript of 1 Corinthians
omits these verses. (The few manuscripts that place this section
at the end of chapter 14 are far less reliable manuscripts that
have frequent variations elsewhere in 1 Corinthians as well.)
70 For further discussion of this point, see Vern Poythress,
“The Church as Family: Why Male Leadership in the Family
Requires Male Leadership in the Church,” in Recovering Bibli-
cal Manhood and Womanhood , pp. 233-47.
CHAPTER 47 ■ CHURCH GOVERNMENT
objection impugns Jesus’ integrity and courage. Jesus was not afraid to break social cus-
toms when a moral principle was at stake: he criticized the Pharisees publicly, healed on
the Sabbath, cleansed the temple, spoke with a Samaritan woman, ate with tax collectors
and sinners, and ate with unwashed hands. 71 If Jesus had wanted to establish a principle
of equal access to church leadership by both men and women, he certainly could have
done so in the appointment of his apostles, and he would have done so, in spite of cul-
tural opposition, if it had been the pattern he wanted to establish in his church. But he
did not. 72
Another objection to this argument is to say that, if this is true, then only Jews can
be leaders in our churches, since all twelve apostles were Jewish as well. But this objec-
tion is not persuasive because it fails to recognize that the church was entirely Jewish at
its beginning. This was because it was God’s plan to bring salvation through the Jews,
and this led to twelve Jewish apostles. Yet within the pages of the New Testament, we see
that the church soon expanded to include Gentiles (Matt. 28:19; Eph. 2:16) and Gentiles
soon became elders and leaders in the New Testament church. A Gentile (Luke) wrote
two books of the New Testament (Luke and Acts), and several Gentiles such as Titus and
Epaphroditus were Paul’s apostolic assistants and co-workers. In fact, God had progres-
sively revealed from the time of Abraham (Gen. 12:3; 17:5) that it was his plan eventually
to include countless Gentiles among his people.
So the Jewishness of the early apostles is not like their maleness. The church began as
entirely Jewish, but soon became Jewish and Gentile as well. But the church did not begin
all male, and only later include females as well. Christ's followers were male and female
from the beginning, and both men and women were present at the beginning of the church
at Pentecost. So this objection is not persuasive either.
6. The History of Male Teaching and Leadership Through the Whole Bible. Sometimes
opponents of the view presented here have said it is based only on one text, 1 Timothy 2.
Several of the foregoing arguments have demonstrated that this is not the case, but there
is one further argument that can be made: throughout the history of the entire Bible,
from Genesis to Revelation, there is a consistent pattern of male leadership among God’s
people. Though there are occasional examples of women having leadership in government
positions such as queen (Athaliah did reign as sole monarch in 2 Kings 11:1-20, but she
is hardly an example to imitate) or judge (note Deborah in Judg. 4-5), and though there
were occasionally women such as Deborah and Huldah who were prophetesses (see Judg.
4-5; 2 Kings 22:14-20), we should note that these are rare exceptions in unusual cir-
cumstances. They occur in the midst of an overwhelming pattern of male leadership in
teaching and governance, and, as such, they hardly serve as patterns for New Testament
church office. 73 Moreover, there is not one example in the entire Bible of a woman doing
the kind of congregational Bible teaching that is expected of pastors/eiders in the New Testa-
ment church . In the Old Testament it was the priests who had teaching responsibilities for
7 This argument and the following one are taken from 73 For further discussion of these narrative examples, see
James Borland, “Women in the Life and Teachings of Jesus,” in Thomas R. Schreiner, “The Valuable Ministries of Women
Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood , pp. 120-22. in the Context of Male Leadership: A Survey of Old and New
72 Regarding “Junia” or “Junias” in Rom. 16:7, see p. 909. Testament Examples and Teaching,” in Recovering Biblical
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
942
the people, and the priesthood was exclusively male; moreover, even the women proph-
ets Deborah and Huldah prophesied only privately, not publicly to a congregation of
people. 74
7. The History of the Church. As was mentioned above, the overwhelming pattern
through the entire history of the church has been that the office of pastor/elder (or its
equivalent) has been reserved for men. Although this does not demonstrate conclusively
that such a position is correct, it should give us reason to reflect very seriously on the
question before we rush ahead and declare that almost the entire church throughout its
history has been wrong on this issue. 75
8. Objections. Numerous objections have been brought against the position outlined
here, only a few of which can be treated at this point. 76 It is objected that ministry should
be determined by gifts , not by gender. But in response, it must be said that spiritual gifts
have to be used within the guidelines given in Scripture. The Holy Spirit who empowers
spiritual gifts is also the Holy Spirit who inspired the Bible, and he does not want us to
use his gifts in disobedience to his words.
Another objection is to say that if God has genuinely called a woman to be a pastor ;
she should not be prevented from acting as one. The response to this objection is similar
to the one given above: an individual claim to have experienced a call from God must
always be tested by subjecting it to the words of God in Scripture. If the Bible teaches
that God wills for men alone to bear the primary teaching and governing responsibili-
ties of the pastorate, then by implication the Bible also teaches that God does not call
women to be pastors. However, we should add that often what a woman discerns as a
divine call to the pastorate maybe indeed a call to full-time Christian ministry, but not
to be a pastor/elder in a church. In fact, many opportunities for full-time occupational
ministry exist within the local church and elsewhere, apart from being a teaching pas-
tor or an elder — for example, church staff positions in counseling, women’s ministries,
Christian education, and children’s ministries, as well as ministries of music and wor-
ship, campus student ministries, evangelistic ministries, ministries to the poor, and
Manhood and Womanhood, pp. 209-24. With reference to cussion under section 2 above (p. 939).
Deborah in particular, we must realize that the historical events 75 See footnote 59 above. A number of recent books have
narrated in the entire book of Judges require great care in inter- highlighted the neglected contributions that women have
pretation before we can assume that they should be taken as made to the church throughout its history: see especially
models for us to imitate. And Deborah was different from other Ruth Tucker and Walter Liefeld, Daughters of the Church,
(male) prophets in that she did not prophesy in public, only in a book that is a treasure-house of information and provides
private (Jud. 4:5; Huldah does the same in 2 Kings 22:14-20); extensive additional bibliography. But none of these studies
she handed over her leadership role to a man (Judg. 4:6-7); and, overthrows the clear conclusion that the great majority of
although God did bring blessing through her, it is interesting the church throughout its history has not accepted women as
that there is no explicit affirmation of the fact that the LORD pastors.
raised her up — making her unlike the other major judges such 76 For further discussion, see Recovering Biblical Man-
as Othniel (3:9), Ehud (3:15), Gideon (6:14), Jephthah (11:29), hood and Womanhood, esp. pp. 60-92. Fuller statements of
and Samson (13:25; 14:6), for whom there is explicit statement the objections listed here can be found in the books marked
of their calling from God. “Favors women as pastors” in the bibliography at the end of
74 See the previous footnote. Regarding the fact that women this chapter, esp. the volumes by Mickelsen, Spencer, and
could prophesy in New Testament congregations, see the dis- Bilezikian.
CHAPTER 47 • CHURCH GOVERNMENT
943
administrative responsibilities that do not involve functioning in the elder’s role of
government over the entire church. 77 This list could be expanded, but the point is that
we should not make restrictions where Scripture itself does not place restrictions, but
should allow and encourage full and free participation by women as well as men in all
of these other areas.
Some object that the New Testament emphasis is on servant leadership, and therefore
that we should not be so concerned about authority, since that is more a pagan than a
Christian concern. But this objection makes a false distinction between servanthood
and authority. Certainly Jesus himself is the model of a servant leader, but Jesus also has
authority — great authority! He is the Lord of our lives and the Lord of the church. By
analogy, elders ought to follow Jesus’ example of servant leadership (see 1 Peter 5:1-5)
but that does not mean that they should neglect to govern with authority when the Bible
itself gives them this responsibility (see 1 Tim. 5:17; Heb. 13:17; 1 Peter 5:5). 78
Sometimes people object that, just as the church finally realized that slavery was wrong,
so the church today should recognize that male leadership is wrong, and is an outdated cul-
tural tradition that should be discarded. But this objection fails to realize the difference
between the temporary cultural institution of slavery, which God certainly did not estab-
lish at creation, and the existence of a difference in male-female roles in marriage (and,
by implication, in relationships within the church) which God established at creation.
The seeds for the destruction of slavery were sown in the New Testament (see Philem.
16; Eph. 6:9; Col. 4:1; 1 Tim. 6:1-2), but no seeds for the destruction of marriage, or
the destruction of male-female differences as created, are sown in the Bible. Moreover,
the objection can be turned around: it is likely that a closer parallel to the Christian
defenders of slavery in the nineteenth century is found in evangelical feminists who today
use arguments from the Bible to justify conformity to some extremely strong pressures in
contemporary society (in favor of slavery then, and women being pastors now).
It is sometimes objected that Priscilla andAquila together spoke toApollos and “expounded
to him the way of God more accurately” (Acts 18:26). This is true, and it is helpful evidence
showing that informal discussion of Scripture by men and women together, in which both
men and women play a significant role in helping one another understand Scripture, is
approved by the New Testament. Once again, an example such as this cautions us not to
prohibit activities which are not prohibited by Scripture, yet it does not overturn the prin-
ciple that the publicly recognized governing and teaching role within a church is restricted
to men. Priscilla was not doing anything contrary to this restriction.
Sometimes it is objected that it is inconsistent to allow women to vote in churches that
have congregational government, but not to serve as elders. But the authority of the church
as a whole is not the same as the authority given to specific individuals within the church.
When we say that the congregation as a whole has authority, we do not mean that each
man and each woman in the congregation has the authority to speak or act for the con-
gregation. Therefore, gender, as a part of individual personhood, is not significantly in
view in corporate congregational decisions.
77 For further discussion, see Recovering Biblical Manhood 78 See also the discussion of the authority of elders on
and Womanhood, pp. 54-59. pp. 915-16, above.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
944
Another way of putting this is to say that the only question we are asking in this sec-
tion is whether women can be officers within the church, and specifically whether they
can be elders within the church. In any congregational system where the elders are elected
by the congregation, it is evident to everyone in the church that the elders have a kind of
delegated authority which other members of the congregation do not have — even though
the other members of the congregation have voted for these people in the first place. It
is the same in all systems of government where officials are elected: once the President
of the United States or the mayor of a city is elected, that person has a delegated author-
ity over the people who elected him or her and it is an authority that is greater than the
authority of any individual person who voted. 79
At this point it is also appropriate to recognize that God has given much insight and
wisdom to women as well as to men, and that any church leaders who neglect to draw on
the wisdom that women have are really acting foolishly. Therefore, any group of elders
or other male leaders who make decisions affecting the entire church should frequently
have procedures within the church whereby the wisdom and insight of other members
of the church, especially the wisdom and insight of women as well as men, can be drawn
upon as an aid in making decisions.
9. What About Other Offices Within the Church? The entire discussion above has
focused on the question of whether women should function as pastors or elders within
the church. But what about other offices?
The biblical teaching regarding the office of deacon is much less extensive than that
regarding the office of elder, 80 and what is involved in the office of deacon varies con-
siderably from church to church. If deacons are actually functioning as elders and have
the highest governing authority within a local church, then the arguments given above
against women being elders would apply directly to this situation, and it would follow that
Scripture does not permit women to be deacons in this sense. On the other hand, if deacons
simply have delegated administrative responsibility for certain aspects of the ministry of
the church, then there seems to be no good reason to prevent women from functioning as
deacons. Regarding the question of women as deacons in 1 Timothy 3:8-13, it does not
seem to the present author that this passage allows women to be deacons in the way deacons
are understood in that situation , but there is a significant difference of viewpoint among
evangelicals over the understanding of this passage, 81 and it is much less clear to us exactly
what deacons did at that time than it is clear what elders did. 82
With regard to other offices, such as treasurer, for example, or other staff positions
such as youth minister or counseling director or children’s minister, and so forth, the
only question to be asked is whether these offices include the ruling and teaching func-
tions reserved for elders in the New Testament. If not, then all of these offices would be
open to women as well as to men , for we must be careful not to prohibit what the New
Testament does not prohibit.
79 See above, pp. 921 -22, for arguments in favor of participa- 82 Note that Acts 6:3 also requires that only men (Gk. aner)
tion by the entire congregation in some decision-making in the be selected as the first deacons (if we understand that passage
church, and especially in the selection of officers in the church. to be speaking of the office of deacon) .
80 See above, pp. 918-20, on the office of deacon.
81 See footnote 25 above for information.
CHAPTER 47 • CHURCH GOVERNMENT
945
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. No matter what kind of church government structure you currently find yourself
in, are there ways in which you could be more encouraging and supportive to the
current leaders in your church?
2. If you are currently an officer in your church, or if you someday would like to be
one, is your pattern of life such that you would like to see it imitated by others in
the church? If you have had a part in the process of selecting church leaders, have
you tended to emphasize the character traits and spiritual qualifications talked
about in Scripture, or have you emphasized other qualifications that the world
would look for in selecting its leaders?
3. Do you think that the current governing structure of your church works quite
well? How could it be improved, without changing the basic philosophy of church
government to which it is committed? Whether or not your church has officers
who are called “elders,” who are the people who carry out the functions of elders
in your church? Do you know if your own pastor would like to see some modifica-
tions in the government of your church, to enable him to carry out his task more
effectively?
4. Before reading this chapter, what was your view on the question of women serving
as teaching pastors or elders in a church? How has this chapter changed your view,
if at all? Why do you think people’s emotions are often very strong concerning this
issue? Can you explain how you personally feel (emotionally) about the teaching
presented in this chapter? Does it seem right to you, or not?
SPECIAL TERMS
apostle
bishop
classis
congregational government
consistory
deacon
diocese
elder
episcopalian government
general assembly
hierarchical government
local elders
officer
overseer
pastor
presbyterian government
presbytery
priest
rector
session
synod
vicar
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter 1,
pp. 38-39. Complete bibliographical data maybe found on pp. 1224-30.)
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
946
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1882-92 Litton, 384-418
1930 Thomas, 313-18, 429-33, 452-58
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1875-76 Pope, 3:335-59
1892-94 Miley, 2:415-19
1940 Wiley, 3:117-37
1983 Carter, 2:619-20
3. Baptist
1767 Gill, 2:574-607
1907 Strong, 894- 929
1983-85 Erickson, 1069-88
4. Dispensational
1947 Chafer, 4:150-53
1949 Thiessen, 314-318
1986 Ryrie, 403 -20
5. Lutheran
1917-24 Pieper, 3:427-38, 439-72
1934 Mueller, 563-84
6. Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1559 Calvin, 2:1053-1228 (4.3-11)
1861 Heppe, 672-84
1937-66 Murray, CW, 1:260-68; CW, 2:336-65
1938 Berkhof, 579 -92
1962 Buswell, 1:424-28
7. Renewal (or charismatic/Pentecostal)
1988-92 Williams, 3:177-220
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
1. Roman Catholic: Traditional
1955 Ott, 276- 90, 450-60
2. Roman Catholic: Post-Vatican II
1980 McBrien (no explicit treatment)
Other Works
Babbage, S. B. “Church Officers.” In EDT, pp. 243-45. (Contains a list of various titles for
church officers used in different denominations today, with definitions.)
Bannerman, James. The Church of Christ. 2 vols. London: Banner of Truth, 1960. (First
published in 1869.)
CHAPTER 47 * CHURCH GOVERNMENT
947
Baxter, Richard. The Reformed Pastor. Carlisle, Pa.: Banner of Truth, 1979. [Reprint.]
Bilezikian, Gilbert. Beyond Sex Roles. 2d ed. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1985. (Favors women
as pastors.)
Burge, G. M. “Deacon, Deaconness.” In EDT, pp. 295-96.
Carson, D. A. “Church, Authority in.” In EDT, pp. 228-31.
Clark, Stephen B. Man and Women in Christ. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Servant, 1980. (Opposes
women as pastors.)
Clowney, Edmund. Called to the Ministry. Chicago: InterVarsity Press, 1964.
. “Presbyterianism.” In EDT, pp. 530-31.
Evans, Mary J. Women in the Bible . Exeter: Paternoster, and Downers Grove: InterVarsity
Press, 1983. (Favors women as pastors.)
Foh, Susan. Women and the Word of God: A Response to Biblical Feminism . Philadelphia:
Presbyterian and Reformed, 1980. (Opposes women as pastors.)
Fung, Ronald Y. K. “Ministry in the New Testament.” In The Church in the Bible and the
World. Ed. by D. A. Carson. Exeter: Paternoster, and Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987.
Gundry, Patricia. Neither Slave nor Free: Helping Women Answer the Call to Church Leader-
ship. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1987. (Favors women as pastors.)
• Women Be Free! The Clear Message of Scripture. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1988.
(Favors women as pastors.)
Hodge, Charles. Discussions in Church Polity. New York: Charles Scribner s Sons, 1878.
Hort, F. J. A. The Christian Ecclesia. London: Macmillan, 1898.
House, H. Wayne. The Role of Women in Ministry Today. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1990.
(Opposes women as pastors.)
Hurley, James B. Man and Woman in Biblical Perspective. Leicester: Inter- Varsity Press, and
Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1981. (Opposes women as pastors.)
Kirby, G. W. “Congregationalism.” In EDT, pp. 159-61.
Knight, George W., III. The Role Relationship of Men and Women. Revised ed. Chicago:
Moody, 1985. (Opposes women as pastors.)
Kroeger, Richard and Catherine. I Suffer Not a Woman. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992. (Favors
women as pastors.)
Macleod, D. “Church Government.” In NDT, pp. 143-46.
Marshall, I. Howard. “Apostle.” In EDT, p. 40.
Mickelsen, Alvera, ed. Women, Authority, and the Bible. Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity
Press, 1986. (A collection of essays by several authors, most of whom favor women
as pastors.)
Morris, L. “Church Government.” In EDT, pp. 238-41.
. Ministers of God. London: Inter- Varsity Press, 1964.
Piper, John, and Wayne Grudem, eds. Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A
Response to Evangelical Feminism. Wheaton, 111.: Crossway, 1991. (A collection of
twenty-eight essays by twenty- two authors; opposes women as pastors.)
Richards, Lawrence O. A Theology of Church Leadership. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1980.
Saucy, Robert L. “Authority in the Church.” In Walvoord: A Tribute. Ed. by Donald K.
Campbell. Chicago: Moody, 1982. pp. 219-37. (An extensive argument in favor of
congregational government.)
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
. The Church in God's Program . Chicago: Moody, 1972.
Spencer, Aida Besancon. Beyond the Curse: Women Called to Ministry Nashville: Thomas
Nelson, 1985. (Favors women as pastors.)
Stott, John R. W. The Preacher's Portrait Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1961.
Strauch, Alexander. Biblical Eldership: An Urgent Call to Restore Biblical Church Leadership .
Littleton, Col.: Lewis and Roth, 1986.
Tiller, J. << Ministry. ,, In EDT, pp. 430-33.
Toon, Peter. “Bishop.” In EDT y pp. 157-58.
Tucker, Ruth A., and Walter L. Liefeld. Daughters of the Church: Women and Ministry from
New Testament Times to the Present Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1987. (Favors women
as pastors.)
Wallace, R. S. “Elder.” In EDT, pp. 347-48.
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
1 Peter 5:1 -4: So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the suf-
ferings of Christ as well as a partaker in the glory that is to be revealed. Tend the flock of God
that is your charge, not by constraint but willingly, not for shameful gain but eagerly, not as
domineering over those in your charge but being examples to the flock. And when the chief
Shepherd is manifested you will obtain the unfading crown of glory.
HYMN
“Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken”
There are not many hymns — if any — written about church government! I have put
here a hymn which thanks God for the blessings of being a member of God’s people in
general, and therefore a citizen of the heavenly Mount Zion, the heavenly city where
God’s people dwell. But in the hymn the author also uses Old Testament imagery from
the journey of God’s people through the wilderness (“see the cloud and fire appear,” v. 3),
and the entire hymn can also be seen as one of thanks to God for the blessing of dwelling
(spiritually) within the walls of the church today.
The author, John Newton, is also the author of the well-known hymn “Amazing
Grace.”
Glorious things of thee are spoken, Zion, city of our God;
He whose Word cannot be broken formed thee for his own abode:
On the Rock of Ages founded, what can shake thy sure repose?
With salvation’s walls surrounded, thou may’st smile at all thy foes.
See, the streams of living waters, springing from eternal love,
Well supply thy sons and daughters, and all fear of want remove:
Who can faint, while such a river ever flows their thirst t’assuage?
Grace which, like the Lord, the giver, never fails from age to age.
CHAPTER 47 • CHURCH GOVERNMENT
949
Round each habitation hovring, see the cloud and fire appear
For a glory and cov’ring, showing that the Lord is near:
Thus deriving from their banner light by night and shade by day,
Safe they feed upon the manna which he gives them when they
pray.
Savior, if of Zion’s city I, through grace, a member am,
Let the world deride or pity, I will glory in thy name:
Fading is the worldling’s pleasure, all his boasted pomp and show;
Solid joys and lasting treasure none but Zion’s children know.
AUTHOR: JOHN NEWTON, 1779
Chapter
MEANS OF GRACE WITHIN
THE CHURCH
What are the different activities within the life of
the church that God uses to bring blessing to
us? What do we miss if we neglect involvement
in a local church?
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
A. How Many Means of Grace Are Available to Us?
All of the blessings we experience in this life are ultimately undeserved — they are all
of grace. In fact, for Peter, the entire Christian life is lived by grace (1 Peter 5:12).
But are there any special means that God uses to give additional grace to us? Spe-
cifically, within the fellowship of the church are there certain means — that is, certain
activities, ceremonies, or functions — that God uses to give more grace to us? Another
way of formulating that question is to ask whether there are certain means through
which the Holy Spirit works to convey blessings into the life of the believer. Of course,
personal prayer, worship, and Bible study, and personal faith, are all means through
which God works to bring grace to us as individual Christians. But in this chapter we
are dealing with the doctrine of the church, and we are asking specifically within the
fellowship of the church what the means of grace are that God uses to bring blessing
to us.
We may define the means of grace as follows: The means of grace are any activities
within the fellowship of the church that God uses to give more grace to Christians.
950
CHAPTER 48 - MEANS OF GRACE WITHIN THE CHURCH
In the history of the discussion of “means of grace within the church,” some theolo-
gians have restricted them to three: the preaching of the Word, and the two sacraments
(baptism and the Lord’s Supper). 1
But is it wise to make such a short list of “means of grace”? If we wish to list and dis-
cuss all the means of receiving the Holy Spirit’s blessing that come to believers specifically
through the fellowship of the church, then it does not seem wise to limit the “means of
grace” to three activities whose administration is restricted to the ordained clergy or
officers of the church. There is wisdom, for example, in Charles Hodge’s view that prayer
is a fourth means of grace. 2
But should we limit our discussion of the means of grace to these four activities only?
It would seem more helpful to list all of the many varied activities within the church that
God has given as special ways of receiving his “grace” day by day and week by week. Such
a list may become quite long, and, depending on how it is organized, may include various
numbers of elements. The following list may not be exhaustive, but it does include most
of the means of grace that believers have access to within the fellowship of the church:
1. Teaching of the Word
2. Baptism
3. The Lord’s Supper
4. Prayer for one another
5. Worship
6. Church discipline
7. Giving
8. Spiritual gifts
9. Fellowship
10. Evangelism
1 1 . Personal ministry to individuals
All these are available to believers within the church. The Holy Spirit works through
all of them to bring various kinds of blessing to individuals. Therefore, departing from
the much shorter lists usually given in systematic theologies, I have decided to call all of
these “means of grace” within the church.
The Roman Catholic Church has traditionally believed that God’s “grace” comes
to people only through the official ministry of the church, particularly through the
priests of the church. Therefore, when it specifies the means of grace (what it calls
This is the position of Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theol-
°gy, pp. 604-6. He calls these three means “objective channels
which Christ has instituted in the church” (pp. 604-5), but the
significant criterion in Berkhof ’s thinking appears to be the fact
that these three are the special functions administered by the
ordained clergy: Berkhof calls these “the official means of the
church of Jesus Christ” (p. 605), and later says, “As the official
means of grace placed at the disposal of the Church, both the
Word and the sacraments can only be administered by the law-
ful and properly qualified officers of the Church ” (p. 610). In this
way, he clearly restricts the “means of grace” to those means
administered by the ordained clergy.
Although those who follow Berkhof on this point could
argue that this procedure is wise and serves the interest of
maintaining good order in the church, we may ask whether in
fact this restriction carries overtones of “sacerdotalism,” the
view of the Roman Catholic Church (and, to a lesser degree,
the Anglican Church) that there is a special “priesthood” of
ordained people within the church who have a special author-
ity or ability to extend God’s grace to people in the church.
(See chapter 49, p. 966, for a discussion of the use of the
two terms sacraments and ordinances to refer to baptism and
the Lord’s Supper.)
2 Hodge, Systematic Theology, 3:692-709.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
952
the “sacraments”) that are available to people within the church, it has in view activi-
ties that are supervised and/or performed by only the priests of the church. The seven
“sacraments” in Roman Catholic teaching are the following:
1. Baptism
2. Confirmation
3. Eucharist (the Lord’s Supper as experienced in the mass)
4. Penance
5. Extreme unction (popularly known as the “last rites,” the anointing with
oil that is administered to a dying person)
6. Holy orders (ordination to the priesthood or diaconate)
7. Matrimony
There is not only a difference in the lists given by Catholics and Protestants; there is also
a difference in fundamental meaning. Catholics view these as “means of salvation” that
make people more fit to receive justification from God. 3 But on a Protestant view, the
means of grace are simply means of additional blessing within the Christian life, and do
not add to our fitness to receive justification from God. 4 Catholics teach that the means
of grace impart grace whether or not there is subjective faith on the part of the minister
or the recipient, 5 while Protestants hold that God only imparts grace when there is faith
on the part of the persons receiving these means. And while the Roman Catholic Church
firmly restricts the administration of the sacraments to the clergy, our list of means of
grace includes many activities that are carried out by all believers.
B. Discussion of Specific Means
1. Teaching of the Word. Even before people become Christians, the Word of God as
preached and taught brings God’s grace to them in that it is the instrument God uses
to impart spiritual life to them and bring them to salvation. Paul says that the gospel is
the “power of God for salvation” (Rom. 1:16) and that the preaching of Christ is “the
power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:24). God caused us to be born again
or “brought . . . forth by the word of truth” (James 1:18) and Peter says, “You have been
born anew, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding
word of God” (1 Peter 1:23). It is the written Word of God, the Bible, that is “able to
instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 3:15). 6
Moreover, once we have become Christians, Paul reminds us that it is the Word of God
that is “able to build you up” (Acts 20:32). It is necessary for spiritual nourishment and
for maintaining spiritual life, because we do not live on bread alone but on “every word
that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4). Moses speaks of the absolute neces-
sity of the written Word of God when he tells the people, “It is no trifle for you, but it is
your life, and thereby you shall live long in the land which you are going over the Jordan
to possess” (Deut. 32:47).
3 See chapter 36, pp. 728-29, on the Roman Catholic view 5 See chapter 49, p. 973, on the Roman Catholic view that
of justification. the sacraments work ex opere operato.
4 However, the Anglican Church teaches that baptism is 6 See chapter 33 for a fuller discussion of the gospel call,
“generally necessary” for salvation.
CHAPTER 48 • MEANS OF GRACE WITHIN THE CHURCH
It is the Word of God that convicts us of sin and turns us to righteousness, for it is
profitable “for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness”
(2 Tim. 3:16). It gives direction and guidance as a “lamp” to our feet and a “light” to
our path (Ps. 119:105). In the midst of an ungodly culture Scripture gives wisdom and
guidance like “a lamp shining in a dark place” (2 Peter 1:19). Moreover, it is active in
giving wisdom to all, even “making wise the simple” (Ps. 19:7). It gives hope to those
who are in despair, because Paul says that it was written “that by steadfastness and by the
encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope” (Rom. 15:4).
The Word of God is not weak or powerless in accomplishing these goals, for it speaks
to us with the power of God and accomplishes God’s purposes. The Lord says,
For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
and return not thither but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and prosper in the thing for which I sent it. (Isa. 55:10-11)
God’s Word is not weak but has his divine power accompanying it: “Is not my word like
fire, says the Lord, and like a hammer which breaks the rock in pieces?” (Jer. 23:29). It is
so sharp and powerful that it is the “ sword of the Spirit” (Eph. 6:17), and it is so effective
in speaking to people’s needs that the author of Hebrews says, “the word of God is living
and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of
joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb. 4:12).
So closely are the growth and strength of the church linked to the reign of the Word
of God in people’s lives that more than once the book of Acts can describe the growth of
the church as the growth of the Word of God: “And the word of God increased; and the
number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem” (Acts 6:7); “But the word of God
grew and multiplied ” (Acts 12:24); “And the word of the Lord spread throughout all the
region” (Acts 13:49).
So important is the Bible as the primary means of grace that God gives to his people
that Charles Hodge reminds us that throughout history true Christianity has flourished
“just in proportion to the degree in which the Bible is known, and its truths are diffused
among the people.” Moreover, he notes that there are no evidences of salvation or sancti-
fication to be found where the Word of God is not known. “The nations where the Bible
is unknown sit in darkness.” 7
It is appropriate that we list the teaching of the Word as the first and most important
means of grace within the church. But we should add that such teaching includes not only
officially recognized teaching by ordained clergy in the church, but also all the teaching
that occurs in Bible studies, Sunday School classes, the reading of Christian books on
Scripture, and even in personal Bible study.
7 Hodge, Systematic Theology ; 3:468-69.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
954
2. Baptism. Since Jesus commanded his church to baptize (Matt. 28 : 19) , we would expect
that there would be a measure of blessing connected with baptism, because all obedience
to God by Christians brings Gods favor with it. This obedience is specifically a public act
of confessing Jesus as Savior, an act which in itself brings joy and blessing to a believer.
Moreover, it is a sign of the believers death and resurrection with Christ (see Rom. 6:2-5;
Col. 2:12), and it seems fitting that the Holy Spirit would work through such a sign to
increase our faith, to increase our experiential realization of death to the power and love
of sin in our lives, and to increase our experience of the power of new resurrection life
in Christ that we have as believers. Since baptism is a physical symbol of the death and
resurrection of Christ and our participation in them, it should also give additional assur-
ance of union with Christ to all believers who are present. Finally, since water baptism is
an outward symbol of inward spiritual baptism by the Holy Spirit, we may expect that the
Holy Spirit will ordinarily work alongside the baptism, giving to believers an increasing
realization of the benefits of the spiritual baptism to which it points.
When baptism very closely accompanies someone’s initial profession of faith and
is in fact the outward form that profession of faith takes, there is certainly a connec-
tion between baptism and receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit, for Peter says to his
hearers at Pentecost, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus
Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit”
(Acts 2:38). Moreover, Paul says, “You were buried with him in baptism, in which you
were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from
the dead” (Col. 2:12). The statement that it is “through faith in the working of God”
that this happens reminds us that there is no magical property in the act of baptism
itself, which causes a spiritual result to come about, yet the verse also indicates that
when faith accompanies baptism there is genuine spiritual work in the life of the per-
son being baptized. As we would expect, sometimes great spiritual joy follows upon
baptism — a great joy in the Lord and in the salvation that baptism so vividly pictures
(see Acts 8:39; 16:34).
Although we must avoid the Roman Catholic teaching that grace is imparted even
apart from the faith of the person being baptized, we must not react so strongly to this
error that we say that there is no spiritual benefit at all that comes from baptism, that
the Holy Spirit does not work through it and that it is merely symbolic. It is better to say
that where there is genuine faith on the part of the person being baptized, and where
the faith of the church that watches the baptism is stirred up and encouraged by this
ceremony, then the Holy Spirit certainly does work through baptism, and it becomes
a “means of grace” through which the Holy Spirit brings blessing to the person being
baptized and to the church as well. (Baptism will be more fully discussed in the next
chapter.)
3. The Lord’s Supper. In addition to baptism, the other ordinance or ceremony that Jesus
commanded the church to carry out is participation in the Lord’s Supper. Although
this subject will be discussed more thoroughly in chapter 50, it is appropriate to note
here that participation in the Lord’s Supper is also very clearly a means of grace which
the Holy Spirit uses to bring blessing to the church. The Lord’s Supper is not simply an
CHAPTER 48 * MEANS OF GRACE WITHIN THE CHURCH
955
ordinary meal among human beings — it is a fellowship with Christ, in his presence and
at his table.
Once again, we must avoid the idea that any automatic or magical benefit comes from
sharing in the Lord’s Supper, whether a person participates in faith or not. 8 But when a
person participates in faith, renewing and strengthening his or her own trust in Christ
for salvation, and believing that the Holy Spirit will bring spiritual blessing through such
participation, then certainly additional blessing may be expected. We must be careful
here, as with baptism, to avoid the mistake of overreacting to Roman Catholic teaching
and maintaining that the Lord’s Supper is merely symbolic and not a means of grace. Paul
says, “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation (Gk. koinonia y “sharing,”
“fellowship”) in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation
[koindnia] in the body of Christ?” (1 Cor. 10:16). Because there is such a sharing in the
body and blood of Christ (apparently meaning a sharing in the benefits of Christ’s body
and blood given for us), the unity of believers is beautifully exhibited at the time of the
Lord’s Supper: “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all
partake of the one bread” (1 Cor. 10:17). And since we are participants at “the table of
the Lord” (1 Cor. 10:21), Paul warns the Corinthians that they cannot participate in the
Lord’s table and also participate in idol worship: “You cannot partake in the table of the
Lord and the table of demons” (1 Cor. 10:21). There is a spiritual union among believers
and with the Lord that is strengthened and solidified at the Lord’s Supper, and it is not
to be taken lightly.
This is why the Corinthians were experiencing judgment for their abuse of the Lord’s
Supper (1 Cor. 11:29-30: “For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body
eats and drinks judgment upon himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and
some have died”). But if Paul says there will be judgment for wrong participation in the
Lord’s Supper, then certainly we should expect blessing for right participation in the
Lord’s Supper. When we obey Jesus’ command, “Take, eat” (Matt. 26:26), and go through
the physical activity of eating and drinking at the Lord’s table, our physical action pic-
tures a corresponding spiritual nourishment, a nourishment of our souls that will occur
when we participate in obedience and faith. Jesus says, “For my flesh is food indeed, and
my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and
I in him” (John 6:55-56; cf. w. 52-54, 57-58; also vv. 27, 33-35, 48-51).
As with baptism, therefore, we should expect that the Lord would give spiritual bless-
ing as we participate in the Lord’s Supper in faith and in obedience to the directions laid
down in Scripture, and in this way it is a “means of grace” which the Holy Spirit uses to
convey blessing to us.
4. Prayer. We have already studied prayer in chapter 18, so we need only note here that
corporate prayer within the church as it assembles, and prayer by church members for
one another, are powerful means which the Holy Spirit uses daily to bring blessing to
Christians within the church. Certainly we are to pray together as well as individually,
8 This view that there is blessing that comes automatically doctrine of ex opere operato (“by the work performed”), which
from participation in the Lord s Supper is the Roman Catholic is discussed in chapter 50, pp. 991-94; see also p. 973.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
956
following the example of the early church. When they heard the threats of the Jewish
leaders, “they lifted their voices together to God” in prayer (Acts 4:24-30), “And when
they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken; and they
were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness” (Acts 4:31;
cf. 2:42). When Peter was put in prison, “earnest prayer for him was made to God by the
church” (Acts 12:5).
If prayer from the church is not simply the mouthing of words without heartfelt inten-
tion, but is the genuine expression of our hearts and the reflection of sincere faith, then
we should expect that the Holy Spirit will bring a great blessing through it. Certainly
when prayer is done “in the Spirit” (Eph. 6:18; cf. Jude 20: “pray in the Holy Spirit”), it
involves fellowship with the Holy Spirit and therefore a ministry of the Holy Spirit to the
people praying. And the author of Hebrews reminds us that as we “draw near” to God in
prayer before the throne of grace, we do so “that we may receive mercy and find grace to
help in time of need” (Heb. 4:16).
The more the genuine fellowship of a church increases, the more there ought to be
continual prayer for one another within the church, and the more genuine spiritual bless-
ing from the Holy Spirit may be expected to flow through the church.
5. Worship. Genuine worship is worship “in spirit” (John 4:23-24; Phil. 3:3), which
probably means worship that is in the spiritual realm of activity (not merely the outward
physical action of attendance at a worship service or singing of songs). 9 When we enter
that spiritual realm of activity and minister to the Lord in worship, God also ministers
to us. So, for example, in the church at Antioch, it was “ While they were worshiping the
Lord and fasting” that “the Holy Spirit said, ‘Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for
the work to which I have called them’” (Acts 13:2). This parallels the experience of the
people of Israel in the Old Testament who knew the presence of God when they engaged
in genuine worship:
When the song was raised , with trumpets and cymbals and other musical instru-
ments, in praise to the Lord , “For he is good, for his steadfast love endures for-
ever,” the house, the house of the Lord was filled with a cloud, so that the priests
could not stand to minister because of the cloud; for the glory of the Lord filled
the house of God. (2 Chron. 5:13-14)
When God’s people worshiped, he came in a very visible way to dwell in their midst.
Similarly in the New Testament, James promises, “Draw near to God and he will draw
near to you ” (James 4:8).
In fact, as God’s people worshiped, he delivered them from their enemies (2 Chron.
20:18-23), or at other times gave them true spiritual insight into the nature of events
around them (Ps. 73:17: “Until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I perceived
their end”).
If worship is genuinely an experience of drawing near to God, coming into his pres-
ence, and giving him the praise he deserves, then we certainly ought to count it one of
9 See the discussion of worship “in spirit” in chapter 51,
p. 1010. (The whole of chapter 51 discusses worship in general.)
CHAPTER 48 • MEANS OF GRACE WITHIN THE CHURCH
957
the primary “means of grace” available to the church. Through genuine congregational
worship God will very often bring great blessing, both individually and corporately, to
his people.
6. Church Discipline. Because church discipline is a means by which the purity of the
church is advanced and holiness of life is encouraged, we certainly should count it as a
“means of grace” as well. However, blessing is not automatically given: when the church
disciplines, no spiritual good comes to the wrongdoer unless the Holy Spirit convicts him
or her of sin and brings about a “godly grief” that “produces a repentance that leads to
salvation and brings no regret” (2 Cor. 7:10), and no spiritual good comes to the church
unless the Holy Spirit is active in the other members 5 lives when they become aware of
the process. This is why the church is to carry out discipline with the knowledge that it is
done in the presence of the Lord (1 Cor. 5:4; cf. 4:19-20), and with the assurance that it
has heavenly sanction connected with it (Matt. 16:19; 18:18-20). 10
It would be very healthy for the church to begin to think of church discipline not as an
onerous burden placed upon it by the Lord, but as a genuine “means of grace” by which
great blessing can come to the church — in reconciling believers to one another and to
God, in restoring the erring brother or sister to walk in obedience, in warning all to
“stand in fear” (1 Tim. 5:20), in increasing moral purity in the church, and in protecting
and advancing Christ’s honor. Though sorrow and pain are often connected with church
discipline, when it is rightly done, with faith that the Lord is working through it, the sor-
row will “bring no regret” (2 Cor. 7:10). When carried out in this way, church discipline
should certainly be seen as a means of grace by which the Holy Spirit will bring blessing
to his church. 11
7. Giving. Giving is ordinarily done through the church as it receives and distributes
gifts to the various ministries and needs cared for by the church. Once again, there is no
automatic or mechanical bestowing of benefits on those who give. Simon the sorcerer
was strongly rebuked for thinking that he “could obtain the gift of God with money”
(Acts 8:20). But if giving is done in faith, out of commitment to Christ and love for his
people, then certainly there will be great blessing in it. It is most pleasing to God when
gifts of money are accompanied by an intensification of the giver’s own personal com-
mitment to God, as was the case among the Macedonians who “first . . . gave themselves
to the Lord and to us by the will of God” (2 Cor. 8:5), and then gave to help the poor
Christians in Jerusalem. When giving is carried out joyfully, “not reluctantly or under
compulsion,” there is the great reward of God’s favor with it, “for God loves a cheerful
giver” (2 Cor. 9:7).
Paul views the giving of money to the Lord’s work as spiritual sowing that will lead to
a harvest: “he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully
will also reap bountifully” (2 Cor. 9:6). And Paul expects that as the Corinthians give
rightly God will bless them: “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, that always
having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed”
10 See discussion of the “power of the keys” in chapter 46, 11 See chapter 46, pp. 894-900, for a more full discussion
pp. 889-92. of church discipline.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
958
(2 Cor. 9:8 NASB). He tells them, “You will be enriched in every way for great generosity,
which through us will produce thanksgiving to God” (2 Cor. 9:11). Therefore giving
blesses the recipient in that his or her needs are met and faith and thanksgiving for God’s
provision are increased; it blesses the giver because “God loves a cheerful giver” and will
grant an abundant spiritual harvest, and brings blessing to all who know about it since
it produces a harvest of “many thanksgivings to God” (2 Cor. 9:12). Rather than seeing
giving as an unpleasant obligation, we would do well to view it as a rich means of grace
within the church, and to expect that through it the Holy Spirit will bring blessing.
8. Spiritual Gifts. Peter views spiritual gifts as channels through which God’s grace
comes to the church because he says, “As each has received a gift, employ it for one
another, as good stewards of God's varied grace ” (1 Peter 4:10). When gifts are used for
one another in the church, God’s grace is thereby dispensed to those for whom God
intended it. Great blessing will come to the church through proper use of spiritual gifts,
as the church follows Paul’s command to use the gifts to “strive to excel in building up
the church” (1 Cor. 14:12; cf. Eph. 4:11-16).
If we listed all the spiritual gifts as separate means of grace, our list of the means of
grace would be much longer than eleven items. But even if we contain them all in this
one category, we should recognize that the different spiritual gifts in the church are
all means by which the Holy Spirit brings blessing through individual Christians. This
should remind us of the abundant favor that God has given us as undeserving sinners,
and should also make us realize that many different Christians, with diverse gifts, can
be the channels through which grace comes to us. In fact, in Peter’s exhortation to use
spiritual gifts as stewards of “God’s varied grace” (1 Peter 4:10), the word translated
“varied” (Gk. poikilos) means “having many facets or aspects; richly varied; having great
diversity.” Moreover, we should remember that these gifts are distributed not only to
clergy or a limited number of Christians, but to all believers who have the Holy Spirit
within them (1 Cor. 12:7, 11; 1 Peter 4:10). 12
9. Fellowship. We should not neglect ordinary Christian fellowship as a valuable means
of grace within the church. The early church “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teach-
ing and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (Acts 2:42). And the author
of Hebrews reminds believers, “Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and
good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one
another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near” (Heb. 10:24-25). In the fel-
lowship of believers, ordinary friendship and affection for one another will grow, and
Jesus’ injunction that we “love one another” (John 15:12) will be fulfilled. Moreover, as
believers care for one another, they will “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the
law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2).
An emphasis on the fellowship of believers with one another as a means of grace would
also help to overcome an excessive focus on the ordained clergy as the primary dispensers
of grace within the church, and particularly when the church as a whole is assembled. It
would also be healthy for Christians to recognize that a measure of God’s grace is experi-
12 See chapters 52 and 53 for a discussion of spiritual gifts.
CHAPTER 48 ■ MEANS OF GRACE WITHIN THE CHURCH
enced when Christians talk together and eat together, when they have times of work and
play together, enjoying one another’s fellowship. “And day by day, attending the temple
together and breaking bread in their homes, they partook of food with glad and generous
hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people” (Acts 2:46-47).
10. Evangelism. In Acts, there is a frequent connection between proclaiming the gospel
(even in the face of opposition) and being filled with the Holy Spirit (see Acts 2:4 with w.
14—36; 4:8, 31; 9:17 with v. 20; 13:9, 52). Evangelism is a means of grace, then, not only in
the sense that it ministers saving grace to the unsaved, but also because those who evan-
gelize experience more of the Holy Spirit’s presence and blessing in their own lives. Some-
times evangelism is carried out by individuals, but at other times it is a corporate activity of
the church (as in evangelistic campaigns). And even individual evangelism often involves
other church members who will welcome an unbelieving visitor and give attention to his or
her needs. So evangelism is rightly considered a means of grace in the church.
11. Personal Ministry to Individuals. Along with the previous ten “means of grace”
within the church, it is appropriate to list one more specific means that the Holy Spirit
very frequently uses to bring blessing to individual Christians. This means of grace oper-
ates when one or more Christians within the church take time to minister, in various
ways, to very specific needs of another individual in the church.
Sometimes this ministry takes the form of words of encouragement or exhortation or
wise counsel. We are to “teach and admonish one another in all wisdom” (Col. 3:16), and
to speak words that “impart grace to those who hear” (Eph. 4:29). We are to attempt to
bring back “a sinner from the error of his way” (James 5:20) and to “consider how to
stir up one another to love and good works” and to be “encouraging one another” (Heb.
10:24-25). At other times such ministry involves giving to assist the material needs of
a brother or sister: James rebukes those who merely say, “Go in peace, be warmed and
filled,” without “giving them the things needed for the body” (James 2:16). John warns
us, “If any one has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart
against him, how does God s love abide in him?” (1 John 3:17). Therefore the early church
gave readily to the needs of poor Christians, so that “There was not a needy person among
them (Acts 4:34). And Paul said that the leaders of the church in Jerusalem “would have
us remember the poor, which very thing I was eager to do” (Gal. 2:10).
Another form this interpersonal ministry may take is the anointing with oil in con-
junction with prayer for a sick person. Jesus’ disciples “anointed with oil many that
were sick and healed them” (Mark 6:13). Similarly, James says that a sick person should
call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in
the name of the Lord” (James 5:14). In these cases the oil seems to have been a physical
symbol of the healing power of the Holy Spirit coming to the sick person.
Finally, one more means of exercising personal ministry to individuals in the New
Testament is the use of physical touch, particularly the laying on of hands in connection
with prayer for someone in need. A survey of the New Testament may bring surprise to
many modern Christians (as it did to the present author) when they see how frequently
the laying on of hands and other kinds of physical touch are seen to function as a “means
of grace” in the ministry of Jesus and the early church.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
960
It seems that the laying on of hands was by far the most common method that Jesus
used to pray for people. When crowds came bringing people “with various diseases” to
him, “he laid his hands on every one of them and healed them” (Luke 4:40). Other pas-
sages specifically describe Jesus’ placing his hands on people to heal them (Matt. 8:3;
Mark 1:41; 6:5; 8:23-25; Luke 5:13; 13:13). But more significant than these individual
passages is the fact that people who came to Jesus for healing would come specifically
asking him to lay his hands on a sick person: “ Come and lay your hand on her , and she
will live” (Matt. 9:18), or “ Come and lay your hands on her y so that she may be made well,
and live” (Mark 5:23; cf. 7:32). The fact that people came with this request suggests that
the laying on of hands was commonly recognized as the method Jesus usually used to
heal people. In imitation of Jesus’ method of healing, when the father of Publius was sick,
“Paul visited him and prayed, and putting his hands on him healed him” (Acts 28:8). 13
In other cases people sought more generally to touch Jesus, or asked that he would
touch them, in order to be healed. “And some people brought to him a blind man, and
begged him to touch him” (Mark 8:22). Similarly, people “brought to him all that were
sick, and besought him that they might only touch the fringe of his garment; and as many
as touched it were made well” (Matt. 14:35-36). This was because the power of the Holy
Spirit was conveyed through Jesus’ physical touch, and came forth and healed people.
“All the crowd sought to touch him, for power came forth from him and healed them all”
(Luke 6:19; cf. Matt. 9:20-22, 25; 20:34; Mark 1:31; 5:41; 9:27; Luke 7:14; 8:54; 22:51).
However, it was not simply to heal that Jesus and the early church laid on hands or
touched people. When children came to Jesus “he took them in his arms and blessed
them, laying his hands upon them” (Mark 10:16; cf. Matt. 19:13-15; Luke 18:15).
When Jesus so frequently touched people to bring healing or otherwise to bring bless-
ing to them, it is not surprising that people would mention the miracles done by his
hands: “What mighty works (Gk. dynamis , “miracle”) are wrought by his hands!” (Mark
6:2). 14 Similarly, when Paul and Barnabas were on their first missionary journey, the
Lord “bore witness to the word of his grace, granting signs and wonders to be done by
their hands” (Acts 14:3). 15 In the same way, “God did extraordinary miracles by the hands
of Paul” (Acts 19:11). 16 Since there was, as with the other means of grace, no automatic or
magical power inherent in the hands of the early Christians, but healing and other kinds
13 Although the longer ending of Mark is doubtful as part of reader no mention of hands. For example, it simply translates
Scripture (see chapter 17, p. 365), Mark 16:18 certainly does rep- Mark 6:2, “He even does miracles!” But the Greek text spe-
resent at least one stream of early tradition within the church as cifically says that miracles are done “through his hands ” (dia
well: it says that those who believe in Jesus “will lay their hands ton cheiron autou ). In the following section I have pointed out
on the sick, and they will recover.” only some of the places where the NI V fails to translate the
14 Because the gospels so frequently emphasize the fact that Greek word cheir (“hand”), but it is present in the Greek text
Jesus laid hands on people or touched them with his hands, in all the verses I quote, and readers who do not find it in their
this expression does not seem to be simply a metaphor mean- NIV translations should consult another translation, such as
ing “What miracles are done by him! ” but is better understood the RSV or NASB, that has a more literal translation policy,
to be a reference to the specific way in which Jesus’ hands were 15 The NIV simply translates, “enabling them to do miracu-
the means by which his miracles were very frequently brought lous signs and wonders” (see previous footnote) .
about. Unfortunately, in this verse and several others men- i6 The NIV simply says, “God did extraordinary miracles
tioning miracles done by people’s hands , the NIV has decided through Paul ” (see previous two footnotes) .
a literal translation is not important and has given the English
CHAPTER 48 * MEANS OF GRACE WITHIN THE CHURCH
961
of blessing only came as God himself was pleased to work through the laying on of hands,
it is not surprising that the early church prayed specifically that God would stretch forth
his hand to heal. They prayed, “And now, Lord, look upon their threats, and grant to your
servants to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal”
(Acts 4:29-30). They realized that while they stretched forth their hands to touch those
who were sick it would not be effective at all unless God’s own mighty hand of power was
working through their hands.
At other times the laying on of hands was done for some other purpose. Apparently
it was done in connection with asking God to empower or equip people for some service
or ministry. When the first deacons were appointed, the church brought them before the
apostles, “and they prayed and laid their hands upon them” (Acts 6:6). Similarly, when the
church at Antioch sent out Paul and Barnabas, “When they had fasted and prayed and
laid their hands on them , they sent them away” (Acts 13:3 NASB).
When the gospel came to a new group of people, those who proclaimed the gospel
would sometimes lay hands on the new believers in order that they might receive the new
covenant power of the Holy Spirit. At Samaria, the apostles “laid their hands on them
and they received the Holy Spirit” (Acts 8:17). Ananias laid his hands on Saul in order
that he might regain his sight and “be filled with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 9:17). When Paul
“laid his hands upon” the disciples at Ephesus who had just come to believe in Jesus, “the
Holy Spirit came on them” (Acts 19:6).
In other cases the laying on of hands resulted in the impartation of some spiritual
gift. In the incident just mentioned, the disciples at Ephesus also “spoke with tongues
and prophesied” (Acts 19:6) after Paul laid his hands on them. Moreover, he reminds
Timothy, “Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophetic utterance
(literally, “through prophecy”) when the council of elders laid their hands upon you”
(1 Tim. 4:14). Paul may have been referring to the same event or a different one when
he said later, “I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the
laying on of my hands” (2 Tim. 1:6). (In 1 Timothy 5:22, the statement “Do not be hasty
in the laying on of hands” refers to the ordination of elders; see chapter 47, p. 918.)
If people in the early church were frequently praying for one another’s needs, and if
they imitated the example of Jesus and his disciples in the laying on of hands to pray for
people for healing, for bringing blessing, for receiving the Holy Spirit at the time of con-
version, for receiving spiritual gifts, or for empowering for ministry, then we would expect
that instruction given to new Christians would have included the teaching that prayer
for individual needs would ordinarily be accompanied by the placing of a hand or hands
upon the person who was being prayed for. If this were so, then it would not be surprising
that “the laying on of hands” would be classified as an “elementary” doctrine, something
that belongs to the “foundation” of Christian instruction — which is in fact what we find
in Hebrews 6:1-2. Although some have understood this to refer more narrowly to the lay-
ing on of hands that accompanies installation in some specific church office, that is only
one small aspect of the pattern of situations in which laying on of hands is found in the
New Testament. It seems much better to understand this phrase in Hebrews 6:2 to refer to
elementary instruction about how to pray for others in various situations of need so that
young Christians would immediately be able to begin ministering to others as well.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
962
It seems appropriate, then, to count the laying on of hands as one other dimension
of the rich diversity of “means of grace” that God has placed within the church to bring
blessing to his people.
12. Should Footwashing Be Practiced As a Means of Grace Within the Church? From
time to time some Christian groups have practiced a ceremony of washing one another’s
feet at a public meeting of the church. They have based this practice on Jesus’s command,
“If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one
another's feet” (John 13:14). Those who advocate footwashing consider it a ceremony that
Jesus commanded, similar to the ceremonies of baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
However, there are several reasons why we should not think that in John 13:14 Jesus
was establishing another ceremony for the church in addition to baptism and the Lord’s
Supper. (1) Baptism and the Lord’s Supper explicitly symbolize the greatest event in the
history of redemption, Christ’s death and resurrection for us, but footwashing symbol-
izes no such redemptive-historical event. (2) Baptism and the Lord’s Supper were clearly
symbolic actions, but when Jesus washed the disciples’ feet it was clearly functional, not
merely symbolic, in that it met an ordinary human need of the day (dirty feet). (3) Bap-
tism and the Lord’s Supper are appropriate symbols of beginning and continuing in the
Christian life, 17 but no such symbolism attaches to footwashing. (4) To make footwash-
ing an ordinance like baptism and the Lord’s Supper reduces it to a symbol — and if it is
a symbol, then Jesus’ words command us only to perform a symbol, and the real force
of Jesus’ command (to act in humility and love) is lost. (5) Whereas the epistles give
evidence that baptism and the Lord’s Supper were continuing ordinances observed by
the New Testament churches, there is no evidence that the apostles or the early church
observed footwashing as an ordinance. (6) There is a simple and straightforward expla-
nation for Jesus’ command: he is telling his disciples to take lowly tasks in serving one
another. But if this is what the text means (and the vast majority of the church through
history has understood it this way), then we need not look for an additional meaning
(that Jesus is also instituting a new ceremony). By contrast, the New Testament texts
about baptism and the Lord’s Supper cannot be understood to command something
other than a ceremony. Therefore, while all Christians would profit from pondering the
application of Jesus’ statement about footwashing to their present patterns of life, none
should think that Jesus is encouraging them to practice a ceremony of footwashing.
C. Conclusions
At the end of this discussion of the means of grace within the church, we should
realize first of all that when any of these are carried out in faith and obedience, we
should eagerly expect and look for evidence that the Holy Spirit is actually ministering
to people at the same time as these actions are being done. We as Christians ought not
to neglect to “meet together” (Heb. 10:25), but ought to look forward eagerly to any
17 See chapter 49, pp. 968-69, on the symbolism of bap-
tism, and chapter 50, pp. 990-91, on the symbolism of the
Lord’s Supper.
CHAPTER48 ♦ MEANS OF GRACE WITHIN THE CHURCH
963
assembly of believers in which any of these means would occur, expecting that God will
bring blessing from each of these means!
On the other hand, we must realize that all of these means of grace occur within the
fellowship of the church. Those who neglect the fellowship of the church willfully cut
themselves off from all of these means of grace and thereby cut themselves off from most
of the ordinary means that the Holy Spirit uses to bring blessing to his people.
These means of grace ought to give us great appreciation for the amazing privilege of
being members of the body of Christ, the church.
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. Before reading this chapter, did you think that it made very much difference if a
Christian continued to be active in the fellowship of the church or not? How has
this chapter changed your perspective on that question, if at all?
2. Which of the means of grace mentioned in this chapter has been most helpful to
you in your own Christian life?
3. Which of the means of grace mentioned in this chapter do you think you appre-
ciated least before reading the chapter? How has your appreciation for that
means of grace increased? How do you think this will affect your actions from
now on?
4. As you look over the list of means of grace, are there some areas in which people
are not actually experiencing “grace” or blessing in your own church? What could
be done to increase the effectiveness of these weak areas as means of grace in the
life of your church?
5. Which of the means of grace are actually least helpful in your own life? Are there
some that have become rather mechanical, and that you are performing only as an
outward or physical activity, without any real participation in your heart? What
could you do to increase the effectiveness of those means in your life?
6. As you look over the list of the means of grace again, name one or more in which
you could begin to help the church be more effective in bringing blessing to its
people.
SPECIAL TERMS
Eucharist
extreme unction
holy orders
laying on of hands
means of grace
sacrament
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
964
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter 1,
pp. 38-39. Complete bibliographical data may be found on pp. 1224-30.)
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1882-92 Litton, 428-59
1930 Thomas, 313-38, 343-70, 447-51
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1875- 76 Pope, 3:294-310, 335-59
1892 -94 Miley, 2:392-94
1940 Wiley, 3:150-60
1960 Purkiser, 409-27
1983 Carter, 2:615
3. Baptist
1767 Gill, 2:621, 660- 82
1983-85 Erickson, 1003 - 15
4. Dispensational
1949 Thiessen, 296-304
1986 Ryrie, 421, 427
5. Lutheran
1917-24 Pieper, 3:104-215, 439-72
1934 Mueller, 441-69
6. Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1559 Calvin, 2:1276-1302, 1448-84 (4.14, 19)
1861 Heppe, 590-610
1871-73 Hodge, 3:466- 526
1878 Dabney, 726-57
1889 Shedd, 2b:561-87
1937-66 Murray, CW, 2:366-69
1938 Berkhof, 604-21
1962 Buswell, 2:226-41
7. Renewal (or charismatic/Pentecostal)
1988-92 Williams, 2:287-94, 3:159-63
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
1. Roman Catholic: Traditional
1955 Ott, 325-472
2. Roman Catholic: Post-Vatican II
1980 McBrien, 2:731-49, 775-816
CHAPTER48 • MEANS OF GRACE WITHIN THE CHURCH
965
Other Works
Hughes, R E. “Grace, Means of.” In EDT, pp. 482-83.
Milne, Bruce. We Belong Together: The Meaning of Fellowship. Downers Grove, 111.: Inter-
Varsity Press, 1978.
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
Acts 2:41-42: So those who received his word were baptized , and there were added that
day about three thousand souls . And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and
fellowship y to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
HYMN
“I Love Thy Kingdom, Lord”
This hymn expresses joy at the privilege of being in the church. In fact, the author
exclaims, “Beyond my highest joy I prize her heavenly ways, /Her sweet communion,
solemn vows, her hymns of love and praise.” Here he is meditating on some of the means
of grace within the church (“her heavenly ways”), particularly the fellowship or commu-
nion that comes within the church, the vows to God that are made there, and the hymns
that are sung within it. Moreover, using the figure of Mount Zion to refer to the church,
he says that “to Zion shall be given /The brightest glories earth can yield, and brighter
bliss of heaven.” When we sing this we can think of all the rich blessings that the Holy
Spirit bestows on the church through the many means of grace.
The author of this hymn, Timothy Dwight, was President of Yale University from
1795 to 1817, during which time he reformed the administration and the curriculum
and tripled the enrollment. He also was Professor of Divinity, and under his preaching a
revival broke out in 1802, in which a third of the students were converted.
I love thy kingdom, Lord, the house of thine abode,
The church our blest Redeemer saved with his own precious blood.
I love thy church, O God: her walls before thee stand,
Dear as the apple of thine eye, and graven on thy hand.
For her my tears shall fall, for her my prayers ascend;
To her my cares and toils be giv’n, till toils and cares shall end.
Beyond my highest joy I prize her heav’nly ways,
Her sweet communion, solemn vows, her hymns of love and praise.
Jesus, thou Friend divine, our Savior and our King,
Thy hand from evry snare and foe shall great deliv’rance bring.
Sure as thy truth shall last, to Zion shall be giv’n
The brightest glories earth can yield, and brighter bliss of heav’n.
AUTHOR: TIMOTHY DWIGHT, 1800
Chapter
BAPTISM
Who should be baptized? How should it
be done? What does it mean?
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
In this chapter and the next we treat baptism and the Lord’s Supper, two ceremonies
that Jesus commanded his church to perform. But before we begin consideration of either
one of them we must note that there is disagreement among Protestants even over the
general term that should be applied to them. Because the Roman Catholic Church calls
these two ceremonies “sacraments,” and because the Catholic Church teaches that these
sacraments in themselves actually convey grace to people (without requiring faith from
the persons participating in them), some Protestants (especially Baptists) have refused
to refer to baptism and the Lord’s Supper as “sacraments.” They have preferred the word
ordinances instead. This is thought to be an appropriate term because baptism and the
Lord’s Supper were “ordained” by Christ . 1 On the other hand, other Protestants such as
those in the Anglican, Lutheran, and Reformed traditions, have been willing to use the
word “sacraments” to refer to baptism and the Lord’s Supper, without thereby endorsing
the Roman Catholic position.
It does not seem that any significant point is at issue here in the question of whether
to call baptism and the Lord’s Supper “ordinances” or “sacraments.” Since Protestants
who use both words explain clearly what they mean by them, the argument is not really
over doctrine but over the meaning of an English word. If we are willing to explain clearly
'A. H. Strong, Systematic Theology, says, “No ordinance is a He also says, “The Romanist regards the ordinances as actually
sacrament in the Romanist sense of conferring grace” (p. 930). conferring grace and producing holiness” (ibid.).
966
CHAPTER 49- BAPTISM
what we mean, it does not seem to make any difference whether we use the word sacra-
ment or not. 2 In this text, when referring to baptism and the Lords Supper in Protestant
teaching, I will use both “ordinances” and “sacraments” interchangeably, and regard
them as synonymous in meaning.
Before beginning our discussion of baptism we must recognize that there has been
historically, and is today, a strong difference of viewpoint among evangelical Christians
regarding this subject. The position advocated in this book is that baptism is not a “major”
doctrine that should be the basis of division among genuine Christians, 3 but it is nonethe-
less a matter of importance for ordinary church life, and it is appropriate that we give it full
consideration.
The position advocated in this chapter is “Baptistic” — namely, that baptism is appro-
priately administered only to those who give a believable profession of faith in Jesus Christ.
During the discussion, we shall interact particularly with the paedobaptist (“infant bap-
tist”) position as advocated by Louis Berkhof in his Systematic Theology, since this is a
careful and responsible representation of the paedobaptist position, and it is in a widely
used systematic theology text.
A. The Mode and Meaning of Baptism
The practice of baptism in the New Testament was carried out in one way: the person
being baptized was immersed or put completely under the water and then brought back
up again. Baptism by immersion is therefore the “mode” of baptism or the way in
which baptism was carried out in the New Testament. This is evident for the following
reasons:
(1) The Greek word baptizo means “to plunge, dip, immerse” something in water.
This is the commonly recognized and standard meaning of the term in ancient Greek
literature both inside and outside of the Bible. 4
2 Th e American Heritage Dictionary (Boston: Houghton Mif-
flin, 1981) allows a range of meanings, defining a sacrament as
a rite considered as “a testament to inner grace or a channel that
mediates grace” (p. 1141). Even the most conscientious Baptist
would not object to calling baptism “a testament to inner grace”
while Catholics would not object to calling baptism “a channel
that mediates grace.”
3 See chapter 1, pp. 29-30, for a discussion of major and
minor doctrines. Not all Christians agree with my view that
this is a minor doctrine. Many Christians in previous gen-
erations were persecuted and even put to death because they
differed with the official state church and its practice of infant
baptism. For them, the issue was not merely a ceremony: it was
the right to have a believers’ church, one that did not auto-
matically include all the people born in a geographical region.
Viewed in this light, the controversy over baptism involves
a larger difference over the nature of the church: does one
become part of the church by birth into a believing family, or
by voluntary profession of faith?
4 So LSJ , p. 305: “plunge”; passive, “to be drowned.”
Similarly, BAGD, p. 131: “dip, immerse,” and middle, “dip
oneself, wash (in non-Christian literature also ‘plunge, sink,
drench, overwhelm’).” Also Albrecht Oepke, “bapto, baptizo,
etc.,” in TDNT, 1:530: “to immerse ... to sink the ship”;
passive, “to sink ... to suffer shipwreck, to drown (the sense
of ‘to bathe’ or ‘to wash’ is only occasionally found in Hel-
lenism . . . the idea of going under or perishing is nearer the
general usage)” (ibid.). A. H. Strong, Systematic Theology,
pp. 933-35 gives much additional evidence to this effect.
Berkhof, Systematic Theology, p. 630, objects and gives some
counter-examples, but his evidence is unconvincing because
he indiscriminately mixes examples of baptizo with a related
but different word, bapto. (Passages that speak of “bathing” or
washing [in the Septuagint, Judith 12:7, for example, and in the
New Testament, Mark 7:4] would most likely involve cover-
ing one’s body [or hands, in Mark 7:4] completely with water.)
If any New Testament author had wanted to indicate that
people were sprinkled with water, a perfectly good Greek
word meaning “to sprinkle” was available: rhantizo is used
in this sense in Heb. 9:13, 19, 21; 10:22; see BAGD, p. 734.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
968
(2) The sense “immerse” is appropriate and probably required for the word in several
New Testament passages. In Mark 1:5, people were baptized by John “ w the river Jordan”
(the Greek text has en, “in,” and not “beside” or “by” or “near” the river). 5 Mark also
tells us that when Jesus had been baptized “he came up out of the water ” (Mark 1:10). The
Greek text specifies that he came “out of” ( ek ) the water, not that he came away from it
(this would be expressed by Gk. apo). The fact that John and Jesus went into the river
and came up out of it strongly suggests immersion, since sprinkling or pouring of water
could much more readily have been done standing beside the river, particularly because
multitudes of people were coming for baptism. Johns gospel tells us, further, that John
the Baptist “was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because there was much water there”
(John 3:23). Again, it would not take “much water” to baptize people by sprinkling, but
it would take much water to baptize by immersion.
When Philip had shared the gospel with the Ethiopian eunuch, “as they went along the
road they came to some water, and the eunuch said, ‘See, here is water! What is to prevent
my being baptized?’ ” (Acts 8:36). Apparently neither of them thought that sprinkling or
pouring a handful of water from the container of drinking water that would have been
carried in the chariot was enough to constitute baptism. Rather, they waited until there
was a body of water near the road. Then “he commanded the chariot to stop, and they
both went down into the water , Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. And when
they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught up Philip; and the eunuch saw
him no more, and went on his way rejoicing” (Acts 8:38-39). As in the case of Jesus, this
baptism occurred when Philip and the eunuch went down into a body of water, and after
the baptism they came up out of that body of water. Once again baptism by immersion
is the only satisfactory explanation of this narrative. 6
(3) The symbolism of union with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection seems
to require baptism by immersion. Paul says,
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were
baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into
death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we
too might walk in newness of life. (Rom. 6:3-4)
Similarly, Paul tells the Colossians, “You were buried with him in baptism, in which you
were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the
dead” (Col. 2:12).
Now this truth is clearly symbolized in baptism by immersion. When the candidate
for baptism goes down into the water it is a picture of going down into the grave and
being buried. Coming up out of the water is then a picture of being raised with Christ to
5 Berkhof asks, “Was John the Baptist capable of the enor- that the word can take either meaning, but we must also note
mous task of immersing the multitudes that flocked unto him at v. 39, where ek certainly means “out of,” not “away from,”
the river Jordan. . . ?” (p. 630). Certainly over a period of several which would be expressed by apo. And the going down and
days he would have been capable of immersing many hundreds coming up ( katabaino and anabaind) are not going down from
of people, but it is also possible that his disciples (Matt. 9: 14, et the chariot and going back up into the chariot, but are specifi-
al.) assisted him with some of the baptisms. cally said to be going down into the water and coming up out
6 Berkhof (pp. 630-631) objects that in Acts 8:38 the Greek of the water.
word eis can mean “to” and not necessarily “into.” It is true
CHAPTER 49 • BAPTISM
969
walk in newness of life. Baptism thus very clearly pictures death to one’s old way of life
and rising to a new kind of life in Christ. But baptism by sprinkling or pouring simply
misses this symbolism. 7
Sometimes it is objected that the essential thing symbolized in baptism is not death
and resurrection with Christ but purification and cleansing from sins. Certainly it is
true that water is an evident symbol of washing and cleansing, and the waters of baptism
do symbolize washing and purification from sins as well as death and resurrection with
Christ. Titus 3:5 speaks of “the washing of regeneration” and, even though the word
baptism is not used in this text, it is certainly true that there is a cleansing from sin that
occurs at the time of conversion. Ananias told Saul, “Rise and be baptized, and wash away
your sins , calling on his name” (Acts 22:16).
But to say that washing away of sins is the only thing (or even the most essential thing)
pictured in baptism does not faithfully represent New Testament teaching. Both washing
and death and resurrection with Christ are symbolized in baptism, but Romans 6:1-11
and Colossians 2:11-12 place a clear emphasis on dying and rising with Christ. Even the
washing is much more effectively symbolized by immersion than by sprinkling or pour-
ing, and death and resurrection with Christ are symbolized only by immersion, not at
all by sprinkling or pouring.
What then is the positive meaning of baptism? In all the discussion over the mode of
baptism and the disputes over its meaning, it is easy for Christians to lose sight of the
significance and beauty of baptism and to disregard the tremendous blessing that accom-
panies this ceremony. The amazing truths of passing through the waters of judgment
safely, of dying and rising with Christ, and of having our sins washed away, are truths of
momentous and eternal proportion and ought to be an occasion for giving great glory
and praise to God. If churches would teach these truths more clearly, baptisms would be
the occasion of much more blessing in the church.
7 In fact, the waters of baptism have an even richer sym-
bolism than simply the symbolism of the grave. The waters
also remind us of the waters of God’s judgment that came
upon unbelievers at the time of the flood (Gen. 7:6-24), or
the drowning of the Egyptians in the Exodus (Ex. 14:26-29).
Similarly, when Jonah was thrown into the deep (Jonah
1:7-16), he was thrown down to the place of death because
of God’s judgment on his disobedience — even though he was
miraculously rescued and thus became a sign of the resurrec-
tion. Therefore those who go down into the waters of baptism
really are going down into the waters of judgment and death,
death that they deserve from God for their sins. When they
come back up out of the waters of baptism it shows that they
have come safely through God’s judgment only because of the
merits of Jesus Christ, with whom they are united in his death
and resurrection. This is why Peter can say in 1 Peter 3:21 that
baptism “corresponds to” the saving of Noah and his family
from the waters of judgment in the flood.
Douglas Moo, in Romans 1-8, Wycliffe Exegetical Com-
mentary (Chicago: Moody Press, 1991), argues that baptism
in Rom. 6 “functions as shorthand for the conversion experi-
ence as a whole. ... It is not, then, that baptism is a symbol of
dying and rising with Christ.” (p. 371). He says that “there is
no evidence in Romans 6, or in the NT, that the actual physical
movements, immersion, and emersion, involved in baptism
were accorded symbolical significance” (p. 379). While I agree
that baptism in Rom. 6 functions as shorthand for the conver-
sion experience as a whole, it does not seem to me that we can
exclude the symbolism of dying and rising with Christ, for
the following reasons: (1) The physical actions of going down
into the water (where human beings cannot live for more than
a few minutes) and coming up out of the water are so closely
parallel to the actions of going down into the grave and com-
ing up out of the grave that the connection is evident from the
surface appearance of the actions, and no detailed explana-
tion would be necessary. (2) The Old Testament background
of being immersed by waters of God’s judgment confirms this.
(3) When Paul says, “You were buried with him in baptism,
in which you were also raised with him through faith in the
working of God, who raised him from the dead” (Col. 2:12),
it is hard to imagine that any of Paul’s readers, even children,
would have missed the evident parallel between the actions of
baptism and dying and rising with Christ. (This would be true
even if, with Moo, we translate Col. 2:12 “by means o/baptism.”)
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
970
B. The Subjects of Baptism
The pattern revealed at several places in the New Testament is that only those
who give a believable profession of faith should be baptized. This view is often called
believers baptism,” since it holds that only those who have themselves believed in
Christ (or, more precisely, those who have given reasonable evidence of believing
in Christ) should be baptized. This is because baptism, which is a symbol of begin-
ning the Christian life , should only be given to those who have in fact begun the
Christian life.
1. The Argument From the New Testament Narrative Passages on Baptism. The nar-
rative examples of those who were baptized suggest that baptism was administered only
to those who gave a believable profession of faith. After Peter’s sermon at Pentecost we
read, “Those who received his word were baptized” (Acts 2:41). The text specifies that
baptism was administered to those who “received his word” and therefore trusted in
Christ for salvation. 8 Similarly, when Philip preached the gospel in Samaria, we read,
“When they believed Philip as he preached good news about the kingdom of God and the
name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized , both men and women” (Acts 8:12). Likewise,
when Peter preached to the Gentiles in Cornelius’ household, he allowed baptism for
those who had heard the Word and received the Holy Spirit —that is, for those who had
given persuasive evidence of an internal work of regeneration. While Peter was preach-
ing, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word” and Peter and his companions
heard them speaking in tongues and extolling God” (Acts 10:44—46). Peter’s response
was that baptism is appropriate for those who have received the regenerating work of
the Holy Spirit: “Can any one forbid water for baptizing these people who have received
the Holy Spirit just as we have?” Then Peter “commanded them to be baptized in the
name of Jesus Christ” (Acts 10:47-48). The point of these three passages is that baptism
is appropriately given to those who have received the gospel and trusted in Christ for
salvation. There are other texts that indicate this as well— Acts 16:14- 15 (Lydia and
her household, after “the Lord opened her heart” to believe); Acts 16:32-33 (the family
of the Philippian jailer, after Paul preached “the word of the Lord to him and to all that
were in his house”); and 1 Corinthians 1:16 (the household of Stephanas), but these will
be discussed more fully below when we look at the question of “household baptisms.”
2* The Argument From the Meaning of Baptism. In addition to these indications from
New Testament narratives that baptism always followed upon saving faith, there is a sec-
ond consideration that argues for believers’ baptism: the outward symbol of beginning the
Christian life should only be given to those who show evidence of having begun the Chris-
tian life. The New Testament authors wrote as though they clearly assumed that everyone
who was baptized had also personally trusted in Christ and experienced salvation. For
8 Berkhof cautions against making too much of the silence what Acts 2:41 says: it specifies that “those who received his
of Scripture regarding infant baptism. Commenting on the word were baptized,” not those who did not receive his word
fact that in some cases whole households were baptized, he but were infants belonging to the households of those who
says, “And if there were infants, it is morally certain that they received his word,
were baptized along with the parents” (p. 634). But this is not
CHAPTER 49 • BAPTISM
example, Paul says, “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ”
(Gal. 3:27). Paul here assumes that baptism is the outward sign of inward regeneration.
This simply would not have been true of infants — Paul could not have said, “As many
infants as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ,” for infants have not yet
come to saving faith or given any evidence of regeneration. 9
Paul speaks the same way in Romans 6:3-4: “Do you not know that all of us who have
been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore
with him by baptism into death.” Could Paul have said this of infants? 10 Could he have
said that “all infants who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his
death” and “were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was
raised from the dead”? But if Paul could not have said those things about infants, then
those who advocate infant baptism must say that baptism means something different for
infants than what Paul says it means for “all of us who have been baptized into Christ
Jesus.” Those who argue for infant baptism at this point resort to what seems to the
present author to be vague language about infants being adopted “into the covenant” or
“into the covenant community,” but the New Testament does not speak that way about
baptism. Rather, it says that all of those who have been baptized have been buried with
Christ, have been raised with him, and have put on Christ.
A similar argument can be made from Colossians 2:12: “You were buried with him in
baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God,
who raised him from the dead.” But it could not be said of infants that they were buried
with Christ, or were raised with him through faith, since they were not yet old enough
to exercise faith for themselves.
3. Alternative #1: The Roman Catholic View. The Roman Catholic Church teaches
that baptism should be administered to infants. 11 The reason for this is that the Catho-
lic Church believes that baptism is necessary for salvation, and that the act of baptism
itself causes regeneration. Therefore, in this view, baptism is a means whereby the church
bestows saving grace on people. And if it is this kind of a channel of saving grace it should
be given to all people.
Ludwig Ott, in his Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma 12 gives the following
explanations:
Baptism is that Sacrament in which man being washed with water in the name
of the Three Divine Persons is spiritually reborn, (p. 350; Ott gives John 3:5;
Titus 3:5; and Eph. 5:26 in support of this statement)
Baptism, provided that the proper dispositions (Faith and sorrow for sin) are
present, effects: a) the eradication of sins, both original sin and, in the case
9 This is not to argue that no infants can be regenerated (see view that baptism causes regeneration,
above, chapter 24, pp. 500-501), but simply that Paul could n The act of baptizing an infant, including giving a name
have no theological basis for saying that all infants who have to the infant at that time, is sometimes called “christening,”
been baptized have begun the Christian life. He is talking in especially in Roman Catholic and Episcopalian churches.
Gal. 3:27 of “as many of you as were baptized into Christ.” 12 Trans. by Patrick Lynch, ed. by James Bastible, 4th ed.
10 See section 3 below for a response to the Roman Catholic (Rockford, 111.: Tan Books, 1960).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
972
of adults, also personal, mortal or venial sins; b) inner sanctification by the
infusion of sanctifying grace, (p. 354)
Even if it be unworthily received, valid Baptism imprints on the soul of the
recipient an indelible spiritual mark, the Baptismal Character. . . . The baptized
person is incorporated, by the Baptismal Character, into the Mystical Body of
Christ. . . . Every validly baptized person, even one baptized outside the Catho-
lic Church, becomes a member of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.
(p. 355)
Ott goes on to explain that baptism is necessary for salvation and is to be performed
only by priests:
Baptism by water ... is, since the promulgation of the Gospel, necessary for all
men without exception for salvation, (p. 356) 13
Ott explains that, while baptism is ordinarily to be administered by a priest, in
unusual circumstances (such as when a child is in danger of dying soon after birth) it
may be performed by a deacon or a layperson. Even baptism performed by unbelievers is
thought to be valid, for Ott says:
Yea, even a pagan or a heretic can baptise, provided he adheres to the form of the
Church and has the intention of doing what the Church does. (p. 358)
Though infants cannot exercise saving faith themselves, the Roman Catholic Church
teaches that the baptism of infants is valid:
Faith, as it is not the effective cause of justification . . . need not be present. The
faith which infants lack is . . . replaced by the faith of the Church, (p. 359)
Essential to understanding the Roman Catholic view of baptism is the realization that
Catholics hold that the sacraments work apart from the faith of the people participating
in the sacrament. And if this is so, then it follows that baptism would confer grace even
on infants who do not have the ability to exercise faith. Several statements in Ott’s book
make this clear:
The Catholic Church teaches that the Sacraments have an objective efficacy,
that is, an efficacy independent of the subjective disposition of the recipient or
of the minister The Sacraments confer grace immediately, that is, without
the mediation of Fiducial faith, (pp. 328-29)
The Sacraments of the New Covenant contain the grace which they signify, and
bestow it on those who do not hinder it. (p. 328)
The Sacraments work ex opere operato. . . . That is, the Sacraments operate by
the power of the completed sacramental rite. (p. 329) 14
13 In extreme cases Ott and the teaching of the Catho-
lic Church allow for baptism of desire (for one who sincerely
longs to be baptized but cannot be) or baptism by blood
(in martyrdom).
14 The phrase ex opere operato represents an essential part
of Roman Catholic teaching on the sacraments. This Latin
phrase literally means “by work performed,” and it means that
the sacraments work in virtue of the actual activity done, and
CHAPTER 49 * BAPTISM
973
The formula “ex opere operato” asserts, negatively, that the sacramental grace is
not conferred by reason of the subjective activity of the recipient, and positively,
that the sacramental grace is caused by the validly operated sacramental sign.
(p. 330)
However, Ott is careful to explain that the Catholic teaching must not be interpreted
“in the sense of mechanical or magical efficacy” (p. 330). He says,
On the contrary, in the case of the adult recipient faith is expressly demanded . . .
nevertheless the subjective disposition of the recipient is not the cause of grace;
it is merely an indispensable precondition of the communication of grace . . .
The measure of the grace effected ex opere operato even depends on the grade
of the subjective disposition, (p. 330)
In giving a response to this Roman Catholic teaching, we should remember that the
Reformation centered upon this issue. Martin Luther’s great concern was to teach that
salvation depends on faith alone, not on faith plus works. But if baptism and participating
in the other sacraments are necessary for salvation because they are necessary for receiv-
ing saving grace, then salvation really is based on faith plus works. In contrast to this,
the clear New Testament message is that justification is by faith alone. “By grace you
have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God — not
because of works, lest any man should boast” (Eph. 2:8-9). Moreover, “the free gift of God
is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 6:23).
The Roman Catholic argument that baptism is necessary for salvation is very similar
to the argument of Pauls opponents in Galatia who said that circumcision was neces-
sary for salvation. Paul’s response is that those who require circumcision are preaching
“a different gospel” (Gal. 1:6). He says that “all who rely on works of the law are under
a curse” (Gal. 3:10), and speaks very severely to those who attempt to add any form of
obedience as a requirement for justification: “You are severed from Christ, you who
would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace” (Gal. 5:4). Therefore,
we must conclude that no work is necessary for salvation. And therefore baptism is not
necessary for salvation.
But what about John 3:5, “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter
the kingdom of God”? Although some have understood this as a reference to baptism,
it is better understood against the background of the promise of the new covenant in
Ezekiel 36:
I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your unclean-
nesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. A new heart I will give you,
and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take out of your flesh the
heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you,
and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances.
(Ezek. 36:25-27)
that the power of the sacraments does not depend on any sub-
jective attitude of faith in the people participating in them.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
974
Ezekiel here speaks of a “spiritual” washing that will come in the days of the new
covenant when God puts his Spirit within his people. In the light of this, to be born of
water and the Spirit is a “spiritual” washing that occurs when we are born again, just
as we receive a spiritual, not a physical, “new heart” at that time as well.
Similarly, Titus 3:5 specifies not water baptism but “the washing of regeneration,”
explicitly stating that it is a spiritual giving of new life. Water baptism is simply not
mentioned in this passage. A spiritual rather than literal washing is also referred to
in Ephesians 5:26, where Paul says that Christ gave himself up for the church “that he
might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word.” It is the
Word of God that does the washing referred to here, not physical water.
As for the Roman Catholic view that baptism conveys grace apart from the subjective
disposition of the recipient or the minister (a position that is consistent with baptizing
infants, who do not exercise faith for themselves), we must recognize that no New Testa-
ment examples exist to prove this view, nor is there New Testament testimony to indicate
this. Rather, the narrative accounts of those who were baptized indicate that they had
first come to saving faith (see above). And when there are doctrinal statements about
baptism they also indicate the need of saving faith. When Paul says, “You were buried
with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him,” he immediately specifies
“through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead” (Col. 2:12).
Finally, what about 1 Peter 3:21, where Peter says, “ Baptism . . . now saves you”?
Does this not give clear support to the Roman Catholic view that baptism itself brings
saving grace to the recipient? 15 No, for when Peter uses this phrase he continues in the
same sentence to explain exactly what he means by it. He says that baptism saves you
“ not as a removal of dirt from the body” (that is, not as an outward, physical act which
washes dirt from the body — that is not the part which saves you), “ but as an appeal
to God for a clear conscience” (that is, as an inward, spiritual transaction between God
and the individual, a transaction symbolized by the outward ceremony of baptism).
We could paraphrase Peter’s statement by saying, “Baptism now saves you — not the
outward physical ceremony of baptism but the inward spiritual reality which baptism
represents.” In this way, Peter guards against any view of baptism that would attribute
automatic saving power to the physical ceremony itself.
Peter’s phrase, “an appeal to God for a clear conscience,” is another way of saying
“a request for forgiveness of sins and a new heart.” When God gives a sinner a “clear
conscience,” that person has the assurance that every sin has been forgiven and that
he or she stands in a right relationship with God (Heb. 9:14 and 10:22 speak this way
about the cleansing of one’s conscience through Christ). To be baptized rightly is to
make such an “appeal” to God: it is to say, in effect, “Please, God, as I enter this baptism
which will cleanse my body outwardly I am asking you to cleanse my heart inwardly,
forgive my sins, and make me right before you.” Understood in this way, baptism is an
appropriate symbol for the beginning of the Christian life. 16
15 The next three paragraphs are adapted from Wayne 16 Some have argued that “pledge” is a better word than
Grudem, The First Epistle of Peter, TNTC (Leicester: I VP, and “appeal” in this verse. Thus, the NI V translates, “the pledge of
Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), pp. 163-65, and are used a good conscience towards God ” The data from other exam-
by permission. pies of the word is slim with regard to both meanings,
CHAPTER 49- BAPTISM
So 1 Peter 3:21 certainly does not teach that baptism saves people automatically or
confers grace ex opere operato. It does not even teach that the act of baptism itself has
saving power, but rather that salvation comes about through the inward exercise of
faith that is represented by baptism (cf. Col. 2:12). In fact, Protestants who advocate
believers’ baptism might well see in 1 Peter 3:21 some support for their position: bap-
tism, it might be argued, is appropriately administered to anyone who is old enough
personally to make “an appeal to God for a clear conscience.” 17
In conclusion, the Roman Catholic teachings that baptism is necessary for salva-
tion, that the act of baptism in itself confers saving grace, and that baptism is therefore
appropriately administered to infants, are not persuasive in the light of New Testament
teachings.
4. Alternative #2: The Protestant Paedobaptist View. In contrast both to the Baptist
position defended in the earlier part of this chapter and to the Roman Catholic view just
discussed, another important view is that baptism is rightly administered to all infant
children of believing parents . This is a common view in many Protestant groups (especially
Lutheran, Episcopalian, Methodist, Presbyterian and Reformed churches). This view is
sometimes known as the covenant argument for paedobaptism. It is called a “covenant”
argument because it depends on seeing infants born to believers as part of the “covenant
community” of God’s people. The word “paedobaptism” means the practice of baptiz-
ing infants (the prefix paedo- means “child” and is derived from the Greek word pais,
“child”). 18 1 will be interacting primarily with the arguments put forth by Louis Berkhof,
who explains clearly and defends well the paedobaptist position.
The argument that infants of believers should be baptized depends primarily on the
following three points:
a. Infants Were Circumcised in the Old Covenant: In the Old Testament, circumci-
sion was the outward sign of entrance into the covenant community or the community
of God’s people. Circumcision was administered to all Israelite children (that is, male
children) when they were eight days old.
and no conclusions can be drawn from an examination of other
uses of the word alone (see discussion in W. Grudem, 1 Peter ;
p. 164).
But much more significant is the fact that the translation
“pledge” introduces a theological problem. If baptism is a
“pledge to God” to maintain a good conscience (or a pledge
to live an obedient life, which flows from a good conscience),
then the emphasis is no longer on dependence on God to give
salvation, but is rather on dependence on one’s own effort or
strength of resolve. And since this phrase in 1 Peter 3:21 is so
clearly connected with the beginning of the Christian life and
identified as the feature of baptism that “saves you,” the trans-
lation “pledge” seems to be inconsistent with the New Testa-
ment teaching on salvation by faith alone; it would be the only
place where a promise to be righteous is said to be the thing
that “saves you.” And since the lexical data are inconclusive
for both senses (while suggesting that both senses are appar-
ently possible), it is better to adopt the translation “appeal” as
a sense much more in accord with the doctrinal teaching of
the rest of the New Testament.
17 Col. 2:12 can be used in the same manner: Paul says that
in baptism Christians were “raised with [Christ] through faith
in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.” This
presupposes that those who were baptized were exercising
faith when they were baptized — that is, that they were old
enough to believe.
18 Roman Catholics are also paedobaptists, but their sup-
porting arguments are different, as explained above (they
teach that baptism causes regeneration). In the material
that follows, I will be comparing a Protestant defense of
paedobaptism with a Protestant defense of believers' baptism.
Therefore, I will use the term paedobaptist to refer to Prot-
estant paedobaptists who hold to a covenant paedobaptist
position.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
976
b. Baptism Is Parallel to Circumcision: In the New Testament, the outward sign of
entrance into the “covenant community” is baptism. Therefore baptism is the New Tes-
tament counterpart to circumcision. It follows that baptism should be administered to
all infant children of believing parents. To deny them this benefit is to deprive them of
a privilege and benefit that is rightfully theirs — the sign of belonging to the community
of God’s people, the “covenant community.” The parallel between circumcision and
baptism is seen quite clearly in Colossians 2:
In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by
putting off the body of flesh in the circumcision of Christ; and you were buried
with him in baptism , in which you were also raised with him through faith in
the working of God, who raised him from the dead. (Col. 2:11 - 12)
Here it is said that Paul makes an explicit connection between circumcision and
baptism.
c. Household Baptisms: Further support for the practice of baptizing infants is found
in the “household baptisms” reported in Acts and the epistles, particularly the bap-
tism of the household of Lydia (Acts 16:15), the family of the Philippian jailer (Acts
16:33), and the household of Stephanas (1 Cor. 1:16). It is also claimed that Acts 2:39,
which declares that the promised blessing of the gospel is “to you and to your children,”
supports this practice.
In response to these arguments for paedobaptism, the following points may
be made:
(1) It is certainly true that baptism and circumcision are in many ways similar, but we
must not forget that what they symbolize is also different in some important ways. The
old covenant had a physical, external means of entrance into the “covenant community.”
One became a Jew by being born of Jewish parents. Therefore all Jewish males were cir-
cumcised. Circumcision was not restricted to people who had true inward spiritual life,
but rather was given to all who lived among the people of Israel God said:
Every male among you shall be circumcised He that is eight days old among
you shall be circumcised; every male throughout your generations, whether
born in your house, or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not
of your offspring, both he that is born in your house and he that is bought with
your money, shall be circumcised. (Gen. 17:10-13)
It was not only the physical descendants of the people of Israel who were circumcised,
but also those servants who were purchased by them and lived among them. The pres-
ence or absence of inward spiritual life made no difference whatsoever in the question of
whether one was circumcised. So “Abraham took Ishmael his son and all the slaves born
in his house or bought with his money, every male among the men of Abraham’s house,
and he circumcised the flesh of their foreskins that very day, as God had said to him”
(Gen. 17:23; cf. Josh. 5:4).
We should realize that circumcision was given to every male living among the people
of Israel even though true circumcision is something inward and spiritual: “Real circum-
CHAPTER 49 • BAPTISM
cision is a matter of the heart, spiritual and not literal” (Rom. 2:29). Moreover, Paul in
the New Testament explicitly states that “not all who are descended from Israel belong
to Israel” (Rom. 9:6). But even though there was at the time of the Old Testament (and
more fully in the time of the New Testament) a realization of the inward spiritual reality
that circumcision was intended to represent, there was no attempt to restrict circumci-
sion only to those whose hearts were actually circumcised spiritually and who had genuine
saving faith. Even among the adult males, circumcision was applied to everyone, not just
those who gave evidence of inward faith.
(2) But under the new covenant the situation is very different. The New Testament
does not talk about a “covenant community” made up of believers and their unbeliev-
ing children and relatives and servants who happen to live among them. (In fact, in
the discussion of baptism, the phrase “covenant community” as used by paedobaptists
often tends to function as a broad and vague term that blurs the differences between the
Old Testament and the New Testament on this matter.) In the New Testament church,
the only question that matters is whether one has saving faith and has been spiritually
incorporated into the body of Christ, the true church. The only “covenant community”
discussed is the church, the fellowship of the redeemed.
But how does one become a member of the church? The means of entrance into the
church is voluntary, spiritual, and internal. One becomes a member of the true church
by being born again and by having saving faith, not by physical birth. It comes about not
by an external act, but by internal faith in one’s heart. It is certainly true that baptism
is the sign of entrance into the church, but this means that it should only be given to
those who give evidence of membership in the church, only to those who profess faith
in Christ. 19
We should not be surprised that there was a change from the way the covenant com-
munity was entered in the Old Testament (physical birth) to the way the church is entered
in the New Testament (spiritual birth). There are many analogous changes between the
old and new covenants in other areas as well. While the Israelites fed on physical manna
in the wilderness. New Testament believers feed on Jesus Christ, the true bread that comes
down from heaven (John 6:48-51). The Israelites drank physical water that gushed from
the rock in the wilderness, but those who believe in Christ drink of the living water
of eternal life that he gives (John 4:10-14). The old covenant had a physical temple to
which Israel came for worship, but in the new covenant believers are built into a spiritual
temple (1 Peter 2:5). Old covenant believers offered physical sacrifices of animals and
crops upon an altar, but New Testament believers offer “spiritual sacrifices acceptable
to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:5; cf. Heb. 13:15—16). Old covenant believers
received from God the physical land of Israel which he had promised to them, but New
Testament believers receive “a better country, that is, a heavenly one” (Heb. 11:16). In
the same way, in the old covenant those who were the physical seed or descendants of
19 At this point an advocate of paedobaptism may ask
whether we should not have an idea of a “covenant commu-
nity” in the New Testament church which is broader than
the church and includes unbelieving children who belong to
church families. But the New Testament speaks of no such
community, nor does it give indication that unbelieving
children of believing parents are members of the new cov-
enant. And it certainly does not speak of baptism as a sign of
entrance into such a broader group. Baptism symbolizes new
birth and entrance into the church.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
978
Abraham were members of the people of Israel, but in the New Testament those who are
the spiritual “seed” or descendants of Abraham by faith are members of the church (Gal.
3:29; cf. Rom. 4:11-12).
In all these contrasts we see the truth of the distinction that Paul emphasizes between
the old covenant and the new covenant. The physical elements and activities of the old
covenant were “only a shadow of what is to come,” but the true reality, the “substance,” is
found in the new covenant relationship which we have in Christ (Col. 2:17). Therefore it
is consistent with this change of systems that infant (male) children would automatically
be circumcised in the old covenant, since their physical descent and physical presence in
the community of Jewish people meant that they were members of that community in
which faith was not an entrance requirement. But in the new covenant it is appropriate
that infants not be baptized, and that baptism only be given to those who give evidence of
genuine saving faith, because membership in the church is based on an internal spiritual
reality, not on physical descent.
(3) The examples of household baptisms in the New Testament are really not decisive
for one position or another. When we look at the actual examples more closely, we see
that in a number of them there are indications of saving faith on the part of all of those
baptized. For example, it is true that the family of the Philippian jailer was baptized (Acts
16:33), but it is also true that Paul and Silas “spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all
that were in his house ” (Acts 16:32). If the Word of the Lord was spoken to all in the house,
there is an assumption that all were old enough to understand the word and believe it.
Moreover, after the family had been baptized, we read that the Philippian jailer “ rejoiced
with all his household that he had believed in God” (Acts 16:34). So we have not only a
household baptism but also a household reception of the Word of God and a household
rejoicing in faith in God. These facts suggest quite strongly that the entire household had
individually come to faith in Christ.
With regard to the fact that Paul baptized “the household of Stephanas” (1 Cor. 1:16),
we must also note that Paul says at the end of 1 Corinthians that “the household of
Stephanas were the first converts in Achaia, and they have devoted themselves to the ser-
vice ofthe saints” (1 Cor. 16:15). So they were not only baptized; they were also converted
and had worked at serving other believers. Once again the example of household baptism
gives indication of household faith.
In fact, there are other instances where baptism is not mentioned but where we see
explicit testimony to the fact that an entire household had come to faith. After Jesus
healed the official’s son, we read that the father “himself believed, and all his house-
hold ” (John 4:53). Similarly, when Paul preached at Corinth, “Crispus, the ruler of the
synagogue, believed in the Lord, together with all his household ” (Acts 18:8).
This means that of all the examples of “household baptisms” in the New Testa-
ment, the only one that does not have some indication of household faith as well is Acts
16:14- 15, speaking of Lydia: “The Lord opened her heart to give heed to what was said
by Paul. And when she was baptized, with her household.” The text simply does not
contain any information about whether there were infants in her household or not. It is
ambiguous and certainly not weighty evidence for infant baptism. It must be considered
inconclusive in itself.
CHAPTER 49- BAPTISM
With regard to Peter's statement at Pentecost that “the promise is to you and to your
children,” we should note that the sentence continues as follows: “For the promise is
to you and to your children and to all that are far off, every one whom the Lord our God
calls to him ” (Acts 2:39). Moreover, the same paragraph specifies not that believers and
unbelieving children were baptized, but that “ those who received his word were baptized,
and there were added that day about three thousand souls” (Acts 2:41).
(4) A further argument in objection to the paedobaptist position can be made when
we ask the simple question, “What does baptism do?” In other words, we might ask,
“What does it actually accomplish? What benefit does it bring?”
Roman Catholics have a clear answer to this question: Baptism causes regeneration.
And Baptists have a clear answer: Baptism symbolizes the fact that inward regeneration
has occurred. But paedobaptists cannot adopt either of these answers. They do not want
to say that baptism causes regeneration, nor are they able to say (with respect to infants)
that it symbolizes a regeneration that has already occurred. 20 The only alternative seems
to be to say that it symbolizes a regeneration that will occur in the future, when the infant
is old enough to come to saving faith. But even that is not quite accurate, because it is not
certain that the infant will be regenerated in the future — some infants who are baptized
never come to saving faith later. So the most accurate paedobaptist explanation of what
baptism symbolizes is that it symbolizes probable future regeneration. 21 It does not cause
regeneration, nor does it symbolize actual regeneration; therefore it must be understood
as symbolizing probable regeneration at some time in the future.
But at this point it seems apparent that the paedobaptist understanding of baptism
is quite different from that of the New Testament. The New Testament never views bap-
tism as something that symbolizes a probable future regeneration. The New Testament
authors do not say, “Can anyone forbid water for baptizing those who will probably
someday be saved?” (cf. Acts 10:47), or, “As many of you as were baptized into Christ will
probably someday put on Christ” (cf. Gal. 3:27), or “Do you not know that all of us who
have been baptized into Christ Jesus will probably someday be baptized into his death?”
(cf. Rom. 6:3). This is simply not the way the New Testament speaks of baptism. Baptism
in the New Testament is a sign of being born again, being cleansed from sin, and begin-
ning the Christian life. It seems fitting to reserve this sign for those who give evidence
that that is actually true in their lives.
One other perspective on the symbolism of baptism is given by Michael Green. 22
He says:
Infant baptism stresses the objectivity of the gospel. It points to the solid
achievement of Christ crucified and risen, whether or not we respond to it
20 However, some Protestant paedobaptists will pre-
sume that regeneration has occurred (and the evidence will
be seen later). Others, including many Episcopalians and
Lutherans, would say that regeneration occurs at the time
of baptism.
21 This is not a quotation from any specific paedobaptist
writer, but is my own conclusion from the logic of the pae-
dobaptist position, which would seem to require this under-
standing of what paedobaptism signifies with respect to
regeneration.
22 Michael Green, Baptism: Its Purpose , Practice , and Power
(London: Hodder and Stoughton, and Downers Grove, 111.:
InterVarsity Press, 1987). This book contains an excellent
statement of a paedobaptist position, and also contains much
helpful analysis of the biblical teaching about baptism which
both sides could endorse.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
980
Not that we gain anything from it unless we repent and believe. But it is the
standing demonstration that our salvation does not depend on our own very
fallible faith; it depends on what God has done for us. (p. 76)
He goes on to say:
Infant baptism stresses the initiative of God in salvation. . . . Should it be
attached primarily to man’s response, or to God’s initiative? That is the heart of
the question For the Baptist, baptism primarily bears witness to what we do
in responding to the grace of God. For the paedobaptist, it primarily bears wit-
ness to what God has done to make it all possible, (pp. 76-77 , emphasis his)
But several points can be noted in response to Green, (a) His analysis at this point
overlooks the fact that baptism does not only symbolize Christ’s death and resurrection;
as we have seen in the foregoing analysis of New Testament texts, it also symbolizes the
application of redemption to us, as a result of our response of faith. Baptism pictures the
fact that we have been united with Christ in his death and resurrection, and the wash-
ing with water symbolizes that we have been cleansed from our sins. In saying that the
paedobaptist stresses God’s initiative and the Baptist stresses man’s response, Green has
presented the reader with two incorrect alternatives from which to choose, because bap-
tism pictures both of these and more. Baptism pictures (i) Christ’s redemptive work, (ii)
my response in faith (as I come to be baptized), and (iii) God’s application of the benefits
of redemption to my life. Believers’ baptism pictures all three aspects (not just my faith,
as Green suggests), but according to Green’s view paedobaptism pictures only the first
one. It is not a question of which is “primary”; it is a question of which view of baptism
includes all that baptism stands for.
(b) When Green says that our salvation does not depend on our faith but on God’s
work, the expression “depend on” is capable of various interpretations. If “depend on”
means “what we rely on,” then of course both sides would agree that we rely on Christ’s
work, not on our faith. If “depend on” means that faith does not have any merit in itself
whereby we can earn favor with God, then also both sides would agree. But if “depend
on” means it makes no difference to our salvation whether we believe or not, then neither
side would agree: Green himself says in the previous sentence that baptism does us no
good unless we repent and believe. Therefore if baptism in anyway represents the appli-
cation of redemption to a person’s life, then it is not enough to practice a form of baptism
that only pictures Christ’s death and resurrection; we should also picture our response in
faith and the subsequent application of redemption to us. By contrast, on Green’s view,
there is a real danger of portraying a view (which Green would disagree with) that people
will have salvation applied to them by God whether they believe or not.
(5) Finally, those who advocate believers’ baptism often express concern about the
practical consequences of paedobaptism. They argue that the practice of paedobaptism
in actual church life frequently leads persons baptized in infancy to presume that they
have been regenerated, and thereby they fail to feel the urgency of their need to come to
personal faith in Christ. Over a period of years, this tendency is likely to result in more
and more unconverted members of the “covenant community” — members who are not
CHAPTER 49- BAPTISM
truly members of Christ’s church. Of course, this would not make a paedobaptist church
a false church, but it would make it a less-pure church, and one that will frequently be
fighting tendencies toward liberal doctrine or other kinds of unbelief that are brought in
by the unregenerate sector of the membership.
C. The Effect of Baptism
We have argued above that baptism symbolizes regeneration or spiritual rebirth. But
does it only symbolize? Or is there some way in which it is also a “means of grace,” that is,
a means that the Holy Spirit uses to bring blessing to people? We have already discussed
this question in the previous chapter, 23 so here it only is necessary to say that when bap-
tism is properly carried out then of course it brings some spiritual benefit to believers as
well. There is the blessing of God’s favor that comes with all obedience, as well as the joy
that comes through public profession of one’s faith, and the reassurance of having a clear
physical picture of dying and rising with Christ and of washing away sins. Certainly the
Lord gave us baptism to strengthen and encourage our faith — and it should do so for
everyone who is baptized and for every believer who witnesses a baptism.
D. The Necessity of Baptism
While we recognize that Jesus commanded baptism (Matt. 28:19), as did the apostles
(Acts 2:38), we should not say that baptism is necessary for salvation. 24 This question
was discussed to some extent above under the response to the Roman Catholic view of
baptism. To say that baptism or any other action is necessary for salvation is to say that
we are not justified by faith alone, but by faith plus a certain “work,” the work of baptism.
The apostle Paul would have opposed the idea that baptism is necessary for salvation just
as strongly as he opposed the similar idea that circumcision was necessary for salvation
(see Gal. 5:1-12).
Those who argue that baptism is necessary for salvation often point to Mark 16:16:
“He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be con-
demned.” But the very evident answer to this is simply to say that the verse says nothing
about those who believe and are not baptized. The verse is simply talking about general
cases without making a pedantic qualification for the unusual case of someone who
believes and is not baptized. But certainly the verse should not be pressed into service
and made to speak of something it is not talking about. 25
More to the point is Jesus’ statement to the dying thief on the cross, “Today you will
be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43). The thief could not be baptized before he died on
the cross, but he was certainly saved that day. Moreover, the force of this point cannot be
23 See chapter 48, pp. 954.
24 At this point I am differing not only with Roman Catho-
lic teaching, but also with the teaching of several Protestant
denominations that teach that, in some sense, baptism is nec-
essary for salvation. Although there are different nuances in
their teaching, such a position is held by many Episcopalians,
many Lutherans, and by the Churches of Christ.
25 Moreover, it is doubtful whether this verse should be
used in support of a theological position at all, since there
are many ancient manuscripts that do not have this verse (or
Mark 16:9-20), and it seems most likely that this verse was
not in the gospel as Mark originally wrote it. (See discussion
of Mark 16:9-20 in chapter 17, p. 365.)
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
982
evaded by arguing that the thief was saved under the old covenant (under which baptism
was not necessary to salvation), because the new covenant took effect at the death of Jesus
(see Heb. 9:17), and Jesus died before either of the two thieves who were crucified with
him (see John 19:32-33).
Another reason why baptism is not necessary for salvation is that our justification
from sins takes place at the point of saving faith, not at the point of water baptism, which
usually occurs later. 26 But if a person is already justified and has sins forgiven eternally
at the point of saving faith, then baptism is not necessary for forgiveness of sins, or for
the bestowal of new spiritual life. 27
Baptism, then, is not necessary for salvation. But it is necessary if we are to be obedient
to Christ, for he commanded baptism for all who believe in him.
E. The Age for Baptism
Those who are convinced by the arguments for believers’ baptism must then begin to
ask, “How old should children be before they are baptized?”
The most direct answer is that they should be old enough to give a believable profes-
sion of faith. It is impossible to set a precise age that will apply to every child, but when
parents see convincing evidence of genuine spiritual life, and also some degree of under-
standing regarding the meaning of trusting in Christ, then baptism is appropriate. Of
course, this will require careful administration by the church, as well as a good explana-
tion by parents in their homes. The exact age for baptism will vary from child to child,
and somewhat from church to church as well. 28
E Remaining questions
1. Do Churches Need to Be Divided Over Baptism? In spite of many years of division
over this question among Protestants, is there a way in which Christians who differ on
baptism can demonstrate greater unity of fellowship? And is there a way that progress
can be made in bringing the church closer to unity on this question?
Much progress in this regard has already been made. Christians who differ over
baptism already demonstrate their unity in Christ through individual fellowship, Bible
studies and prayer groups in their communities, occasional joint worship services,
cooperation in city and regional evangelistic campaigns, joint support of many mission
agencies and other parachurch groups, joint sponsorship of youth activities, pastors’ fel-
lowship groups, and so forth. Although baptism remains a difference, that difference
does not generally lead to harmful divisions. In fact, most Christians seem to realize that
baptism is not a major doctrine of the faith. 29
26 See discussion of justification in chapter 36, pp. 722-35.
27 See chapter 34, pp. 699-708, for a discussion of
regeneration.
28 I participated in baptizing my own three children at
a time when each was between seven and ten years old and
showed a fair degree of understanding of the gospel together
with genuine evidence of faith in Christ. In all three cases, I
think they could have been baptized somewhat earlier, but we
delayed out of deference to the ordinary pattern followed by
the churches we were in, whereby children under seven were
not usually baptized. (Among Baptists in the United Kingdom
it is customary to wait until children are somewhat older than
this, however.)
29 I realize that some readers will object to this sentence
and will say that baptism is very important because of what the
differing positions represent: differing views of the nature of
the church. Many Baptists would argue that practicing infant
baptism is inherently inconsistent with the idea of a church
CHAPTER 49- BAPTISM
A very few denominations have decided that they would allow both views of baptism
to be taught and practiced within their denominations. The Evangelical Free Church of
America (EFCA) does this, for example, as a result of a “compromise” reached in 1950
when the denomination was formed from two different groups that had different views on
baptism. The EFCA allows ordination for pastors who hold to believer's baptism and for
pastors who hold to infant baptism. And they allow into membership those who had been
baptized as infants in a Christian church, without requiring them to be baptized as believ-
ers before joining the church. If some parents want to have their infant child baptized and
the local pastor does not hold to infant baptism, the local church invites some other Evan-
gelical Free Church pastor who holds to infant baptism to come and baptize the infant.
Although the Evangelical Free Church continues as a strong, healthy denomination
today, there remain some difficulties inherent in this position. One is that there can be a
tendency to minimize the importance of baptism: since members disagree on this topic,
it is easier not to talk about it much or emphasize its importance.
But the most serious difficulty arises when people begin to think about what such a
“compromise position” implies about the views of baptism held by the people who go
along with this compromise. For people who hold to infant baptism, they have to be able
to say that it is acceptable for believing parents not to baptize their infant children. But
according to a paedobaptist view, this seems close to saying that it is acceptable for these
parents to disobey a command of Scripture regarding the responsibility of parents to
baptize their children. How can they really say this?
On the other side, those who hold to believer's baptism (as I do) would have to be willing
to admit into church membership people who have been baptized as infants, and who did
not make a personal profession of faith at the time they were baptized. But from a believer's
baptism position, genuine baptism has to follow a personal profession of faith. So how can
believer's baptism advocates in good conscience say that infant baptism is also a valid form
of baptism? That contradicts what they believe about the essential nature of baptism — that
it is an outward sign of an inward spiritual change, so that the apostle Paul could say, “As
many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Gal. 3:27). 30
For someone who holds to believer's baptism, admitting to church membership some-
one who has not been baptized upon profession of faith, and telling the person that he
made up of believers only, and many paedobaptists would argue
that not practicing infant baptism is inherently inconsistent with
the idea of a covenant community that includes the children of
believers.
I would encourage those who reason this way to consider
how much they hold in common with evangelical believers
on the other side of this issue — not necessarily with those far
from them on other matters as well, but especially with those
on the other side who agree with them on most other aspects
of the Christian life. Many Baptists do encourage and demon-
strate a valued place for their children within their churches,
and many paedobaptists do pray for the salvation of their
baptized children with the same fervency with which Baptist
parents pray for the salvation of their unbaptized children.
Regarding church membership, evangelical paedobaptists do
require a believable profession of faith before children can
become full members of the church (their term is "commu-
nicant members”; that is, those who take Communion). They
also require a believable profession of faith before any adults
are allowed to join the church.
When these procedures are functioning well, both Baptists
and paedobaptists use very similar procedures as they seek to
have a church membership consisting of believers only, and
both love and teach and pray for their children as most pre-
cious members of the larger church family who they hope will
someday become true members of the body of Christ.
30 I did not realize this difficulty when I first published
this book in 1994. I have revised this entire section for the
2007 printing.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
984
or she never has to be baptized as a believer, is really giving up one’s view on the proper
nature of baptism. It is saying that infant baptism really is valid baptism! But then how
could anyone who holds to this position tell anyone who had been baptized as an infant
that he or she still needed to be baptized as a believer? This difficulty makes me think
that some kind of “compromise” position on baptism is not very likely to be adopted by
denominational groups in the future.
However, we should still be thankful that believers who differ on the issue of baptism
can have wonderful fellowship with one another across denominational lines and can
have respect for each other’s sincerely held views.
2. Who Can Baptize? Finally, we may ask, “Who can perform the ceremony of baptism?
Can only ordained clergy perform this ceremony?”
We should recognize here that Scripture simply does not specify any restrictions on
who can perform the ceremony of baptism. Those churches that have a special priest-
hood through which certain actions (and blessings) come (such as Roman Catholics, and
to some extent Anglicans) will wish to insist that only properly ordained clergy should
baptize in ordinary circumstances (though exceptions could be made in unusual circum-
stances). But if we truly believe in the priesthood of all believers (see 1 Peter 2:4-10),
then there seems to be no need in principle to restrict the right to perform baptism only
to ordained clergy.
However, another consideration arises: Since baptism is the sign of entrance into
the body of Christ, the church (cf. 1 Cor. 12:13 on inward spiritual baptism), then it
seems appropriate that it be done within the fellowship of the church wherever possible,
so that the church as a whole can rejoice with the person being baptized and so that
the faith of all believers in that church might be built up. 31 Moreover, since baptism
is a sign of beginning the Christian life and therefore of beginning life in the true
church as well, it is fitting that the local church be assembled to give testimony to this
fact and to give visible welcome to the baptized person. Also, in order that the people
being baptized have a right understanding of what actually is happening, it is right
for the church to safeguard the practice of baptism and keep it from abuse. Finally, if
baptism is the sign of entering the fellowship of the visible church, then it seems appro-
priate that some officially designated representative or representatives of the church
be selected to administer it. For these reasons it is usually the ordained clergy who
baptize, but there seems to be no reason why the church from time to time, and where
it deems it appropriate, might not call on other church officers or mature believers to
baptize new converts. For example, someone effective in evangelism in a local church
may be an appropriately designated person to baptize people who have come to Christ
through the practice of that person’s evangelistic ministry. (Note in Acts 8:12 that
Philip preached the gospel in Samaria and then apparently baptized those who came
to faith in Christ.)
31 The fact that baptism is an outward sign of entrance into to require baptism before someone is counted as a member of
the church, the body of Christ, would also make it appropriate a local church.
CHAPTER 49 • BAPTISM
985
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. Have you been baptized? When? If you were baptized as a believer, what was the
effect of the baptism on your Christian life (if any)? If you were baptized as an
infant, what effect did the knowledge of your baptism have in your own thinking
when you eventually learned that you had been baptized as an infant?
2. What aspects of the meaning of baptism have you come to appreciate more as a
result of reading this chapter (if any)? What aspects of the meaning of baptism
would you like to see taught more clearly in your church?
3. When baptisms occur in your church, are they a time of rejoicing and praise to
God? What do you think is happening to the person being baptized at that moment
(if anything)? What do you think should be happening?
4. Have you modified your own view on the question of infant baptism versus
believers’ baptism as a result of reading this chapter? In what way?
5. What practical suggestions can you make for helping to overcome the differences
among Christians on the question of baptism?
6. How can baptism be an effective help to evangelism in your church? Have you seen
it function in this way?
SPECIAL TERMS
believable profession of faith ex opere operato
believers’ baptism immersion
covenant community paedobaptism
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter 1,
pp. 38-39. Complete bibliographical data may be found on pp. 1224-30.)
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1882-92 Litton, 459- 74
1930 Thomas, 371-87, 521 -22
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1875-76 Pope, 3:310-24
1892-94 Miley, 2:395-410
1940 Wiley, 3:161-89
1960 Purkiser, 409-11
1983 Carter, 2:616
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
986
3. Baptist
1767
Gill, 4:621 -47
1907
Strong, 931-59
1983-85
Erickson, 1089- 1106
Dispensational
1947
Chafer, 7:32-43
1949
Thiessen, 319-22
1986
Ryrie, 421-25
Lutheran
1917-24
Pieper, 7:253-89
1934
Mueller, 486-505
Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1559
Calvin, 2:1303-58 (4.15- 16)
1861
Heppe, 611-26
1871-73
Hodge, 3:526 - 611
1878
Dabney, 758-99
1887-1921
Warfield, SWW, 1:325-31
1889
Shedd, 2b:574- 87
1937-66
Murray, CW, 2:370 - 75
1938
Berkhof, 622 - 43
1962
Buswell, 2:241-66
7. Renewal (or charismatic/Pentecostal)
1988-92 Williams, 2:278-87, 3:136-39, 221-41
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
1. Roman Catholic: Traditional
1955 Ott, 350-61
2. Roman Catholic: Post-Vatican II
1980 McBrien, 1:248-52; 2:349-54
Other Works
Beasley-Murray, G. R. Baptism in the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1962.
. and R. F. G. Burnish. “Baptism.” In EDT, pp. 69-73.
Berkouwer, G. C. The Sacraments . Trans, by Hugo Bekker. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1969.
Bridge, Donald, and David Phypers. The Water That Divides. Downers Grove, 111.: Inter-
Varsity Press, 1977.
Bromiley, G. W. “Baptism ” In EDT, pp. 112- 14.
. The Baptism of Infants. London: Vine Books, 1955.
. Children of Promise. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979.
Brown, R. “Baptist Theology.” In EDT, pp. 15-16.
Cottrell, Jack. Baptism: A Biblical Study. Joplin, Mo.: College Press, 1989. (Written from a
Churches of Christ perspective, understanding baptism as necessary for salvation.)
CHAPTER 49 • BAPTISM
987
Estep, William. The Anabaptist Story. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975.
Green, Michael. Baptism: Its Purpose , Practice , and Power. London: Hodder and Stoughton,
and Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press, 1987.
Jewett, Paul K. Infant Baptism and the Covenant of Grace. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978.
Kingdon, David. Children of Abraham: A Reformed Baptist View of Baptism, the Covenant,
and Children . Haywards Heath, England: Carey Publications, 1973.
Marcel, Pierre Ch. The Biblical Doctrine of Infant Baptism. Trans, by Philip E. Hughes.
London: J. Clarke, 1953.
Murray, John. Christian Baptism. Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1970.
Watson, T. E. Baptism Not for Infants. Worthing, England: Henry E. Walter, 1962.
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
Romans 6:3-4: Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus
were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death,
so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in
newness of life.
HYMN
“Up From the Grave He Arose”
There are few familiar hymns written specifically to be used during a baptismal ser-
vice. It would be helpful for the church if more were written.
This hymn is appropriate for the topic of baptism, because it speaks triumphantly of
Christ s resurrection. When we sing it, we should realize that Jesus not only triumphed
over death and the grave for himself, but also for all of us who believe in him. This fact
is vividly symbolized in the ceremony of baptism.
Alternative hymn: Most paedobaptist hymnals contain hymns to be sung at the bap-
tism of infants, but I did not find any that were widely familiar.
Low in the grave he lay — Jesus, my Savior,
Waiting the coming day — Jesus, my Lord.
Refrain:
Up from the grave he arose,
With a mighty triumph o’er his foes.
He arose a Victor from the dark domain,
And he lives forever with his saints to reign.
He arose! He arose! Hallelujah! Christ arose!
Vainly they watch his bed — Jesus, my Savior;
Vainly they seal the dead — Jesus, my Lord.
Death cannot keep his prey — Jesus, my Savior;
He tore the bars away — Jesus, my Lord.
AUTHOR: ROBERT LOWREY, 1874.
Chapter
THE LORD’S SUPPER
What is the meaning of the Lord’s Supper?
How should it be observed?
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
The Lord Jesus instituted two ordinances (or sacraments) to be observed by the church.
The previous chapter discussed baptism, an ordinance that is only observed once by each
person, as a sign of the beginning of his or her Christian life. This chapter discusses the
Lord's Supper, an ordinance that is to be observed repeatedly throughout our Christian
lives, as a sign of continuing in fellowship with Christ.
A. Background in the History of Redemption
Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper in the following way:
Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke it, and gave
it to the disciples and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” And he took a cup, and
when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you; for
this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgive-
ness of sins. I tell you I shall not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that
day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom. (Matt. 26:26-29)
Paul adds the following sentences from the tradition he received (1 Cor. 11:23):
This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in
remembrance of me. (1 Cor. 11:25)
Is there a background to this ceremony in the Old Testament? It seems that there is,
for there were instances of eating and drinking in the presence of God in the old covenant
988
CHAPTER 50 * THE LORD’S SUPPER
989
as well. For example, when the people of Israel were camped before Mount Sinai, just
after God had given the Ten Commandments, God called the leaders of Israel up to the
mountain to meet with him:
Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the
elders of Israel went up, and they saw the God of Israel . . . they beheld God , and
ate and drank. (Ex. 24:9-11)
Moreover, every year the people of Israel were to tithe (give one-tenth of) all their
crops. Then the law of Moses specified,
Before the Lord your God , in the place which he will choose, to make his name
dwell there, you shall eat the tithe of your grain, of your wine , and of your oil, and
the firstlings of your herd and flock; that you may learn to fear the Lord your God
always. . . . You shall eat there before the Lord your God and rejoice, you and your
household. (Deut. 14:23, 26)
But even earlier than that, God had put Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and
given them all of its abundance to eat (except the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil). Since there was no sin in that situation, and since God had created them
for fellowship with himself and to glorify himself, then every meal that Adam and Eve
ate would have been a meal of feasting in the presence of the Lord.
When this fellowship in God’s presence was later broken by sin, God still allowed
some meals (such as the tithe of fruits mentioned above) that the people would eat in
his presence. These meals were a partial restoration of the fellowship with God that
Adam and Eve enjoyed before the Fall, even though it was marred by sin. But the fel-
lowship of eating in the presence of the Lord that we find in the Lord’s Supper is far
better. The Old Testament sacrificial meals continually pointed to the fact that sins
were not yet paid for, because the sacrifices in them were repeated year after year, and
because they looked forward to the Messiah who was to come and take away sin (see
Heb. 10:1-4). The Lord’s Supper, however, reminds us that Jesus’ payment for our
sins has already been accomplished, so we now eat in the Lord’s presence with great
rejoicing.
Yet even the Lord’s Supper looks forward to a more wonderful fellowship meal in
God’s presence in the future, when the fellowship of Eden will be restored and there
will be even greater joy, because those who eat in God’s presence will be forgiven sin-
ners now confirmed in righteousness, never able to sin again. That future time of great
rejoicing and eating in the presence of God is hinted at by Jesus when he says, a I tell you
I shall not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with
you in my Father’s kingdom” (Matt. 26:29). We are told more explicitly in Revelation
about the marriage supper of the Lamb: “And the angel said to me, ‘Write this: Blessed
are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb’ ” (Rev. 19:9). This will
be a time of great rejoicing in the presence of the Lord, as well as a time of reverence
and awe before him.
From Genesis to Revelation, then, God’s aim has been to bring his people into fellow-
ship with himself, and one of the great joys of experiencing that fellowship is the fact that
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
990
we can eat and drink in the presence of the Lord. It would be healthy for the church today
to recapture a more vivid sense of God’s presence at the table of the Lord.
B. The Meaning of the Lord’s Supper
The meaning of the Lord’s Supper is complex, rich, and full. There are several things
symbolized and affirmed in the Lord’s Supper.
1. Christ’s Death. When we participate in the Lord’s supper we symbolize the death of
Christ because our actions give a picture of his death for us. When the bread is broken it
symbolizes the breaking of Christ’s body, and when the cup is poured out it symbolizes
the pouring out of Christ’s blood for us. This is why participating in the Lord’s Supper
is also a kind of proclamation: “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you
proclaim the Lord's death until he comes” (1 Cor. 11:26).
2. Our Participation in the Benefits of Christ’s Death. Jesus commanded his disciples,
“Take, eat; this is my body” (Matt. 26:26). As we individually reach out and take the cup
for ourselves, each one of us is by that action proclaiming, “I am taking the benefits of
Christ’s death to myself.” When we do this we give a symbol of the fact that we participate
in or share in the benefits earned for us by the death of Jesus.
3. Spiritual Nourishment. Just as ordinary food nourishes our physical bodies, so the
bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper give nourishment to us. But they also picture the
fact that there is spiritual nourishment and refreshment that Christ is giving to our
souls — indeed, the ceremony that Jesus instituted is in its very nature designed to teach
us this. Jesus said,
Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life
in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will
raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink
indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.
As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me
will live because of me. (John 6:53-57)
Certainly Jesus is not speaking of a literal eating of his flesh and blood. But if he is not
speaking of a literal eating and drinking, then he must have in mind a spiritual participa-
tion in the benefits of the redemption he earns. This spiritual nourishment, so necessary
for our souls, is both symbolized and experienced in our participation in the Lord’s
Supper.
4. The Unity of Believers. When Christians participate in the Lord’s Supper together
they also give a clear sign of their unity with one another. In fact, Paul says, “Because
there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread”
(1 Cor. 10:17).
CHAPTER 50 • THE LORD’S SUPPER
When we put these four things together, we begin to realize some of the rich mean-
ing of the Lord’s Supper: when I participate I come into the presence of Christ; I
remember that he died for me; I participate in the benefits of his death; I receive
spiritual nourishment; and I am united with all other believers who participate in
this Supper. What great cause for thanksgiving and joy is to be found in this Supper
of the Lord!
But in addition to these truths visibly portrayed by the Lords Supper, the fact
that Christ has instituted this ceremony for us means that by it he is also promising
or affirming certain things to us as well. When we participate in the Lord’s Supper,
we should be reminded again and again of the following affirmations that Christ is
making to us:
5. Christ Affirms His Love for Me. The fact that I am able to participate in the Lord’s
Supper — indeed, that Jesus invites me to come — is a vivid reminder and visual reas-
surance that Jesus Christ loves me, individually and personally. When I come to take of
the Lord’s Supper I thereby find reassurance again and again of Christ’s personal love
for me.
6. Christ Affirms That All the Blessings of Salvation Are Reserved for Me. When I
come at Christ’s invitation to the Lord’s Supper, the fact that he has invited me into his
presence assures me that he has abundant blessings for me. In this Supper I am actu-
ally eating and drinking at a foretaste of the great banquet table of the King. I come to
his table as a member of his eternal family. When the Lord welcomes me to this table,
he assures me that he will welcome me to all the other blessings of earth and heaven as
well, and especially to the great marriage supper of the Lamb, at which a place has been
reserved for me.
7. 1 Affirm My Faith in Christ. Finally, as I take the bread and cup for myself, by my
actions I am proclaiming, “I need you and trust you, Lord Jesus, to forgive my sins and
give life and health to my soul, for only by your broken body and shed blood can I be
saved.” In fact, as I partake in the breaking of the bread when I eat it and the pouring out
of the cup when I drink from it, I proclaim again and again that my sins were part of the
cause of Jesus’ suffering and death. In this way sorrow, joy, thanksgiving, and deep love
for Christ are richly intermingled in the beauty of the Lord’s Supper.
C. How Is Christ Present in the Lord’s Supper?
1. The Roman Catholic View: Transubstantiation. According to the teaching of the
Roman Catholic Church, the bread and wine actually become the body and blood of
Christ. This happens at the moment the priest says, “This is my body” during the celebra-
tion of the mass. At the same time as the priest says this, the bread is raised up (elevated)
and adored. This action of elevating the bread and pronouncing it to be Christ’s body can
only be performed by a priest.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
992
When this happens, according to Roman Catholic teaching, grace is imparted to those
present ex opere operate, that is, “by the work performed,” 1 but the amount of grace dis-
pensed is in proportion to the subjective disposition of the recipient of grace. 2 Moreover,
every time the mass is celebrated, the sacrifice of Christ is repeated (in some sense), and
the Catholic church is careful to affirm that this is a real sacrifice, even though it is not
the same as the sacrifice that Christ paid on the cross.
So Ludwig Ott’s Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma teaches as follows:
Christ becomes present in the Sacrament of the Altar by the transformation of
the whole substance of the bread into His Body and of the whole substance of
the wine into His Blood This transformation is called Transubstantiation.
(p. 379)
The power of consecration resides in a validly consecrated priest only. (p. 397)
The Worship of Adoration (Latria) must be given to Christ present in the Eucha-
rist It follows from the wholeness and permanence of the Real Presence that
the absolute worship of adoration (Cultus Latriae) is due to Christ present in
the Eucharist, (p. 387) 3
In Catholic teaching, because the elements of bread and wine literally become the body
and blood of Christ, the church for many centuries did not allow the laypeople to drink
from the cup of the Lord’s Supper (for fear that the blood of Christ would be spilled) but
only to eat the bread. 4 Ott’s textbook tells us,
Communion under two forms is not necessary for any individual member of
the Faithful, either by reason of Divine precept or as a means of salvation. . . .
The reason is that Christ is whole and entire under each species. . . . The aboli-
tion of the reception from the chalice in the Middle Ages (12th and 13th cen-
turies) was enjoined for practical reasons, particularly danger of profanation of
the Sacrament, (p. 397)
With respect to the actual sacrifice of Christ in the mass, Ott’s textbook says,
The Holy Mass is a true and proper Sacrifice, (p. 402)
In the Sacrifice of the Mass and in the Sacrifice of the Cross the Sacrificial Gift
and the Primary Sacrificing Priest are identical; only the nature and mode of the
offering are different The Sacrificial Gift is the Body and Blood of Christ
*See discussion of the term ex opere operato in relationship The related verb eucharisteo, “to give thanks,” is found in the
to baptism in chapter 49 above, pp. 972-73. biblical records of the Last Supper in Matt. 26:27; Mark 14:23;
2 Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma , says, Luke 22:19; and 1 Cor. 11:24: “when he had given thanks”)
“Since the measure of the grace conferred ex opere operato is The term eucharist is often used by Roman Catholics and
in proportion to the subjective disposition of the recipient, the frequently by Episcopalians as well. Among many Protestant
reception of Holy Communion should be preceded by a good churches the term Communion is commonly used to refer to
preparation, and an appropriate thanksgiving should follow the Lord’s Supper.
it An unworthy Communion is a sacrilege” (p. 399). 4 However, since the Vatican II council (1962-65), admin-
3 The word eucharist simply means the Lord’s Supper. (It is istration of both the bread and the wine to laypersons has been
derived from the Greek word eucharistia, “giving of thanks.” allowed, but it is not always practiced.
CHAPTER 50 ■ THE LORD'S SUPPER
993
The Primary Sacrificing Priest is Jesus Christ, who utilizes the human priest
as His servant and representative and fulfills the consecration through him.
According to the Thomistic view, in every Mass Christ also performs an actual
immediate sacrificial activity which, however, must not be conceived as a total-
ity of many successive acts but as one single uninterrupted sacrificial act of the
Transfigured Christ.
The purpose of the Sacrifice is the same in the Sacrifice of the Mass as in the Sac-
rifice of the Cross; primarily the glorification of God, secondarily atonement,
thanksgiving and appeal, (p. 408)
As a propitiatory sacrifice ... the Sacrifice of the Mass effects the remission of sins
and the punishment for sins; as a sacrifice of appeal ... it brings about the confer-
ring of supernatural and natural gifts. The Eucharistic Sacrifice of propitiation
can, as the Council of Trent expressly asserted, be offered, not merely for the
living, but also for the poor souls in Purgatory, (pp. 412-13)
In response to the Roman Catholic teaching on the Lord’s Supper, it must be said that
it first fails to recognize the symbolic character of Jesus’ statements when he declared,
“This is my body,” or, “This is my blood.” Jesus spoke in symbolic ways many times
when speaking of himself. He said, for example, “I am the true vine ” (John 15:1), or “I
am the door; if any one enters by me, he will be saved” (John 10:9), or “I am the bread
which came down from heaven” (John 6:41). In a similar way, when Jesus says, “This is
my body,” he means it in a symbolic way, not in an actual, literal, physical way. In fact,
as he was sitting with his disciples holding the bread, the bread was in his hand but it
was distinct from his body, and that was, of course, evident to the disciples. None of the
disciples present would have thought that the loaf of bread that Jesus held in his hand
was actually his physical body, for they could see his body before their eyes. They would
have naturally understood Jesus’ statement in a symbolic way. Similarly, when Jesus said,
“ This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:20),
he certainly did not mean that the cup was actually the new covenant, but that the cup ]
represented the new covenant.
Moreover, the Roman Catholic view fails to recognize the clear New Testament
teaching on the finality and completeness of Christ’s sacrifice once for all time for our
sins: the book of Hebrews emphasizes this many times, as when it says, “Nor was it to
offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the Holy Place yearly with blood not
his own; for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the
world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the age to put away sin by
the sacrifice of himself . . . Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many”
(Heb. 9:25-28). To say that Christ’s sacrifice continues or is repeated in the mass has
been, since the Reformation, one of the most objectionable Roman Catholic doctrines
from the standpoint of Protestants. When we realize that Christ’s sacrifice for our
sins is finished and completed (“It is finished,” John 19:30; cf. Heb. 1:3), it gives great
assurance to us that our sins are all paid for, and there remains no sacrifice yet to be
paid. But the idea of a continuation of Christ’s sacrifice destroys our assurance that the
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
994
payment has been made by Christ and accepted by God the Father, and that there is “no
condemnation” (Rom. 8:1) now remaining for us.
For Protestants the idea that the mass is in any sense a repetition of the death of
Christ seems to mark a return to the repeated sacrifices of the old covenant, which were
“a reminder of sin year after year” (Heb. 10:3). Instead of the assurance of complete
forgiveness of sins through the once for all sacrifice of Christ (Heb. 10:12), the idea that
the mass is a repeated sacrifice gives a constant reminder of sins and remaining guilt to
be atoned for week after week. 5
With regard to the teaching that only priests can officiate at the Lord’s Supper, the
New Testament gives no instructions at all that place restrictions on the people who can
preside at Communion. And since Scripture places no such restrictions on us, it would
not seem to be justified to say that only priests can dispense the elements of the Lords
Supper. Moreover, since the New Testament teaches that all believers are priests and
members of a “royal priesthood” (1 Peter 2:9; cf. Heb. 4:16; 10:19-22), we should not
specify a certain class of people who have the rights of priests, as in the old covenant,
but we should emphasize that all believers share the great spiritual privilege of coming
near to God.
Finally, any continuation of the restriction that will not allow laypersons to drink
of the cup of the Lord’s Supper would be arguing from caution and tradition to justify
disobedience to Jesus’ direct commands, not only the command to his disciples where he
said, “Drink of it, all of you” (Matt. 26:27), but also the direction Paul recorded, in which
Jesus said, “Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me” (1 Cor. 11:25).
2. The Lutheran View: “In, With, and Under.” Martin Luther rejected the Roman Cath-
olic view of the Lord’s Supper, yet he insisted that the phrase “This is my body” had to be
taken in some sense as a literal statement. His conclusion was not that the bread actually
j becomes the physical body of Christ, but that the physical body of Christ is present “in,
with, and under” the bread of the Lord’s Supper. The example sometimes given is to say
that Christ’s body is present in the bread as water is present in a sponge — the water is
not the sponge, but is present “in, with, and under” a sponge, and is present wherever
the sponge is present. Other examples given are that of magnetism in a magnet or a soul
in the body.
The Lutheran understanding of the Lord’s Supper is found in the textbook of Francis
Pieper, Christian Dogmatics. 6 He quotes Luther’s Small Catechism: “What is the Sacra-
ment of the Altar? It is the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, under the bread
and wine, for us Christians to eat and to drink, instituted by Christ Himself.” 7 Similarly,
the Augsburg Confession, Article X, says, “Of the Supper of the Lord they teach that the
Body and Blood of Christ are truly present, and are distributed to those who eat in the
Supper of the Lord.” 8
5 This is why that many Protestants have felt that they could of the Roman Catholic teaching on the nature of the mass itself,
readily partake of the Lord's Supper in any other Protestant 6 4 vols. (St. Louis: Concordia, 1950-57).
church, even in high church Anglican services that in form 7 Pieper, p. 296.
appear quite similar to Roman Catholic services, but could not in 8 Ibid. Mueller, p. 528, says Lutherans reject the term “con-
good conscience participate in a Roman Catholic mass, because substantiation” to describe their views.
CHAPTER 50 • THE LORD'S SUPPER
995
One passage that may be thought to give support to this position is 1 Corinthians
10:16, “The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?”
However, in order to affirm this doctrine, Luther had to answer an important ques-
tion: How can Christ’s physical body, or more generally Christ’s human nature, be every-
where present? Is it not true that Jesus in his human nature ascended into heaven and
remains there until his return? Did he not say that he was leaving the earth and would no
longer be in the world but was going to the Father (John 16:28; 17:11)? In answer to this
problem Luther taught the ubiquity of Christs human nature after his ascension — that
is, that Christ’s human nature was present everywhere (“ubiquitous”). But theologians
ever since Luther’s time have suspected that he taught the ubiquity of Christ’s human
nature, not because it is found anywhere in Scripture, but because he needed it to explain
how his view of consubstantiation could be true.
In response to the Lutheran view, it can be said that it too fails to realize that Jesus is
speaking of a spiritual reality but using physical objects to teach us when he says, “This is
my body.” We should take this no more literally than we take the corresponding sentence,
“ This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:20).
In fact, Luther does not really do justice to Jesus’ words in a literal sense at all. Berkhof
rightly objects that Luther really makes the words of Jesus mean, “This accompanies my
body.” 9 In this matter it would help to read again John 6:27-59, where the context shows
that Jesus is talking in literal, physical terms about bread, but he is continually explaining
it in terms of spiritual reality.
3. The Rest of Protestantism: A Symbolic and Spiritual Presence of Christ. In distinc-
tion from Martin Luther, John Calvin and other Reformers argued that the bread and
wine of the Lord’s Supper did not change into the body and blood of Christ, nor did they
somehow contain the body and blood of Christ. Rather, the bread and wine symbolized
the body and blood of Christ, and they gave a visible sign of the fact that Christ himself
was truly present. 10 Calvin said:
By the showing of the symbol the thing itself is also shown. For unless a man
means to call God a deceiver, he would never dare assert that an empty symbol
is set forth by him. . . . And the godly ought by all means to keep this rule:
whenever they see symbols appointed by the Lord, to think and be persuaded
that the truth of the thing signified is surely present there. For why would the
Lord put in your hand the symbol of his body, except to assure you of a true
participation in it? ( Institutes , 4.17.10; p. 1371)
Yet Calvin was careful to differ both with Roman Catholic teaching (which said that
the bread became Christ’s body) and with Lutheran teaching (which said that the bread
contained Christ’s body).
9 Berkhof, Systematic Theology, p. 653. Christ was present in a symbolic way, but Zwingli being much
10 There was some difference between Calvin and another more hesitant about affirming a real spiritual presence of
Swiss Reformer, Ulrich Zwingli (1484- 1531) on the nature of Christ. However, the actual teaching of Zwingli in this regard
the presence of Christ in the Lord’s supper, both agreeing that is a matter of some difference among historians.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
996
But we must establish such a presence of Christ in the Supper as may neither
fasten him to the element of bread, nor enclose him in bread, nor circumscribe
him in any way (all which things, it is clear, detract from his heavenly glory).
( Institutes , 4.17.19; p. 1381)
Today most Protestants would say, in addition to the fact that the bread and wine
symbolize the body and blood of Christ, that Christ is also spiritually present in a special
way as we partake of the bread and wine. Indeed, Jesus promised to be present whenever
believers worship: “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst
of them” (Matt. 18:20). 11 And if he is especially present when Christians gather to wor-
ship, then we would expect that he will be present in a special way in the Lord’s Supper: 12
We meet him at his table, to which he comes to give himself to us. As we receive the
elements of bread and wine in the presence of Christ, so we partake of him and all his
benefits. We “feed upon him in our hearts” with thanksgiving. Indeed, even a child who
knows Christ will understand this without being told and will expect to receive a special
blessing from the Lord during this ceremony, because the meaning of it is so inherent in
the very actions of eating and drinking. Yet we must not say that Christ is present apart
from our personal faith, but only meets and blesses us there in accordance with our faith
in him.
In what way is Christ present then? Certainly there is a symbolic presence of Christ,
but it is also a genuine spiritual presence and there is genuine spiritual blessing in this
ceremony.
D. Who Should Participate in the Lord's Supper?
Despite differences over some aspects of the Lord’s Supper, most Protestants would
agree, first, that only those who believe in Christ should participate in it, because it is a sign
of being a Christian and continuing in the Christian life. 13 Paul warns that those who
eat and drink unworthily face serious consequences: “For any one who eats and drinks
without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself. That is why many
of you are weak and ill, and some have died” (1 Cor. 11:29-30).
Second, many Protestants would argue from the meaning of baptism and the mean-
ing of the Lord’s Supper that, ordinarily, only those who have been baptized should par-
ticipate in the Lord’s Supper. This is because baptism is so clearly a symbol of beginning
the Christian life, while the Lord’s Supper is clearly a symbol of continuing the Christian
11 It is true that this sentence is spoken in a context that
applies specifically to church discipline (vv. 15-19), but it is
a statement of a general truth used here to support a specific
application, and there is no good reason to restrict its applica-
tion to occasions of church discipline. It tells us that Jesus is
always present when believers gather in his name.
12 Sometimes Protestants have become so concerned to
deny the Roman Catholic view of the “real presence” of Christ
in the elements that they have wrongly denied even any spiri-
tual presence. Millard Erickson notes the humorous situation
that results: “Out of a zeal to avoid the conception that Jesus
is present in some sort of magical way, certain Baptists among
others have sometimes gone to such extremes as to give the
impression that the one place where Jesus most assuredly is
not to be found is the Lord’s supper. This is what one Bap-
tist leader termed ‘the doctrine of the real absence’ of Jesus
Christ” (Christian Theology, p. 1123).
13 However, some in the Church of England and elsewhere
have recently begun to allow young children to participate
in the Lord’s Supper, reasoning that if they have been given
the sign of baptism it is wrong to deny them the sign of the
Supper.
CHAPTER 50 * THE LORD'S SUPPER
997
life. Therefore if someone is taking the Lord’s Supper and thereby giving public proc-
lamation that he or she is continuing in the Christian life, then that person should be
asked, “Wouldn’t it be good to be baptized now and thereby give a symbol that you are
beginning the Christian life?”
But others, including the present author, would object to such a restriction as follows:
A different problem arises if someone who is a genuine believer, but not yet baptized,
is not allowed to participate in the Lord’s Supper when Christians get together. In that
case the person’s nonparticipation symbolizes that he or she is not a member of the body
of Christ which is coming together to observe the Lord’s Supper in a unified fellowship
(see 1 Cor. 10:17: “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all
partake of the one bread”). Therefore churches may think it best to allow non-baptized
believers to participate in the Lord’s Supper but to urge them to be baptized as soon as
possible. For if they are willing to participate in one outward symbol of being a Christian,
there seems no reason why they should not be willing to participate in the other, a symbol
that appropriately comes first.
Of course, the problems that arise in both situations (when unbaptized believers take
Communion and when they do not) can all be avoided if new Christians are regularly
baptized shortly after coming to faith. And, whichever position a church takes on the
question of whether unbaptized believers should take Communion, in the teaching min-
istry of the church, it would seem wise to teach that the ideal situation is for new believers
first to be baptized and then to partake of the Lord’s Supper.
The third qualification for participation is that self-examination:
Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy
manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a man
examine himself and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For any one who
eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon
himself. (1 Cor. 11:27-29)
In the context of 1 Corinthians 11 Paul is rebuking the Corinthians for their selfish and
inconsiderate conduct when they come together as a church: “When you meet together,
it is not the Lord’s supper that you eat. For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own
meal, and one is hungry and another is drunk” (1 Cor. 11:20-21). This helps us under-
stand what Paul means when he talks about those who eat and drink “without discerning
the body” (1 Cor. 11:29). The problem at Corinth was notafailureto understand that the
bread and cup represented the body and blood of the Lord — they certainly knew that.
The problem rather was their selfish, inconsiderate conduct toward each other while they
were at the Lord’s table. They were not understanding or “discerning” the true nature of
the church as one body. This interpretation of “without discerning the body” is supported
by Paul’s mention of the church as the body of Christ just a bit earlier, in 1 Corinthians
10:17: “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of
the one bread.” 14 So the phrase “not discerning the body” means “not understanding the
14 Moreover, from this very brief mention of the idea of one Paul had taught them this idea while staying in Corinth for two
body we may rightly suppose that it was not a new idea, but that years when he founded the church there.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
998
unity and interdependence of people in the church, which is the body of Christ.” It means
not taking thought for our brothers and sisters when we come to the Lord’s Supper, at
which we ought to reflect his character. 15
What does it mean, then, to eat or drink “in an unworthy manner” (1 Cor. 11:27)?
We might at first think the words apply rather narrowly and pertain only to the way we
conduct ourselves when we actually eat and drink the bread and wine. But when Paul
explains that unworthy participation involves “not discerning the body,” he indicates
that we are to take thought for all of our relationships within the body of Christ: are
we acting in ways that vividly portray not the unity of the one bread and one body,
but disunity? Are we conducting ourselves in ways that proclaim not the self-giving
sacrifice of our Lord, but enmity and selfishness? In a broad sense, then, “Let a man
examine himself” means that we ought to ask whether our relationships in the body of
Christ are in fact reflecting the character of the Lord whom we meet there and whom
we represent.
In this connection, Jesus’ teaching about coming to worship in general should also
be mentioned:
So if you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your
brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go;
first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. (Matt.
5:23-24)
Jesus here tells us that whenever we come to worship we should be sure that our relation-
ships with others are right, and if they are not, we should act quickly to make them right
and then come to worship God. This admonition ought to be especially true when we
come to the Lord’s Supper.
Of course, no pastor or church leader will know whether people are examining them-
selves or not (except in cases where clearly offensive or sinful conduct becomes evident
to others). For the most part, the church must depend on the pastors and teachers to
explain clearly the meaning of the Lord’s Supper and to warn of the dangers of partici-
pating unworthily. Then people will have the responsibility to examine their own lives,
in accordance with what Paul says. Indeed, Paul does not say that the pastors should
examine everyone else’s lives, but encourages individual self-examination instead: “Let
a man examine himself” (1 Cor. 11:28). 16
15 Two other reasons for this interpretation are: (1) Paul only
says “not discerning the body,” and he does not say “not discern-
ing the body and blood of the Lord,” which he more likely would
have done if he had meant “not understanding that the bread
and cup represent the body and blood of the Lord.” (2) In addi-
tion, Paul says, “Let a man examine himself ’ (and this would
no doubt include examining his relationships with others in the
church), but Paul does not say, “Let him see if he understands
what the bread and wine stand for.”
16 In cases of church discipline or in cases where outward
behavior gives clear evidence that a person is straying from
Christ, the leaders of the church may wish to give a strong and
clear verbal warning against participation in the Lord’s Sup-
per, so that the erring brother or sister does not eat and drink
judgment upon himself or herself. But these cases should be
rare, and we must also avoid the mistake of some churches
that have been so strict in administration of the Lord’s Supper
that many true believers have been kept away and thus the
unity of the true body of Christ has not been represented, nor
have believers had access to the spiritual blessings that should
rightly be theirs in Christ in participating in this ordinance
and thereby obeying their Lord.
CHAPTER 50 * THE LORD'S SUPPER
999
E. Other Questions
Who should administer the Lord’s Supper? Scripture gives no explicit teaching on this
question, so we are left simply to decide what is wise and appropriate for the benefit of the
believers in the church. In order to guard against abuse of the Lord’s Supper, a respon-
sible leader ought to be in charge of administering it, but it does not seem that Scripture
requires that only ordained clergy or selected church officers could do this. In ordinary
situations, of course, the pastor or other leader who ordinarily officiates at the worship
services of the church would appropriately officiate at Communion as well. But beyond
this, there would seem to be no reason why only officers or only leaders, or only men,
should distribute the elements. Would it not speak much more clearly of our unity and
spiritual equality in Christ if both men and women, for example, assisted in distributing
the elements of the Lord’s Supper? 17
How often should the Lord’s Supper be celebrated? Scripture does not tell us. Jesus
simply said, “As often as you eat this bread and drink the cup . . .” (1 Cor. 11:26). Paul’s
directive here regarding worship services would also be appropriate to consider: “Let
all things be done for edification” (1 Cor. 14:26). In actuality it has been the practice of
most of the church throughout its history to celebrate the Lord’s Supper every week when
believers gather. However, in many Protestant groups since the Reformation, there has
been a less frequent celebration of the Lord’s Supper — sometimes once a month or twice
a month, or, in many Reformed churches, only four times a year. If the Lord’s Supper is
planned and explained and carried out in such a way that it is a time of self-examination,
confession, and thanksgiving and praise, then it does not seem that celebrating it once
a week would be too often, however, and it certainly could be observed that frequently
“for edification.”
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. What things symbolized by the Lord’s Supper have received new emphasis in your
thinking as a result of reading this chapter? Do you feel more eager to participate
in the Lord’s Supper now than before you read the chapter? Why?
2. In what ways (if any) will you approach the Lord’s Supper differently now? Which of
the things symbolized in the Lord’s Supper is most encouraging to your Christian
life right now?
17 Of course, where distribution of the Lord’s Supper is
thought to be a priestly function (as in Anglican churches),
churches may decide that another approach to this question is
more consistent with their own teachings. Moreover, in a church
where only the leading officers of the church have assisted in
serving Communion for many years, the church may decide that
allowing anyone else to participate in distributing the elements
would be symbolizing the participation of those people in the
leadership and governing of the church, and they may wish to
delay making a change at least until some clear teaching could
be given. Other churches may feel that the leadership function
of the church is so clearly tied up with the distribution of the
elements that they would wish to continue with that restriction
on their practice.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1000
3. What view of the nature of Christ’s presence in the Lord’s Supper have you been
taught in your church previously? What is your own view now?
4. Are there any broken personal relationships that you need to make right before you
come to the Lord’s Supper again?
5. Are there areas in which your church needs to do more teaching about the nature
of the Lord’s Supper? What are they?
SPECIAL TERMS
Communion
consubstantiation
Eucharist
not discerning the body
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter 1,
pp. 38-39. Complete bibliographical data may be found on pp. 1224-30.)
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1882-92 Litton, 472-542
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1875-76
Pope, 3:325-34
1892-94
Miley, 2:411-14
1940
Wiley, 3:189-208
1960
Purkiser, 411-15
1983
Carter, 2:616-19
3. Baptist
1767
Gill, 2:647-60
1907
Strong, 959-80
1983-85
Erickson, 1107-28
4. Dispensational
1947
Chafer, 7:229
1949
Thiessen, 322-25
1986
Ryrie, 425-26
5. Lutheran
1917-24
Pieper, 3:290-96
1934
Mueller, 506-40
6. Reformed (or Presbyterian)
spiritual presence
symbolic presence
transubstantiation
ubiquity of Christ’s human nature
CHAPTER 50 • THE LORD'S SUPPER
1001
1559
Calvin, 2:1359-1448 (4.27-28)
1724- 58
Edwards, 1:431-532
1861
Heppe, 627- 56
1871-73
Hodge, 3:611-92
1878
Dabney, 800-817
1887-1921
Warfield, SSW, 1:332-38
1889
Shedd, 2b:564-74
1937-66
Murray, CW, 2:376-84; CW, 3:275-88
1938
Berkhof, 644-58
1962
Buswell, 2:266-79
7. Renewal (or charismatic/Pentecostal)
1988-92 Williams
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
1. Roman Catholic: Traditional
1955 Ott, 370 -416
2. Roman Catholic: Post-Vatican II
1980 McBrien, 2:757-68; 1:552 - 56
Other Works
Beckwith, Roger T. “Eucharist.” In EDT, pp. 236-38.
Berkouwer, G. C. The Sacraments. Trans, by Hugo Bekker. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1969.
Bridge, D., and D. Phypers. Communion: The Meal That Unites? London: Hodder and
Stoughton, 1981.
Marshall, I. Howard. Last Supper and Lord’s Supper. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980.
Osterhaven, M. E. “Lord’s Supper, Views of.” In EDT, pp. 653-56.
Wallace, R. S. “Lord’s Supper.” In EDT, pp. 651-53.
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
1 Corinthians 11:23-26: Fori received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the
Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread , and when he had given thanks , he
broke it, and said, “ This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me” In the
same way also the cup, after supper, saying, <{ This cup is the new covenant in my blood . Do
this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me” For as often as you eat this bread and
drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes .
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1002
HYMN
“Here, O My Lord, I See Thee Face to Face”
This beautiful hymn is not frequently sung, but it speaks so directly to Jesus himself
and speaks so clearly of the spiritual reality that we need to remember in the Lord’s sup-
per that it is one of the greatest hymns ever written regarding this doctrine. It conveys
an attitude of reverence in the Lord’s presence, joy in salvation, and genuine repentance
for sin as well. The sweet beauty of spirit that Horatius Bonar exemplified in this hymn
is matched by very few hymns in the history of the church.
Tune: “Spirit of God, Descend Upon My Heart”
Here, O my Lord, I see thee face to face;
Here would I touch and handle things unseen,
Here grasp with firmer hand th’ eternal grace,
And all my weariness upon thee lean.
Here would I feed upon the bread of God,
Here drink with thee the royal wine of heaven;
Here would I lay aside each earthly load,
Here taste afresh the calm of sin forgiven.
This is the hour of banquet and of song;
This is the heav’nly table spread for me:
Here let me feast, and, feasting, still prolong
The brief, bright hour of fellowship with thee.
I have no help but thine, nor do I need
Another arm save thine to lean upon:
It is enough, my Lord, enough indeed;
My strength is in thy might, thy might alone.
Mine is the sin, but thine the righteousness;
Mine is the guilt, but thine the cleansing blood;
Here is my robe, my refuge, and my peace,
Thy blood, thy righteousness, O Lord my God.
AUTHOR: HORATIUS BONAR, 1855
Chapter
WORSHIP
How can our worship fulfill its great purpose in the New
Testament age ? What does it mean to worship “in spirit
and in truth”?
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
The term worship is sometimes applied to all of a Christian’s life, and it is rightly said
that everything in our life should be an act of worship, and everything the church does
should be considered worship, for everything we do should glorify God. However, in this
chapter I am not using the word in that broad sense. Rather, I am using worship in a more
specific sense to refer to the music and words that Christians direct to God in praise,
together with the heart attitudes that accompany that praise, especially when Christians
assemble together. Since the chapters in this part of the book deal with the doctrine of
the church, it is appropriate in this chapter to focus attention on the worship activities
of the assembled church.
A. Definition and Purpose of Worship
Worship is the activity of glorifying God in his presence with our voices and hearts .
In this definition we note that worship is an act of glorifying God. Yet all aspects of
our lives are supposed to glorify God, so this definition specifies that worship is some-
thing we do especially when we come into God’s presence, when we are conscious of
adoration of him in our hearts, and when we praise him with our voices and speak about
him so others may hear. Paul encourages the Christians in Colossae, “Let the word of
1003
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1004
Christ dwell in you richly, teach and admonish one another in all wisdom, and sing psalms
and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God” (Col. 3:16).
In fact, the primary reason that God called us into the assembly of the church is that
as a corporate assembly we might worship him. Edmund Clowney wisely says:
God had demanded of Pharaoh, “Let my people go, so that they may worship me
in the desert” (Ex. 7: 16b) God brings them out that he might bring them in,
into his assembly, to the great company of those who stand before his face. . . .
God's assembly at Sinai is therefore the immediate goal of the exodus . God brings
his people into his presence that they might hear his voice and worship him.
But Clowney explains that the worshiping assembly at Mount Sinai could not remain in
session before God forever. Therefore God established other festivals in which the whole
nation would assemble before him three times a year. He says that “Israelites are a nation
formed for worship, called to assemble in the courts of the Lord, and to praise together
the name of the Most High.” 1
Yet Clowney points out that, rather than worshiping God in a unified, holy assem-
bly, the people turned aside to serving idols and, rather than assembling the people to
worship before him, “in judgment God scattered the people in exile.” 2
But God promised that his purposes for his people would yet be fulfilled, that there
would someday be a great assembly not just of Israel but of all nations before his throne
(Isa. 2:2-4; 25:6-8; 49:22; 66:18-21; cf. Jer. 48:47; 49:6, 39). Clowney notes that the
fulfillment of that promise began only when Jesus started to build his church:
Pentecost was the time of the firstfruits, the beginning of the great harvest of
redemption. Peter preached the fulfillment of the prophecy of Joel. The Spirit
had been poured out, the worship of the new age had been ushered in. The
church , the assembly for worship, was praising God . . . . Now the ingathering
had begun.
The gospel call is a call to worship, to turn from sin and call upon the name of
the Lord. . . . The picture of the church as a worshiping assembly is nowhere
more powerfully presented than by the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews
(12:18-29). ... In our worship in Christs church we approach the throne of
God the judge of all. We enter the festival assembly of the saints and the angels.
We gather in spirit with the spirits of just men made perfect. We enter the
assembly of glory through Christ our mediator, and the blood of his atoning
death. . . .
Reverent corporate worship, then, is not optional for the church of God. . . .
Rather, it brings to expression the very being of the church. It manifests on earth
the reality of the heavenly assembly. 3
Edmund Clowney, “The Biblical Theology of the 2 Ibid.
Church” in The Church in the Bible and the World , ed. D. A. 3 Ibid., pp. 20-22.
Carson, pp. 17-19 (italics mine).
CHAPTER 51 • WORSHIP
1005
Worship is therefore a direct expression of our ultimate purpose for living, “to glorify
God and fully to enjoy him forever.” 4 God speaks of his “sons” and “daughters” as
“every one who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed
and made” (Isa. 43:6-7). And Paul uses similar language when he says that “we who
first hoped in Christ have been destined and appointed to live for the praise of his glory”
(Eph. 1:12). Scripture is clear here and in many other passages that God created us to
glorify him. 5
When we reflect on the purpose of worship it also reminds us that God is worthy of
worship and we are not. Even the apostle John had to be told that he should not worship
any creature, not even a powerful angel in heaven. When he “fell down to worship” at
the feet of the angel who showed him marvelous visions in heaven, the angel said to him,
“You must not do that! . . . Worship God” (Rev. 22:8-9).
This is because God is jealous for his own honor and he rightly seeks his own honor.
He says, “I the Lord your God am a jealous God” (Ex. 20:5) and “My glory I will not
give to another” (Isa. 48:11). Something within us should tremble and rejoice at this
fact. We should tremble with fear lest we rob God’s glory from him. And we should
rejoice that it is right that God seek his own honor and be jealous for his own honor,
for he, infinitely more than anything he has made, is worthy of honor. The twenty-four
elders in heaven feel this reverence and joy, for they fall down before God’s throne and
cast their crowns before him singing, “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory
and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were
created” (Rev. 4:11). When we feel the absolute rightness of this deep within ourselves we
then have the appropriate heart attitude for genuine worship.
Because God is worthy of worship and seeks to be worshiped, everything in our wor-
ship services should be designed and carried out not to call attention to ourselves or
bring glory to ourselves, but to call attention to God and to cause people to think about
him. It would be appropriate for us frequently to re-evaluate the various elements in
our Sunday services — the preaching, public prayer, leading of worship, special music,
celebration of the Lord’s Supper, and even the announcements and the offering. Are they
really bringing glory to God in the way they are done? 6 Peter says that spiritual gifts are
to be used in such a way that “in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ”
(1 Peter 4:11).
B. The Results of Genuine Worship
When we worship God in the sense described above, truly giving him glory in our
hearts and with our voices, several things happen as a result:
4 This familiar phrase has been widely used in Christian
teachings. It is found in the Westminster Larger Catechism ,
Question One: “ What is the chief and highest end of man ?
Answer: Man’s chief and highest end is to glorify God, and fully
to enjoy him forever.”
5 See the additional discussion in chapter 21, pp. 440-42,
on the fact that God created us for his own glory.
6 Few things destroy an atmosphere of worship more
quickly than a soloist or choir who enjoy drawing attention to
themselves, or a preacher who parades his own intelligence or
skill in speaking. “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to
the humble” (1 Peter 5:5).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1006
1. We Delight in God. God created us not only to glorify him but also to enjoy him and
delight in his excellence. 7 We probably experience delight in God more fully in worship
than in any other activity in this life. David confesses that the “one thing” that he will
seek for above all else is “that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple” (Ps. 27:4). He also says,
“ In your presence there is fulness of joy, in your right hand are pleasures for evermore”
(Ps. 16:11). Similarly, Asaph knows that God alone is the fulfillment of all his hopes and
desires: “ Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing upon earth that I desire
besides you” (Ps. 73:25). And the sons of Korah say:
How lovely is your dwelling place,
O Lord of hosts!
My soul longs, yea, faints
for the courts of the Lord;
My heart and flesh sing for joy
to the living God . . .
Blessed are those who dwell in your house,
ever singing your praise! . . .
For a day in your courts is better
than a thousand elsewhere. (Ps. 84:1-2, 4, 10)
The early church knew such joy in worship, for “day by day, attending the temple
together and breaking bread in their homes, they partook of food with glad and generous
hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people” (Acts 2:46). In fact, immedi-
ately after Jesus’ ascension into heaven, the disciples “returned to Jerusalem with great
joy, and were continually in the temple blessing God ” (Luke 24:52-53).
Of course, such activity of continual praise cannot last forever in this age, for living
in a fallen world requires that we give time to many other responsibilities as well. But
extended praise does give us a foretaste of the atmosphere of heaven, where the four living
creatures “never cease to sing, ‘Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is
and is to come!’ ” (Rev. 4:8), and the other heavenly creatures and the redeemed who have
died join in that heavenly worship and extol “the Lamb who was slain” (Rev. 5:12).
2. God Delights in Us. What does God do when we worship him? The amazing truth
of Scripture is that as the creation glorifies God, he also takes delight in it. When God
first made the universe, he looked on all of it with delight, and saw that “it was very
good” (Gen. 1:31). God takes special delight in human beings whom he has created and
redeemed. Isaiah reminded the people of the Lord,
You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord . . .
you shall be called My delight is in her . . .
for the Lord delights in you . . .
7 See the excellent discussion of living all of life by delight- what reflects his excellence, in John Piper, The Pleasures of God
ing in God in John Piper, Desiring God (Portland, Ore.: Mult- (Portland, Ore.: Multnomah, 1991).
nomah, 1986); also his analysis of God’s delight in himself and
CHAPTERS! - WORSHIP
1007
as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride,
so shall your God rejoice over you. (Isa. 62:3-5)
Zephaniah echoes the same theme when he says,
The Lord, your God, is in your midst,
a warrior who gives victory;
he will rejoice over you with gladness,
he will renew you in his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing. (Zeph. 3:17)
This truth should bring great encouragement to us, for as we love God and praise him
we realize that we are bringing joy and delight to his heart. And the deepest joy of love is
the joy of bringing delight to the heart of the one you love.
3. We Draw Near to God: The Amazing Unseen Reality of New Covenant Worship.
In the old covenant believers could only draw near to God in a limited way through the
temple ceremonies; indeed, most of the people of Israel could not enter into the temple
itself, but had to remain in the courtyard. Even the priests could only go into the outer
court of the temple, the “Holy Place,” when it was their appointed duty. But into the inner
room of the temple, the “Holy of Holies,” no one could go except the high priest, and he
only once a year (Heb. 9:1-7).
Now, under the new covenant, believers have the amazing privilege of being able to
enter directly into the holy of holies in heaven when they worship. “We have confidence
to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus” (Heb. 10:19 NIV) . 8 Since we have that
confidence to enter into the very presence of God, the author of Hebrews encourages us,
“ Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith” (Heb. 10:22). Worship in
the New Testament church is not simply practice for some later heavenly experience of
genuine worship, nor is it simply pretending, or going through some outward activities.
It is genuine worship in the presence of God himself, and when we worship we enter before
his throne.
This reality is expressed more fully by the author of Hebrews in chapter 12, when he
tells Christians that they have not come to a place like the earthly Mount Sinai where
the people of Israel received the Ten Commandments from God, but they have come to
something far better, the heavenly Jerusalem:
For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire, and darkness, and
gloom, and a tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and a voice whose words
made the hearers entreat that no further messages be spoken to them But
you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jeru-
salem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the
first-born who are enrolled in heaven, and to a judge who is God of all, and to
8 The Greek text literally says that we “have confidence
into the entrance of the holy places ,” because the plural ton
hagion is used elsewhere in Hebrews to refer to the holy place
and the holy of holies together as “the holy places” (Heb.
8:2; 9:8, 25; 13:11). The RSV regularly renders this expres-
sion by “the sanctuary,” but that translation obscures the
fact that it is referring both to the holy place and to the holy
of holies (the NASB renders these plurals as singulars, an
uncommon departure from its ordinary tendency to trans-
late more literally) .
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1008
the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new cov-
enant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks more graciously than the blood
of Abel. (Heb. 12:18-24)
This is the reality of new covenant worship: it actually is worship in the presence of God,
though we do not now see him with our physical eyes, nor do we see the angels gathered
around his throne or the spirits of believers who have gone before and are now worship-
ing in God’s presence. But it is all there, and it is all real, more real and more permanent
than the physical creation that we see around us, which will someday be destroyed in
the final judgment. And if we believe Scripture to be true, then we must also believe it
to be actually true that we ourselves come to that place and join our voices with those
already worshiping in heaven whenever we come to God in worship. Our only appropri-
ate response is this: “Let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe; for
our God is a consuming fire” (Heb. 12:28-29).
4. God Draws Near to Us. James tells us, “Draw near to God and he will draw near to
you” (James 4:8). This has been the pattern of God’s dealings with his people throughout
the Bible, and we should be confident that it will be true also today.
In the Old Testament, when God’s people began to praise him at the dedication of the
temple, he descended and made himself known in their midst:
when the song was raised, with trumpets and cymbals and other musical instru-
ments, in praise to the Lord, “For he is good, for his steadfast love endures for
ever,” the house, the house of the Lord, was filled with a cloud, so that the priests
could not stand to minister because of the cloud; for the glory of the Lord filled
the house of God. (2 Chron. 5:13- 14)
Though this only speaks of one specific incident, it does not seem wrong to suppose that
God will also make his presence known at other times among his people, whenever he is
pleased with the praise they offer (even if he does not come in the form of a visible cloud) .
David says, “Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel” (Ps. 22:3).
5. God Ministers to Us. Although the primary purpose of worship is to glorify God, the
Scriptures teach that in worship something also happens to us: we ourselves are built up
or edified. To some extent this happens, of course, when we learn from the Bible teach-
ings that are given or the words of encouragement that others speak to us — Paul says,
“Let all things be done for edification” (1 Cor. 14:26), and he says that we are to “teach
and admonish one another in all wisdom” (Col. 3:16), and to be “addressing one another
in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs” (Eph. 5:19; cf. Heb. 10:24-25).
But in addition to the edification that comes from growth in understanding the
Bible and hearing words of encouragement from others, there is another kind of edi-
fication that occurs in worship: when we worship God he meets with us and directly
ministers to us, strengthening our faith, intensifying our awareness of his presence,
and granting refreshment to our spirits. Peter says that as Christians are continually
coming to Christ (in worship and prayer and faith), they are then “ being built up as
a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to
CHAPTER 51 - WORSHIP
1009
God through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:5 NASB). When we come to worship we come
into God’s presence in a special way, and we may expect that he will meet us there
and minister to us: as we “draw near to the throne of grace” we will “receive mercy
and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb. 4:16). 9 During genuine worship we will
often experience an intensification of the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, who is at
work continually changing us into the likeness of Christ “from one degree of glory to
another” (2 Cor. 3:18). 10
6. The Lord’s Enemies Flee. When the people of Israel began to worship, God at times
would fight for them against their enemies. For example, when the Moabites, Edomites,
and Syrians came against Judah, King Jehoshaphat sent out the choir praising God in
front of the army:
He appointed those who were to sing to the Lord and praise him in holy array,
as they went before the army. . . . And when they began to sing and praise, the
Lord set an ambush against the men of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, who
had come against Judah, so that they were routed. (2 Chron. 20:21-22)
Similarly, when God’s people offer him worship today, we may expect that the Lord will
battle against demonic forces that oppose the gospel and cause them to flee.
7. Unbelievers Know They Are in God’s Presence. Though Scripture does not emphasize
evangelism as a primary purpose when the church meets for worship, Paul does tell the
Corinthians to take thought for unbelievers and outsiders who come to their services, to
be sure that the Christians speak in understandable ways (see 1 Cor. 14:23). He also tells
them that if the gift of prophecy is functioning properly, unbelievers will from time to
time have the secrets of their heart disclosed, and they will fall on their face and “worship
God and declare that God is really among you” (1 Cor. 14:25; cf. Acts 2:11). But evangelism
is not seen as a primary purpose when the church assembles for worship, and it would
therefore not be right to have the only weekly gathering of believers designed primarily
with an evangelistic purpose. Paul’s concern is rather that visitors understand what is
going on (and not think that Christians are “mad,” 1 Cor. 14:23), and that they recognize
that “God is really among you” (1 Cor. 14:25).
C. The Eternal Value of Worship
Because worship glorifies God and fulfills the purpose for which God created us, it
is an activity of eternal significance and great value. When Paul cautions the Ephesians
not to waste their time but to use it well, he puts it in the context of living as those who
“See also Ps. 34:4-5, 8; 37:4.
'“Somehow, the more we see of God the more we become
like him. That is evident especially when we enter the age to
come, for John says, “When he appears we shall be like him,
for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). But it is also true to
some degree in this life, as we run the race that is set before us,
“looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith” (Heb.
12:2). At times the presence of the Lord and the accompanying
working of the Holy Spirit in our hearts will be so evident that
we will recognize that God is doing something within us — as
the disciples certainly did when Jesus walked with them on
the Emmaus road, for later they said, “Did not our hearts burn
within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to
us the scriptures?” (Luke 24:32).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1010
are wise: “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the
most of the time y because the days are evil” (Eph. 5:15-16).
Paul then explains what it is to be wise and to make the most of the time:
Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And
do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit,
addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and
making melody to the Lord with all your heart , always and for everything giving
thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father. (Eph. 5:17-20)
Therefore in the context of using time wisely and making the most of the time, Paul includes
both singing of spiritual psalms to one another and singing to the Lord with our hearts.
This means that worship is doing the will of God! Worship is the result of understand-
ing “what the will of the Lord is.” It is “making the most of the time.” Moreover, because
God is eternal and omniscient, the praise that we give him will never fade from his con-
sciousness but will continue to bring delight to his heart for all eternity (cf. Jude 25: “To
the only God, our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and
authority, before all time and now and for ever”).
The fact that worship is an activity of great significance and eternal value is also evi-
dent in the fact that it is the primary activity carried on by those who are already in
heaven (cf. Rev. 4:8-11; 5:11-14).
D. How Can We Enter Into Genuine Worship?
Ultimately, worship is a spiritual activity and it must be empowered by the Holy Spirit
working within us. This means that we must pray that the Holy Spirit will enable us to
worship rightly.
The fact that genuine worship is to be carried on in the unseen, spiritual realm is
evident in Jesus’ words:
The hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the
Father in spirit and truth , for such the Father seeks to worship him. God is spirit,
and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. (John 4:23-24)
To worship “in spirit and truth” is best understood to mean not “in the Holy Spirit,”
but rather “in the spiritual realm y in the realm of spiritual activity” 11 This means that true
worship involves not only our physical bodies but also our spirits, the immaterial aspect
of our existence that primarily acts in the unseen realm. Mary knew she was worshiping
in that way, for she exclaimed, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God
my Savior” (Luke 1:46-47).
n This is because (1) the discussion that Jesus is having with and truth” corresponds to the same word (en) used in v. 21
the woman at the well in this context is a discussion about the to speak of (literally) “in this mountain” and “in Jerusalem.”
location of worship (see w. 20-21) — should it be in Samaria or Once again the contrast is in terms of location “in” which one
in Jerusalem? Jesus’ answer would fit this inquiry much better if is to worship. (3) The word truth refers to a quality of worship,
he were speaking about the spiritual realm in which we worship, not to a person. The parallel would be more understandable if
as opposed to the physical location of Jerusalem or Samaria. “in spirit” likewise referred not to a person but to some quality
(2) In the Greek text the word en (“in”) of the phrase “in spirit of the worship, such as the realm in which it is to be done.
CHAPTER 51 • WORSHIP
1011
We should realize also that God continually “seeks” (John 4:23) those who will wor-
ship him in the spiritual realm and therefore those whose spirit as well as body and mind
is worshiping God. Such worship is not optional because those who worship God “ must
worship in spirit and truth” (v. 24). Unless our spirits are worshiping God we are not
truly worshiping him.
An attitude of worship comes upon us when we begin to see God as he is and then
respond to his presence. Even in heaven the seraphim who behold God’s glory cry out,
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory” (Isa. 6:3). When
the disciples saw Jesus walking on the water, and then saw the wind cease when he got
into the boat, “those in the boat worshiped him , saying, ‘Truly you are the Son of God’ ”
(Matt. 14:33). The author of Hebrews knows that when we come into the presence of God
(Heb. 12:18-24), the proper response is to “offer to God acceptable worship, with rever-
ence and awe; for our God is a consuming fire” (Heb. 12:28-29). Therefore genuine wor-
ship is not something that is self-generated or that can be worked up within ourselves. It
must rather be the outpouring of our hearts in response to a realization of who God is.
It is appropriate to ask whether there is much genuine, deep, heartfelt worship in our
churches. In many evangelical churches people do not truly worship God in their hearts
until the last hymn, after the sermon has focused their attention on who God is so that
they begin to rejoice in God with a heart full of praise. But then, just when heartfelt wor-
ship has begun, the service abruptly ends. It should be just beginning! If genuine worship
is lacking in our churches, we should ask how we can bring ourselves to experience much
more of the depth and richness of worship, which is the natural response of the believing
heart to a clear awareness of God’s presence and character. 12
Is there anything else we can do to make worship more effective? We must remem-
ber that worship is a spiritual matter (John 4:21-24), and the primary solutions will
therefore be spiritual ones. There will need to be much prayer in preparation for wor-
ship, especially on the part of those in leadership, asking that God will bless the worship
times and make himself known to us. Also, congregations will need teaching about the
spiritual nature of worship and the New Testament understanding of worship in God’s
presence (see Heb. 12:22—24). In addition, Christians need to be encouraged to make
right any broken interpersonal relationships. Paul says that men are to lift holy hands
“without anger or quarreling” (1 Tim. 2:8), and Jesus reminds us that we are first to “be
reconciled” to our brother, and then come before God’s altar and offer a gift (Matt. 5:24).
In fact, John says that anyone who says, “I love God” but hates his brother “is a liar”
(1 John 4:20). Husbands particularly need to make sure they are living “considerately”
with their wives, and honoring them, in order that their prayers “may not be hindered”
(1 Peter 3:7). And the entire church is responsible to watch “that no ‘root of bitterness’
spring up and cause trouble, and by it the many become defiled” (Heb. 12:15) — an indi-
cation that sin and broken relationships among a few can spread to many and result in
the withholding of God’s blessing from the whole congregation.
Moreover, if we are truly to draw near to God in worship, there must be a striving
for personal holiness of life. The author of Hebrews reminds believers to strive for “the
12 Of course, God’s character can be revealed not only of the hymns that are sung, through prayer, and through the
through the preaching of the Word, but also through the words reading of Bible passages even without comment.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1012
holiness without which no one will see the Lord” (Heb. 12: 14), and Jesus says that it is the
“pure in heart” who shall “see God” (Matt. 5:8) — a promise that is fulfilled partially in
this life and completely in the age to come. Specifically in connection with prayer, John
says, “If our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God” (1 John 3:21),
but this principle certainly applies to worship as well, as we have boldness to come into
God’s presence to offer him praise. James indicates a similar concern when, immediately
after saying, “Draw near to God and he will draw near to you,” he adds, “ Cleanse your
hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you men of double mind” (James 4:8). 13
Yet the physical setting and the structure of worship services do matter, for there are
indications that Jesus thought that the atmosphere of worship was very important. He
“entered the temple of God and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he
overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons.” In
explanation of this action, Jesus insisted that the temple was to be a house of prayer, for
he said, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer’; but you make it a den
of robbers” (Matt. 21:12-13). He also told believers, “When you pray, go into your room
and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret” (Matt. 6:6), not only because
in our rooms we will not be seen by men, and will not pray so as to receive glory from
men, but also because the knowledge that others are watching us in our prayers so easily
distracts our attention, so that then we pray in part to be heard by others or at least so as
not to offend them. This does not mean that corporate worship and prayer are forbidden
(for both are very evident in both the Old Testament and New Testament), but it is to say
that we should choose a setting for prayer or for worship that avoids distractions as much
as possible. This is consistent with the fact that worship is to be done in an orderly way,
for “God is not a God of confusion but of peace” (1 Cor. 14:33; cf. v. 40). The atmosphere
and mood of worship are important, because we are to “offer to God acceptable worship,
with reverence and awe” (Heb. 12:28). This means that it is appropriate to come together
as a church in a setting that is conducive to worship, one that is ordinarily private and free
from distractions, giving opportunity to focus attention on the Lord. 14
Singing is especially important to worship in both Old and New Testaments. In our
day there has been quite a change in both the standard English that is spoken by people
and the musical forms that people are familiar with, and churches need to talk and plan
openly and honestly in order to find a mix of songs that can be sung well by the whole
congregation, and that people can genuinely identify with as a vehicle for expressing their
13 Other Scripture passages indicate a connection between done for edification” (1 Cor. 14:26). Evangelicals need to be
personal holiness and worship of God: see Prov. 15:8: “The sac- cautious, however, that they do not too quickly dismiss unfa-
rifice of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD, but the miliar forms of worship: people in liturgical churches should
prayer of the upright is his delight.” See also Prov. 15:29; 28:9; realize that spontaneity can be managed in an orderly way,
also Ps. 34:15-18; 66:18. and people in charismatic groups should realize that edifica-
14 The practical considerations discussed in this section can tion and genuine worship can occur within a detailed structure,
be applied to many different forms of worship, but I have not (Regarding the unison reading of a liturgy, if Christians can
discussed the actual forms that worship will take. Those will worship and pray by singing words in unison, there is nothing to
vary widely, from the extensive structured liturgies of Episco- prevent them from genuinely worshiping and praying by read-
palian services to the unstructured spontaneity of charismatic ing words aloud in unison!) Yet any one form that is used exces-
services. Since Scripture does not prescribe any one form, the sively can become a meaningless routine for most participants,
major principle to use is Paul’s directive, “Let all things be
CHAPTER 51 * WORSHIP
1013
praise to God. Songs that address God directly in the second person (that is, speaking to
God as “you” rather than speaking about him as “he”) will often be especially effective as
worship songs — though the Psalms show that both kinds of songs are pleasing to God.
In addition, it is important to allow enough time for the various aspects of corporate
worship. Genuine prayer can certainly take time (see Luke 6:12; 22:39-46; Acts 12:12; 13:2).
Solid Bible teaching can often take a long time as well (Matt. 15:32; Acts 20:7-11). Moreover,
genuine, heartfelt worship and praise will also take quite a bit of time if it is to be effective.
This is true in part because different aspects of a worship service require different
attitudes and states of mind. Listening to Bible teaching requires attentiveness to the text
and the teacher. Praise requires joy and a focus on the Lord and his excellence. Prayers
of petition require a focus on needs and a deep concern for others. Times when offerings
are given require a focus on sacrificing ourselves to the Lord as well as giving to him from
our means and trusting him to provide for our needs. The Lord’s Supper requires a time
of reflection, self-examination, and perhaps repentance, along with thanksgiving. But
we cannot have all of these attitudes at once, for we are finite. Different attitudes of mind
require time to attain and dwell in. For that reason it is impossible to fulfill all the tasks
necessary for an assembled congregation simply in one hour on Sunday morning, and it
is harmful even to try. Those who do try to do everything crowd too much into a brief
time and fail to do anything well. 15 If congregations are to fulfill the various purposes
for which God wants them to assemble together, and especially to have extended times of
reverent worship, they will probably need to find creative solutions that enable them to
meet for longer periods of time, and omit or reschedule some activities that have become
habitual or traditional on Sunday mornings but are really not necessary.
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. Do you experience genuine, fulfilling worship in your church each Sunday? How
much time is specifically allotted to worship (narrowly defined) — that is, to times
of praise and thanksgiving to God? Would you like the time to be longer? What
aspects of the worship time do you find most meaningful? Which aspects are
least meaningful? How could your church take steps to strengthen and deepen its
experience of worship (if that is needed)?
2. Have you ever felt a strong sense of the presence of God in corporate worship? When
was this? Can you describe it? Do you know what factors contributed to this sense?
15 Unfortunately, pastors who try to officiate at a ser-
vice into which too many activities are crowded begin to
resemble the master of ceremonies at a three-ring circus who
shouts, “Look here! Look there!” at one act after another. In a
similar way the pastor exhorts, “Praise God! Be generous!
Think about Scripture! Pray! Shake hands with your neighbor!
Say hello to your friends! Examine yourselves! Repent of your
sins! Sing to the Lord! Amen? Amen!” In a situation like this
people’s emotions are jerked back and forth so quickly that they
are unable to respond as whole persons, and the result is that
they withdraw emotionally and do not respond from the heart.
They will leave the service feeling frustrated and disappointed
because the need of their hearts to experience genuine worship,
prayer, and learning from Scripture has not been satisfied.
For most human beings, focused attention is slowly
attained and easily lost. Because of this, I personally find that
a worship leader who talks to the congregation between songs
usually distracts my attention away from the Lord and onto
himself, and my attitude of worship is greatly diminished.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1014
3. During times of worship, can you describe the emotions that are most prominent
in your consciousness? Is this experience similar to other experiences in daily life,
or are these feelings unique to times of worship? Have you ever sensed that God is
ministering to you while you are worshiping him? What made you aware of that?
4. Do you think there is enough genuine worship in a typical week in your life? If not,
what are the hindrances to such worship?
5. How do you feel about the fact that God is jealous for his own honor and seeks his
honor? Can you think of anything in the universe that would be more right than
for God to seek his own honor? Can you think of anything other than worship of
God that would make you feel more deeply that you are doing the thing for which
you were created?
SPECIAL TERMS
worship
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter 1,
pp. 38-39. Complete bibliographical data maybe found on pp. 1224-30.)
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1882 -92
Litton (no explicit treatment)
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1875-76
Pope, 3:287-94
1940
Wiley, 3:138-50
1960
Purkiser, 415-20
1983
Carter, 2:614-15
3. Baptist
1767
Gill, 2:341-52, 558, 682-729
1987-94
Lewis/Demarest
4. Dispensational
1986
Ryrie, 428-30
5. Lutheran
(no explicit treatment)
6. Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1724-58
Edwards, 2:913-18
1937-66
Murray, CW, 1:165-68
7. Renewal (or charismatic/Pentecostal)
1988-92
Williams
CHAPTER 51 • WORSHIP
1015
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
(no explicit treatment)
Other Works
Allen, Ronald, and Gordon Borror. Worship: Rediscovering the Missing Jewel. Portland,
Ore.: Multnomah, 1982.
Carson, Herbert M. Hallelujah! Christian Worship. Welwyn, Hertfordshire, England: Evan-
gelical Press, 1980.
Engle, Paul E. Discovering the Fullness of Worship. Philadelphia: Great Commission, 1978.
Harrison, E. F. “Worship.” In EDT. pp. 1 192-1 193.
Kraueter, Tom. Keys to Becoming an Effective Worship Leader. Available from Psalmist
Resources, 9820 E. Watson Rd., St. Louis, MO 63126. 1991.
Manson, P. D. “Worship.” In EDT, pp. 730-32.
Martin, Ralph P. Worship in the Early Church. Westwood, N.J.: Revell, 1964.
. The Worship of God. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982.
Moule, C. F. D. Worship in the New Testament. Richmond, Va.: John Knox, 1961.
Peterson, David. Engaging With God: A Biblical Theology of Worship. Leicester: Inter- Varsity
Press, and Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992.
Rayburn, Robert G. O Come, Let Us Worship. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980.
Taylor, Jack R. The Hallelujah Factor. Nashville, Tenn.: Broadman, 1983.
Wainwright, Geoffrey. Doxology: The Praise of God in Worship, Doctrine, and Life. New
York: Oxford University Press, 1980.
Webber, Robert E. Worship Old and New. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982.
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
Revelation 4:11: You are worthy , our Lord and God ,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they existed and were created.
HYMN
“Thou Art Worthy”
Thou art worthy, thou art worthy, thou art worthy, O Lord.
To receive glory, glory and honor, glory and honor and power.
For thou hast created, hast all things created, thou hast created all things;
And for thy pleasure, they are created, thou art worthy, O Lord.
AUTHOR: PAULINE MICHAEL MILLS (FROM REV. 4:11)
COPYRIGHT © FRED BOCK MUSIC, 1963, 1975.
USED BY PERMISSION.
Chapter
GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT:
(PART 1)
GENERAL QUESTIONS
What are spiritual gifts ? How many are there ? Have some gifts
ceased ? Seeking and using spiritual gifts.
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
A. Questions Regarding Spiritual Gifts in General
In previous generations, systematic theologies did not have chapters on spiritual gifts,
for there were few questions regarding the nature and use of spiritual gifts in the church.
But the twentieth century has seen a remarkable increase in interest in spiritual gifts,
primarily because of the influence of the Pentecostal and charismatic movements within
the church. In this chapter we will first look at some general questions regarding spiritual
gifts, then examine the specific question of whether some (miraculous) gifts have ceased.
In the next chapter we shall analyze the New Testament teaching about particular gifts.
Before beginning the discussion, however, we may define spiritual gifts as follows: A
spiritual gift is any ability that is empowered by the Holy Spirit and used in any ministry of
the church. This broad definition includes both gifts that are related to natural abilities
(such as teaching, showing mercy, or administration) and gifts that seem to be more
“miraculous” and less related to natural abilities (such as prophecy, healing, or distin-
guishing between spirits). The reason for this is that when Paul lists spiritual gifts (in
Rom. 12:6-8; 1 Cor. 7:7; 12:8-10, 28; and Eph. 4:11) he includes both kinds of gifts.
1016
CHAPTER 52 • GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (1)
1017
Yet not every natural ability that people have is included here, because Paul is clear that
all spiritual gifts must be empowered “by one and the same Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:11), that
they are given “for the common good” (1 Cor. 12:7), and that they are all to be used for
“edification” (1 Cor. 14:26), or for building up the church. 1
1. Spiritual Gifts in the History of Redemption. Certainly the Holy Spirit was at work
in the Old Testament, bringing people to faith and working in remarkable ways in a
few individuals such as Moses or Samuel, David or Elijah. But in general there was less
powerful activity of the Holy Spirit in the lives of most believers. Effective evangelism
of the nations was very uncommon, casting out of demons 2 was unknown, miraculous
healing was uncommon (though it did happen, especially in the ministries of Elijah
and Elisha), prophecy was restricted to a few prophets or small bands of prophets, and
“resurrection power” over sin in the sense of Romans 6:1-14 and Philippians 3:10 was
rarely experienced.
But at several points the Old Testament looks forward to a time when there would be
a greater empowering of the Holy Spirit that would reach to all of God’s people. Moses
said, “Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, that the Lord would put his spirit
upon them!” (Num. 11:29). And the Lord prophesied through Joel:
And it shall come to pass afterward,
that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh;
your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
your old men shall dream dreams,
and your young men shall see visions.
Even upon the menservants and maidservants
in those days, I will pour out my spirit. (Joel 2:28-29)
John the Baptist heightens people’s expectations of the fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy
when he announces that someone is coming after him who “will baptize you with the
Holy Spirit and with fire” (Matt. 3:11; cf. Mark 1:8; Luke 3:16; John 1:33; Acts 1:5).
When Jesus begins his ministry he comes bringing the fullness and power of the
Holy Spirit in his person. Luke writes, “And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into
Galilee” (Luke 4:14). The result is that he teaches with great power (Luke 4:15-22) and
he heals and casts out demons from all who are oppressed (Luke 4:31 -41). Clearly, Jesus
has come in the greater new covenant power of the Holy Spirit , and he has come to conquer
Satan’s kingdom.
^hen seemingly natural gifts (such as teaching, helps,
administration, or musical gifts) are empowered by the Holy
Spirit, they will generally show increased effectiveness and
power in their use. Paul says the Corinthians were “enriched”
in all their speech and knowledge as spiritual gifts came to
them (1 Cor. 1:5-7). Any pastor who has preached for a time
knows the difference between preaching in his own “natural”
ability and preaching the same sermon under the anointing or
empowering of the Holy Spirit.
2 The only thing that comes close to casting out of demons
in the Old Testament is the fact that when David played the
lyre for King Saul, “Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the
evil spirit departed from him” (1 Sam. 16:23), but David had
to do this “whenever the evil spirit from God was upon Saul”
(ibid.), indicating that there was no permanent relief from the
demonic oppression that Saul experienced.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1018
In fact, he says that the power of the Holy Spirit at work in him enabling him to cast
out demons is an indication that the kingdom of God has come in power: “If it is by the
Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you”
(Matt. 12:28). Looking back on Jesus’ life and ministry, John tells us, “The reason the Son
of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8).
But this new covenant power of the Holy Spirit is not limited to the ministry of Jesus
alone. He sent his disciples out, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand” and told
them, “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons” (Matt. 10:7-8).
Nevertheless, this new covenant power of the Holy Spirit is not yet distributed to all
who believed in Jesus or followed him, but only to his twelve disciples or to the seventy
disciples (Luke 10:1-12).
The pouring out of the Holy Spirit in new covenant fullness and power in the church
occurred at Pentecost. Before Jesus ascended into heaven he commanded his apostles
“not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father,” and the con-
tent of that promise was, “Before many days you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit”
(Acts 1:4-5). He promised them, “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come
upon you ” (Acts 1:8). When the Spirit was poured out on the church at Pentecost Peter
recognized that Joel’s prophecy was being fulfilled, for he said, “this is what was spoken
by the prophet Joel” (Acts 2:16), and he then quoted Joel’s prophecy (vv. 17-21). Peter
recognized that the new covenant empowering of the Holy Spirit had come to God’s
people and the new covenant age had begun as a direct result of the activity of Jesus in
heaven, for Peter said,
This Jesus God raised up, and of that we are all witnesses. Being therefore exalted
at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the
Holy Spirit, he has poured out this which you see and hear (Acts 2:32-33)
Against the background of Jesus’ ministry and the earlier ministry of the disciples
with Jesus, the disciples present at Pentecost would rightly have expected that power-
ful evangelistic preaching, deliverance from demonic oppression, physical healing, and
perhaps also prophecy, dreams, and visions would all begin and continue among those
who believe in Christ, and that these things would be characteristic of the new covenant
age that began at Pentecost. A further characteristic of this outpouring of the Holy Spirit
was a widespread distribution of spiritual gifts to all people — sons and daughters, young
men and old men, menservants and maidservants, in the words of Joel — all received
a new covenant empowering of the Holy Spirit, and it would also be expected that all
would receive gifts of the Holy Spirit then as well. 3 In fact, that is what happened in the
early church (see 1 Cor. 12- 14; Gal. 3:5; James 5:14- 15). As B. B. Warfield said:
We are justified in considering it characteristic of the Apostolic churches that
such miraculous gifts should be displayed in them. The exception would be, not
a church with, but a church without, such gifts The Apostolic Church was
characteristically a miracle-working church , 4
3 See chapter 39, pp. 763-787, on the question of baptism in 4 Warfield, Counterfeit Miracles , p. 5.
the Holy Spirit.
CHAPTER 52 • GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (1)
1019
(This is true regardless of what view one takes about the continuation of miraculous gifts
after the time of the apostles.)
2. The Purpose of Spiritual Gifts in the New Testament Age. Spiritual gifts are given to
equip the church to carry out its ministry until Christ returns. Paul tells the Corinthians,
“You are not lacking in any spiritual gift y as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus
Christ ” (1 Cor. 1:7). Here he connects the possession of spiritual gifts and their situa-
tion in the history of redemption (waiting for Christs return), suggesting that gifts are
given to the church for the period between Christ s ascension and his return. Similarly,
Paul looks forward to the time of Christ s return and says, “When the perfect comes,
the imperfect will pass away” (1 Cor. 13:10), indicating also that these “imperfect” gifts
(mentioned in w. 8-9) will be in operation until Christ returns, when they will be super-
seded by something far greater. 5 Indeed, the pouring out of the Holy Spirit in “power” at
Pentecost (Acts 1:8) was to equip the church to preach the gospel (Acts 1:8) — something
that will continue until Christ returns. And Paul reminds believers that in their use of
spiritual gifts they are to “strive to excel in building up the church” (1 Cor. 14:12). Finally,
in writing to the Ephesians, Paul specifies that when Christ ascended into heaven he gave
gifts “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ”
(Eph. 4:12).
But spiritual gifts not only equip the church for the time until Christ returns, they also
give a foretaste of the age to come. Paul reminds the Corinthians that they were “ enriched ”
in all their speech and all their knowledge, and that the result of this enriching was that
they were “not lacking in any spiritual gift” (1 Cor. 1:5, 7). Of course, this enrichment in
their speech and knowledge did not give them the perfect speech or the perfect knowledge
that would be theirs in heaven, but only a foretaste or down payment of that heavenly
perfection. Similarly, Paul reminds the Corinthians that spiritual gifts are “imperfect”
but when the “perfect” way of knowing comes at the Lord’s return, then these gifts will
pass away (1 Cor. 13:10). Just as the Holy Spirit himself is in this age a “down payment”
(2 Cor. 1:22 NASB mg.; cf. 2 Cor. 5:5; Eph. 1:14) of the fuller work of the Holy Spirit
within us in the age to come, so the gifts the Holy Spirit gives us are partial foretastes of
the fuller working of the Holy Spirit that will be ours in the age to come.
In this way, gifts of insight and discernment prefigure the much greater discernment
we will have when Christ returns. Gifts of knowledge and wisdom prefigure the much
greater wisdom that will be ours when we “know as we are known” (cf. 1 Cor. 13:12).
Gifts of healing give a foretaste of the perfect health that will be ours when Christ grants
to us resurrection bodies. Similar parallels could be found with all the New Testament
gifts. Even the diversity of gifts should lead to greater unity and interdependence in the
church (see 1 Cor. 12:12-13, 24-25; Eph. 4:13), and this diversity in unity will itself be
a foretaste of the unity that believers will have in heaven.
3. How Many Gifts Are There? The New Testament epistles list specific spiritual gifts in
six different passages. Consider the table on the next page.
5 This interpretation of 1 Cor. 13:10 is defended at greater
length in section B below.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1020
What is obvious is that these lists are all quite different. No one list has all these gifts,
and no gift except prophecy is mentioned on all the lists (prophecy is not mentioned in
1 Cor. 7:7, where only the subject of marriage and celibacy is under discussion, but it is
certainly included in the “whoever speaks” of 1 Peter 4:11). In fact, 1 Corinthians 7:7
mentions two gifts that are not on any other list: in the context of speaking of marriage
and celibacy, Paul says, “Each has his own special gifft from God, one of one kind and
one of another.”
These facts indicate that Paul was not attempting to construct exhaustive lists of
gifts when he specified the ones he did. Although there is sometimes an indication of
some order (he puts apostles first, prophets second, and teachers third, but tongues last
in 1 Cor. 12:28), it seems that in general Paul was almost randomly listing a series of
different examples of gifts as they came to mind.
1 Corinthians 12:28
1. apostle 6 7
2. prophet
3. teacher
4. miracles
5. kinds of healings
6. helps
7. administration
8. tongues
1 Corinthians 12:8-10
9. word of wisdom
10. word of knowledge
11. faith
(5) gifts of healing
(4) miracles
(2) prophecy
12. distinguishing
between spirits
(8) tongues
13. interpretation of
tongues
Ephesians 4:11 s
(1) apostle
(2) prophet
14. evangelist
15. pastor- teacher
1 Peter 4:11
Whoever speaks (covering several
gifts)
Whoever renders service
(covering several gifts)
Romans 12:6-8
(2) prophecy
16. serving
(3) teaching
17. encouraging
18. contributing
19. leadership
20. mercy
1 Corinthians 7:7
21. marriage
22. celibacy
Moreover, there is some degree of overlap among the gifts listed at various places.
No doubt the gift of administration ( kybernesis , 1 Cor. 12:28) is similar to the gift of
leadership (ho proistamenos, Rom. 12:8), and both terms could probably be applied
to many who have the office of pastor-teacher (Eph. 4:11). Moreover, in some cases
Paul lists an activity and in other cases lists the related noun that describes the person
6 The Greek term for “gift” here is charisma , the same term 8 This list gives four kinds of persons in terms of offices
Paul uses in 1 Cor. 12- 14 to talk about spiritual gifts. or functions, not, strictly speaking, four gifts. For three of
7 Strictly speaking, to be an apostle is an office, not a gift the functions on the list, the corresponding gifts would be
(see chapter 47, pp. 906- 12, on the office of apostle). prophecy, evangelism, and teaching.
CHAPTER 52 ■ GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (1)
1021
(such as “prophecy” in Rom. 12:6 and 1 Cor. 12:10, but “prophet” in 1 Cor. 12:28 and
Eph. 4:11). 9
Another reason for thinking that Paul could have made much longer lists if he had
wanted to is the fact that some of the gifts listed will have many different expressions as
they are found in different people. Certainly the gift of serving (Rom. 12:6) or helps (1
Cor. 12:28) will take many different forms in different situations and among different
people. Some may serve or help by giving wise counsel, others by cooking meals, oth-
ers by caring for children or befriending an older person, others by giving specialized
legal or medical or financial advice when needed within the church. These gifts differ
greatly. Among those who possess the gift of evangelism, some will be good at personal
evangelism within a neighborhood, others at evangelism through writing of tracts and
Christian literature, and others at evangelism through large campaigns and public meet-
ings. Still others will be good at evangelism through radio and television. Not all of these
evangelistic gifts are the same, even though they fall under the broad category of “evan-
gelism.” The same could be said about gifts of teaching or administration. 10 All of this
simply means that no two people’s gifts are exactly alike.
How many different gifts are there then? It simply depends on how specific we wish to
be. We can make a very short list of only two gifts as Peter does in 1 Peter 4:11: “whoever
speaks” and “whoever renders service .” In this list of only two items Peter includes all the
gifts mentioned in any other list because all of them fit in one of these two categories.
On the other hand, we could take the Old Testament offices of prophet, priest, and king,
and have a list of three kinds of gifts: prophetic gifts (in this broad sense) would include
anything that involves teaching, encouraging, exhorting, or rebuking others. Priestly gifts
would include anything that involves showing mercy and care for those in need or involve
interceding before God (such as praying in tongues). The kingly gifts would involve
anything having to do with administration or government or order in the church.
Something can be said at this point about the relationship
between gifts and offices in the church. As we look at these lists,
it is evident that in some cases Paul names the specific gift (such
as gifts of healing or administration or tongues), and in other
cases he names the persons who have those gifts (such as apos-
tles, prophets, or evangelists). Some lists name only the gifts
themselves (such as 1 Cor. 12:8- 10), while other lists name only
the people who possess those gifts (such as Eph. 4:11 or 1 Peter
4:11). And some lists are mixed, naming some gifts and some
persons who have the gifts (such as Rom. 12:6-8 and 1 Cor.
12:28).
In addition to that, another distinction should be made:
In cases where Paul names persons , he sometimes gives a
name that refers to an officially recognized office in the
church (such as “apostles” or “pastor-teachers”). We would
expect that such people would begin to function in those
offices after they had received formal recognition by the church
as a whole (this would be called “ordination” or “installation
in office” for the office of pastor [or elder] for example). But
in other cases, though the person is named, it is not necessary
to think there was any official recognition or establishment in
office in front of the entire church. This would be the case, for
example, for “he who encourages” and “he who contributes”
and “he who does acts of mercy” in Rom. 12:6-8. Similarly,
the New Testament does not clearly indicate that prophets or
evangelists were established in any formally recognized offices
in the early church, and the word “prophet” probably just refers
to one who prophesied regularly and with evident blessing in
the church. “Evangelist” could similarly refer to those who
regularly functioned effectively in the work of evangelism,
and “teachers” could include both those who had formally
recognized teaching functions in the church, perhaps in con-
nection with the office of elder, and those who had teaching
functions in less-formal capacities in the church but regularly
taught with effectiveness in informal or smaller group settings.
For convenience, we will continue to refer to these lists
as lists of “spiritual gifts,” although, to be more precise, we
should realize that they include both spiritual gifts and per-
sons who exercise those gifts. Since both the gifts and the per-
sons are given to the church by Jesus Christ, it is appropriate
that both are named in various parts of these lists.
l0 See the excellent discussion in John R. W. Stott, Bap-
tism and Fullness: The Work of the Holy Spirit Today (Downers
Grove, 111. InterVarsity Press, 1964), pp. 88-89.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1022
Other classifications of gifts are gifts of knowledge (such as distinguishing between
spirits, word of wisdom, and word of knowledge), gifts oi power (such as healing, mira-
cles, and faith), and gifts of speech (tongues, interpretation, and prophecy). 11 Then again
we could make a much longer list, such as the list of twenty-two gifts enumerated above.
But even that list does not include all the possible gifts (no list includes a gift of interces-
sory prayer, for instance, which may be related to a gift of faith but is not the same as
a gift of faith; no musical gifts are included on any list either, and neither is any gift of
casting out demons, even though Paul must have known that some Christians were more
effective in that area than others). And if we wished to divide up different kinds of service
or administration or evangelism or teaching, then we could quite easily have a list that
included fifty or even a hundred items. 12
The point of all of this is simply to say that God gives the church an amazing variety
of spiritual gifts, and they are all tokens of his varied grace. In fact, Peter says as much:
“As each has received a gift, employ it for one another, as good stewards of God’s varied
grace” (1 Peter 4:10; the word “varied” here ispoikilos , which means “having many facets
or aspects; having rich diversity”).
The practical outcome of this discussion is that we should be willing to recognize and
appreciate people who have gifts that differ from ours and whose gifts may differ from
our expectations of what certain gifts should look like. Moreover, a healthy church will
have a great diversity of gifts, and this diversity should not lead to fragmentation but
to greater unity among believers in the church. Paul’s whole point in the analogy of the
body with many members (1 Cor. 12:12-26) is to say that God has put us in the body
with these differences so that we might depend on each other. “The eye cannot say to the
hand, T have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, T have no need of you.’ On
the contrary, the parts of the body which seem to be weaker are indispensable” (1 Cor.
12:21-22; cf. vv. 4-6). It runs counter to the world’s way of thinking to say that we will
enjoy greater unity when we join closely together with those who are different from us,
but that is precisely the point that Paul makes in 1 Corinthians 12, demonstrating the
glory of God’s wisdom in not allowing anyone to have all the necessary gifts for the
church, but in requiring us to depend upon each other for the proper functioning of
the church.
4. Gifts May Vary in Strength. Paul says that if we have the gift of prophecy, we should
use it “in proportion to our faith” (Rom. 12:6), indicating that the gift can be more
or less strongly developed in different individuals, or in the same individual over a
period of time. This is why Paul can remind Timothy, “Do not neglect the gift you
have” (1 Tim. 4:14), and can say, “I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within
you” (2 Tim. 1:6). It was possible for Timothy to allow his gift to weaken, apparently
through infrequent use, and Paul reminds him to stir it up by using it and thereby
strengthening it. This should not be surprising, for we realize that many gifts increase
n This classification is from Dennis and Rita Bennett, The 12 This variety of ways of classifying gifts allows us to say
Holy Spirit and You (Plainfield, N.J.: Logos International, 1971), that many types of classification are possible for teaching pur-
p. 83. The Bennetts’ actual categorization is gifts of revelation, poses, but we should beware of any claim that a certain way of
gifts of power, and inspirational or fellowship gifts, and they list classifying or listing gifts is the only valid one, for Scripture
them in reverse order to what I have given here. does not limit us to any one scheme of classification.
CHAPTER 52 ■ GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (1)
1023
in strength and effectiveness as they are used, whether evangelism, teaching, encourag-
ing, administration, or faith. Apollos had a strong gift of preaching and teaching, for
we read that he was “mighty (or “powerful,” Gk. dynatos) in the Scriptures” (Acts 18:24
NASB). And Paul apparently had a frequently used and very effective gift of speaking
in tongues because he says, “I thank God that I speak in tongues more than you all”
(1 Cor. 14:18). 13
All of these texts indicate that spiritual gifts may vary in strength. If we think of any
gift, whether teaching or evangelism on the one hand, or prophecy or healing on the
other, we should realize that within any congregation there will likely be people who are
very effective in the use of that gift (perhaps through long use and experience), others
who are moderately strong in that gift, and others who probably have the gift but are just
beginning to use it. This variation in strength in spiritual gifts depends on a combination
of divine and human influence. The divine influence is the sovereign working of the Holy
Spirit as he “apportions to each one individually as he wills” (1 Cor. 12:11). The human
influence comes from experience, training, wisdom, and natural ability in the use of that
gift. It is usually not possible to know in what proportion the divine and human influ-
ences combine at any one time, nor is it really necessary to know, for even the abilities
we think to be “natural” are from God (1 Cor. 4:7) and under his sovereign control (see
chapter 16 on God’s providence and human responsibility).
But this leads to an interesting question: how strong does an ability have to be before
it can be called a spiritual gift? How much teaching ability does someone need before he
or she could be said to have a gift of teaching, for example? Or how effective in evange-
lism would someone need to be before we would recognize a gift of evangelism? Or how
frequently would someone have to see prayers for healing answered before he or she could
be said to have a gift of healing?
Scripture does not directly answer this question, but the fact that Paul speaks of these
gifts as useful for the building up of the church (1 Cor. 14:12), and the fact that Peter
likewise says that each person who has received a gift should remember to employ it “for
one another” (1 Peter 4:10), suggest that both Paul and Peter thought of gifts as abilities
that were strong enough to function for the benefit of the church , whether for the assembled
congregation (as in prophecy or teaching), or for individuals at various times in the
congregation (as helps or encouragement).
Probably no definite line can be drawn in this matter, but Paul does remind us that
not all have every gift or any one gift. He is quite clear in this in a set of questions that
expect the answer no at each point: “Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers?
Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all
interpret?” (1 Cor. 12:29-30). The Greek text (with the particle me before each ques-
tion) clearly expects the answer no to every question. Therefore, not all are teachers, for
example, nor do all possess gifts of healing, nor do all speak in tongues.
But even though not all have the gift of teaching, it is true that all people “teach” in
some sense of the word teach. Even people who would never dream of teaching a Sunday
school class will read Bible stories to their own children and explain the meaning to
13 See also 1 Cor. 13:1-3 where Paul gives examples of some which he uses to show that even such gifts without love would
gifts developed to the highest imaginable degree, examples bring no benefit.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1024
them — indeed, Moses commanded the Israelites to do this very thing with their children
(Deut. 6:7), explaining Gods words to them as they sat in their house or walked on the
road. So we must say on the one hand that not everyone has the gift of teaching. But on
the other hand we must say that there is some general ability related to the gift of teach-
ing that all Christians have. Another way of saying this would be to say that there is no
spiritual gift that all believers have, yet there is some general ability similar to every gift
that all Christians have.
We can see this with a number of gifts. Not all Christians have a gift of evangelism, but
all Christians have the ability to share the gospel with their neighbors. Not all Christians
have gifts of healing (in fact, as we shall see below, some people say that no one today has
genuine gifts of healing), but nevertheless every Christian can and does pray for God to
heal friends or relatives who are ill. Not every Christian has the gift of faith, but every
believer has some degree of faith, and we would expect it to be growing in the life of an
ordinary Christian.
We can even say that other gifts, such as prophecy and speaking in tongues, not only
vary in strength among those who have the gift, but also find a counterpart in some gen-
eral abilities that are found in the life of every Christian. For example, if we understand
prophecy (according to the definition given in chapter 53) 14 to be “reporting something
that God spontaneously brings to mind,” then it is true that not everyone experiences this
as a gift, for not everyone experiences God spontaneously bringing things to mind with
such clarity and force that he or she feels free to speak about them among an assembled
group of Christians. But probably every believer has at one time or another had a sense
that God was bringing to mind the need to pray for a distant friend or to write or phone a
word of encouragement to someone distant, and later has found that that was exactly the
thing that was needed at the moment. Few would deny that God sovereignly brought that
need to mind in a spontaneous way, and, though this would not be called a gift of proph-
ecy, it is a general ability to receive special direction or guidance from God that is similar
to what happens in the gift of prophecy, although it is functioning at a weaker level.
We can even consider the gift of speaking in tongues from this perspective. If we think
of speaking in tongues as prayer in syllables not understood by the speaker (see 1 Cor.
14:2, 14), 15 then it is true that not every Christian has the gift of speaking in tongues (and
once again it must be said that some Christians would argue that no one has that gift
today, since the age of the apostles has ended). But on the other hand we must recognize
that every Christian has times of prayer in which his or her prayer is expressed not only
in intelligible words and syllables, but also in terms of sighs, groans, or weeping that we
know is understood and heard by the Lord, and that expresses needs and concerns of our
hearts that we cannot fully put into words (cf. Rom. 8:26-27). Once again we should
not call this a gift of speaking in tongues, but it does seem to be a general ability in our
Christian lives that is somewhat related to the gift of speaking in tongues, in that it gives
expression to prayer in syllables that we do not fully understand, but that the Holy Spirit
nonetheless makes into effective prayer that is heard by God.
14 See chapter 53, pp. 1049-61, for a definition of the gift of l5 See also the discussion of the gift of speaking in tongues
prophecy in the church. in chapter 53, pp. 1069 - 79.
CHAPTER 52 • GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (1)
1025
The point of this whole discussion is simply to say that spiritual gifts are not as mys-
terious and “other worldly” as people sometimes make them out to be. Many of them are
only intensifications or highly developed instances of phenomena that most Christians
experience in their own lives. The other important point to be drawn from this discus-
sion is that even though we have been given gifts by God, we are still responsible to use
them effectively, and to seek to grow in their use that the church may receive more benefit
from the gifts of which God has allowed us to be stewards.
Finally, the fact that gifts may vary in strength allows us to recognize that a cer-
tain person’s gift (such as teaching or administration, for example) may not be strong
enough to function for the benefit of the entire church in a large church where many
people already have that gift developed to a very high degree. But that same person,
moving to a younger, smaller church where few have gifts of teaching or administra-
tion, may find that his or her gifts are very much in demand and able to function for
the benefit of the entire congregation. (In this sense, something that is only considered
a general ability in one setting might rightly be considered a spiritual gift in another
setting.)
5. Do Christians Possess Gifts Temporarily or Permanently? In most cases, it seems
that the New Testament pictures a permanent possession of spiritual gifts. The analogy of
the parts ofthebodyin 1 Corinthians 12:12-26 fits this, in that the eye does not become
a hand, nor does the ear become a foot, but various parts exist in the body permanently. 16
Moreover, Paul says that some people have titles that describe a continuing function.
Some people can be called “prophets” or “teachers” (1 Cor. 12:29) or “evangelists” (Eph.
4:11). We would expect that those people have a permanent possession of the gifts of
prophecy, teaching, and evangelism, unless some unusual circumstance would come
along which would take that gift away. Similarly, Paul talks in terms of possessing spiri-
tual gifts when he says, “If I have the gift of prophecy” (1 Cor. 13:2 NIV). And when Paul
requires that there be an interpreter present for anyone to speak in tongues (1 Cor. 14:28),
he assumes that the church will know whether someone who has the gift of interpretation
is present, which implies that that gift would be possessed by someone over time. When
he says, “If any one thinks that he is a prophet” (1 Cor. 14:37), he realizes that some at
Corinth will have functioned with the gift of prophecy frequently enough to think of
themselves as “prophets.” All of these verses point in the direction of a permanent, or at
least abiding and continuing, possession of spiritual gifts.
Indeed, in Romans 12, Paul begins his sentence, “Having gifts that differ according to
the grace given to us” (Rom. 12:6). And he tells Timothy, “Do not neglect the gift that is
in you” (1 Tim. 4:14, literal translation), again indicating that Timothy had had that gift
over a period of time. Therefore it seems that in general the New Testament indicates that
people have spiritual gifts given to them and, once they have them, they are usually able
to continue to use them over the course of their Christian life.
16 We should not press the metaphor of the body too far, of the metaphor does suggest some degree of stability or perma-
course, for people do receive other gifts, and Paul even encour- nence in the possession of gifts,
ages people to seek additional spiritual gifts (1 Cor. 14:1). But
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1026
However, some important qualifications must be made, because there are some
senses in which gifts are not permanent. There are some gifts that are nonpermanent
by their very nature, such as the gifts of marriage and celibacy (1 Cor. 7:7). Though
Paul calls them gifts, in the lives of most believers there will be times at which they are
unmarried, and times at which they are married. Moreover, some gifts, though perhaps
exercised fairly frequently, still cannot be exercised at will. Effectiveness in the gift of
healing, for example, depends on God’s sovereign will in answering prayer for healing.
Similarly, prophecy depends on the giving of a spontaneous “revelation” (1 Cor. 14:30)
from God, and simply cannot be exercised at will. The same could even be said about
the gift of evangelism: It is ultimately the work of the Holy Spirit to bring regeneration
and enable someone to believe, so the evangelist may pray and preach, but only God can
give the harvest of souls.
In other cases, some particular gift may be given for a unique need or event. Though
it is not, strictly speaking, a spiritual gift in the New Testament sense, the return of
Samson’s strength one last time at the end of his life (Judg. 16:28) was given temporarily
for one final moment in his life. And, in the New Testament, the remarkable revelation
of heaven Stephen had when he, “full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the
glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God” (Acts 7:55) was a manifesta-
tion of the Spirit given to him only for that specific moment.
Another sense in which a gift may be non-permanent is if a person neglects his or
her gift, and perhaps grieves the Holy Spirit or falls into serious doctrinal or moral
error (as Samson did in the Old Testament, for example). In such a case the gift may be
withdrawn. Certainly Paul warned Timothy, “Do not neglect the gift you have” (1 Tim.
4:14), and we may perhaps also learn from the parable of the talents, in which Jesus says
that “to every one who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from
him who has not, even what he has will be taken away” (Matt. 25:29). 17
Moreover, we must remember that the Holy Spirit is still sovereign in distributing gifts:
he “apportions to each one individually as he wills ” (1 Cor. 12:11). The word here trans-
lated “apportions” is a present participle, which indicates continuing activity over time,
and we could paraphrase, “The Holy Spirit is always continuing to distribute or apportion
gifts to each person individually just as he wills to do.” This means that, although it is
ordinarily the custom of the Holy Spirit to continue to empower the same gift or gifts
in people over time, nonetheless, there is a continual willing and deciding of the Holy
Spirit to do this or not, and he may for his own reasons withdraw a gift for a time, or
cause it to be much stronger or much weaker than it was.
Finally, 1 Corinthians 13:8-13 (to be discussed below) indicates that the present
spiritual gifts which we have are only for this age, and will be superseded by something
far greater. Therefore in that sense no gift is “permanent” since every gift will be ren-
dered useless at the time of the Lord’s return.
Within this discussion of the question of whether spiritual gifts are temporary or
permanent, sometimes Romans 11:29 is mentioned: “For the gifts and the call of God
17 Although the primary point of this parable has to do given, and it is not unreasonable to expect that God would
with rewards at the final judgment, it nonetheless encour- act toward us in that way, at least in principle, in this life
ages faithfulness in stewardship with what one has been as well.
CHAPTER 52 * GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (1)
1027
are irrevocable.” It does not seem to be appropriate to use the verse in the context of this
discussion, however, for in this case Paul is talking about the status of the Jewish people,
including their calling as God’s people and the gifts or blessings bestowed on them as
a result of that status. Here Paul is arguing that God still has a purpose for his people
Israel, but the question of gifts of the Holy Spirit in the sense of 1 Corinthians 12-14
is not in view at all in Romans 11:29. And certainly in any case this sentence would not
be true as a totally unrestricted statement concerning spiritual gifts, for it is evident
that through misuse, neglect, or grieving of the Holy Spirit, people can have their gifts
diminished or removed by God’s sovereign choice.
6. Are Gifts Miraculous or Nonmiraculous? The answer to this question really depends
on the definition of the word miracle . If we define miracle as “a direct activity of God in
the world,” then all the spiritual gifts are miraculous because they are all empowered
by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12:11; cf. vv. 4-6). But in that sense everything that happens
in the world might be said to be miraculous, because all of it is brought about by God’s
providential work in creation (see Eph. 1:11; Dan. 4:35; Matt. 5:45). 18 Therefore the
word miracle loses its usefulness, because it is difficult for us to find something that
happens in the world that is not miraculous in this sense.
It is better to define miracle in a narrower sense, as we did in chapter 17, above: “A
miracle is a less common activity of God in which he arouses people’s awe and won-
der and bears witness to himself.” 19 In terms of this definition, only some gifts are
“miraculous”: namely, those gifts that people think to be miraculous because they are
amazed at the activity of God operating in them. Certainly we would include in this
category prophecy (note the amazement of the unbeliever in 1 Cor. 14:24-25), heal-
ing (similarly, note the response of people in Acts 3:10 et al.), casting out of demons
(see Acts 19:11-13, 17), or speaking in tongues when it is an actual foreign language
and understood by others (see the description of Pentecost in Acts 2:7). Probably
other remarkable phenomena would be included in the gift of miracles (1 Cor. 12:10)
as well.
On the other hand, in this definition, some gifts would be thought of as nonmiracu-
lous. Gifts of serving, teaching, encouraging, contributing, and doing acts of mercy (in
Rom. 12:7-8) would fall in this category, as would the gifts of those who act as helpers
and administrators (1 Cor. 12:28). But it is still the same Holy Spirit who gives them
and works through them.
The point of this analysis is to caution us against making a supernatural/natural
distinction in our minds whereby we think that some gifts are “supernatural” and
some gifts are simply “natural.” The Bible makes no such distinction, and the danger of
doing this is that we may tend to think that some gifts (which we think to be “supernat-
ural”) are more important or more clearly from the Lord, and we may tend to devalue
or deemphasize the gifts which we think to be “natural.” If we do this we will fail to see
God’s hand in the working of all the gifts and fail to thank him for all of them.
18 See the discussion of various definitions for the word 19 See chapter 17, p. 355.
miracle in chapter 17, pp. 355-56.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1028
On the other hand, the misleading supernatural/natural distinction could also
cause us to be very suspicious about those which we think to be “supernatural,” or
could lead us to think that they are very unlikely to happen in our own experience. In
that case, we would tend to emphasize the gifts we thought to be “natural” and have
a very low degree of expectation or faith regarding anything which we thought to be
“supernatural.”
In contrast to this perspective. Scripture says that “all” the gifts are worked in us by
the same Holy Spirit, the same Lord, and the same God (1 Cor. 12:4-6). The worldview
of Scripture is one of continuity and continual interaction between the visible world that
we can see and touch and the invisible world that Scripture tells us is there and is real.
God works in both, and we do ourselves and the church a great disservice by separating
these aspects of creation into “supernatural” and “natural.”
Finally, should we seek the more unusual or miraculous gifts, or should we seek the
more ordinary gifts? Once again, Scripture does not make this kind of distinction when
it tells us what kind of gifts to seek. Paul says to the Corinthians, “Since you are eager
for manifestations of the Spirit, strive to excel in building up the church ” (1 Cor. 14:12).
This means that we should learn which gifts are most needed in the church we attend,
and then pray that God would give those gifts to ourselves or to others. Whether those
gifts are thought to be miraculous or non-miraculous really is not the important point
at all. 20
7. Discovering and Seeking Spiritual Gifts. Paul seems to assume that believers will
know what their spiritual gifts are. He simply tells those in the church at Rome to use
their gifts in various ways: “if prophecy, in proportion to our faith ... he who contrib-
utes, in liberality; he who gives aid, with zeal; he who does acts of mercy, with cheerful-
ness” (Rom. 12:6-8). Similarly, Peter simply tells his readers how to use their gifts, but
does not say anything about discovering what they are: “As each has received a gift, employ
it for one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace” (1 Peter 4:10).
But what if many members in a church do not know what spiritual gift or gifts God
has given to them? In such a case, the leaders of the church need to ask whether they
are providing sufficient opportunities for varieties of gifts to be used. Though the lists
of gifts given in the New Testament are not exhaustive, they certainly provide a good
starting point for churches to ask whether at least there is opportunity for these gifts to
be used. If God has placed people with certain gifts in a church when these gifts are not
encouraged or perhaps not allowed to be used, they will feel frustrated and unfulfilled
in their Christian ministries, and will perhaps move to another church where their gifts
can function for the benefit of the church.
In the case of individuals who do not know what their gifts are, they can begin by
asking what the needs and opportunities for ministry are in their church. Specifically,
they can ask what gifts are most needed for the building up of the church at that point. In
addition, each individual believer who does not know what his or her gifts are should do
20 See chapter 17, pp. 369-71, for a discussion of the objection
that it is wrong to seek miraculous gifts or miracles today.
CHAPTER 52 • GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (1)
1029
some self-examination. What interests and desires and abilities does he or she have? Can
others give advice or encouragement pointing in the direction of specific gifts? Moreover,
has there been blessing in the past in ministering in a particular kind of service? In all of
this, the person seeking to discover his or her gifts should pray and ask God for wisdom,
confident that it will be given according to his promise, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let
him ask God, who gives to all men generously and without reproaching, and it will be
given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting” (James 1:5-6). Sometimes God
will grant this wisdom in terms of more accurate insight into one’s own abilities. At other
times it may come through advice from others or through seeing increased blessing in
one area of ministry. And Paul indicates that in some cases there may be prophecy that
gives indication of a specific gift, for he says to Timothy, “Do not neglect the gift you have,
which was given you through prophecy with the laying on of hands of the council of elders”
(1 Tim. 4:14, authors translation).
Finally, the person wondering what his or her spiritual gifts are should simply begin
to try ministering in various areas and see where God brings blessing. Teaching a Sunday
school class or home Bible study is an excellent way to begin using the gift of teaching.
Every community has opportunities for greater use of the gift of evangelism. People
who think they may have a gift of healing could ask their elders for opportunities to
accompany them when they go to pray for the sick. People who think they may have a
gift of faith or a gift of intercessory prayer could begin to ask some Christian friends for
specific needs about which to pray. In all of this, churches can give encouragement and
opportunities for people to try out using various gifts, and can also give teaching and
practical training in the proper methods of using various gifts. In addition, churches
should continually be praying that God would allow people to find what their gifts are
and then to be able to use them. In all of this the goal is that the body of Christ in each
location grow up to maturity, until “the whole body, joined and knit together by every
joint with which it is supplied, when each part is working properly, makes bodily growth
and upbuilds itself in love” (Eph. 4:16).
Beyond the question of discovering what gifts one has is the question of seeking addi-
tional spiritual gifts. Paul commands Christians, “ Earnestly desire the higher gifts” (1 Cor.
12:31), and says later, “Make love your aim, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, espe-
cially that you may prophesy” (1 Cor. 14:1). In this context, Paul defines what he means
by “higher gifts” or “greater gifts” because in 1 Corinthians 14:5 he repeats the word he
used in 12:31 for “higher” (Gk. meizon) when he says, “He who prophesies is greater than
he who speaks in tongues, unless someone interprets, so that the church may be edified ”
(1 Cor. 14:5). Here the “greater” gifts are those that most edify the church. This is con-
sistent with Paul’s statement a few verses later, when he says, “since you are eager for
manifestations of the Spirit, strive to excel in building up the church” (1 Cor. 14:12). The
higher gifts are those that build up the church more and bring more benefit to others.
But how do we seek more spiritual gifts? First, we should ask God for them. Paul says
directly that “he who speaks in a tongue should pray for the power to interpret ” (1 Cor.
14:13; cf. James 1:5, where James tells people that they should ask God for wisdom).
Next, people who seek additional spiritual gifts should have right motives. If spiritual
gifts are sought only so that the person may be more prominent or have more influence
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1030
or power, this certainly is wrong in God’s eyes. This was the motivation of Simon the
Sorcerer in Acts 8:19, when he said, “Give me also this power, that any one on whom I
lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit” (see Peter’s rebuke in vv. 21-22). Similarly,
Ananias and Sapphira sought glory for themselves when they purported to be giving
the entire proceeds of the sale of their land to the church, but it was not true, and both
lost their lives (Acts 5:1 — 11). It is a fearful thing to want spiritual gifts or prominence
in the church only for our own glory, not for the glory of God and for the help of others.
Therefore those who seek spiritual gifts must first ask if they are seeking them out of
love for others and a concern to be able to minister to their needs, because those who
have great spiritual gifts but “have not love” are “nothing” in God’s sight (cf. 1 Cor.
13:1-3). This is why Paul says, “Make love your aim,” and only after that adds, “and
earnestly desire the spiritual gifts” (1 Cor. 14:1). He repeats the same theme again when
he says, “since you are eager for manifestations of the Spirit, strive to excel in building
up the church” (1 Cor. 14:12). Every person asking God for an additional spiritual gift
should search his or her own heart frequently, asking why this particular gift is desired.
Is it really out of a love for others and a desire to build up the church and to see God
glorified?
After that, it is appropriate to seek opportunities to try the gift, just as in the case of
a person trying to discover his or her gift, as explained above. Small group Bible stud-
ies or prayer meetings in homes often provide a good setting in which people can try
gifts of teaching or intercessory prayer or encouragement or prophecy or healing, for
example.
Finally, those who are seeking additional spiritual gifts should continue to use the
gifts they now have, and should be content if God chooses not to give them more. The
master approved of the servant whose pound had “made ten pounds more,” but con-
demned the one who hid his pound in a napkin and did nothing with it (Luke 19:16-17,
20-23) — certainly showing us that we have responsibility to use and attempt to increase
whatever talents or abilities God has given to us as his stewards.
To balance this emphasis on seeking and growing in spiritual gifts we must also
remember that Paul clearly says that spiritual gifts are apportioned to each person indi-
vidually by the Holy Spirit “as he wills” (1 Cor. 12:11), and that “God arranged the
organs in the body, each one of them, as he chose” (1 Cor. 12:18). He says that God has
put various gifts in the church and not all are apostles or prophets or teachers (1 Cor.
12:28-30). In this way he reminds the Corinthians that ultimately the distribution of
gifts is a matter of God’s sovereign will, and it is for the good of the church and for our
good that none of us have all of the gifts, and that we will need continually to depend on
others who have gifts differing from ours. These considerations should make us content
if God chooses not to give us the other gifts that we seek.
8. Gifts Are Tools for Ministry, and Not Necessarily Related to Christian Maturity.
We must recognize that spiritual gifts are given to every believer (1 Cor. 12:7, 11; 1
Peter 4:10). Even immature Christians receive spiritual gifts from the Lord — this was
certainly evident in the Corinthian church, which had an abundance of spiritual gifts
(1 Cor. 1:7), but was still very immature in many areas of doctrine and conduct. Paul
CHAPTER 52 • GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (1)
1031
says, “But I, brethren, could not address you as spiritual men, but as men of the flesh,
as babes in Christ” (1 Cor. 3:1). So spiritual gifts are not necessarily a sign of spiritual
maturity. It is possible to have remarkable spiritual gifts in one area or another but
still be quite immature in doctrinal understanding or in Christian conduct, as was the
case at Corinth. Indeed, on occasion even unbelievers are able to prophesy and cast out
demons and do miracles, for Jesus says that at the last day many will say to him, “Lord,
Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do
many mighty works in your name?” But Jesus will declare to them, “I never knew you;
depart from me, you evildoers” (Matt. 7:22-23). It is not that Jesus knew them once and
later did not know them; he says, “I never knew you.” They were never Christians, yet
they performed many remarkable works. So we must not evaluate spiritual maturity on
the basis of spiritual gifting . Maturity comes through a close walk with Jesus, and results
in obedience to his commands in everyday life: “He who says he abides in him ought to
walk in the same way in which he walked” (1 John 2:6).
Why then does the Holy Spirit give us spiritual gifts? They are given for the work of
ministry and are simply tools to be used for that end. They should never be a source of
personal pride on the part of those who possess them, nor should they be thought of as
a mark of maturity. We should strive simply to excel in loving others, caring for their
needs, building up the church, and living a life of conformity to the pattern of Christ’s
life. If we do that, and if God chooses to give us spiritual gifts that equip us for those
tasks, then we should thank him for that, and pray that he would keep us from pride
over gifts that have been freely and graciously given, and which we did not earn.
B. Have Some Gifts Ceased? The Cessationist Debate
Within the evangelical world today there are differing positions over the question,
“Are all the gifts mentioned in the New Testament valid for use in the church today?”
Some would say yes. 21 Others would say no, and would argue that some of the more
miraculous gifts (such as prophecy, tongues plus interpretation, and perhaps healing
and casting out of demons) were given only during the time of the apostles, as “signs” to
authenticate the apostles during the early preaching of the gospel. They state that these
gifts are no longer needed as signs today, and that they ceased at the end of the apostolic
age, probably at the end of the first century or beginning of the second century A.D.
We should also realize that there is a large “middle” group with respect to this ques-
tion, a group of “mainstream evangelicals” who are neither charismatics or Pentecostals
on the one hand, nor “cessationists” 22 on the other hand, but are simply undecided, and
unsure if this question can be decided from Scripture. 23
21 Many who say yes, such as the present author, would add
the qualification that “apostle” is an office, not a gift, and that
the office of apostle does not continue today (see chapter 47,
pp. 906- 12, for this argument).
22 Cessationist refers to someone who thinks that certain
miraculous spiritual gifts ceased long ago, when the apostles
died and Scripture was complete.
23 The discussion in the remainder of this section on the
cessationist debate is adapted from Wayne Grudem, The Gift
of Prophecy in the New Testament and Today (Eastbourne:
Kingsway, and Westchester, 111.: Crossway, 1988), pp. 227-52,
and is used by permission.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1032
Although some aspects of this question were discussed in chapter 17 on miracles,
there are some additional considerations that can be addressed here, specifically related
to the topic of spiritual gifts.
1. Does 1 Corinthians 13:8- 13 Tell Us When Miraculous Gifts Will Cease? Paul says:
Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will
cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For our knowledge is imperfect and
our prophecy is imperfect; but when the perfect comes , the imperfect will pass
away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned
like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a
mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand
fully, even as I have been fully understood. So faith, hope, love abide, these
three; but the greatest of these is love. (1 Cor. 13:8-13)
This passage is important to the discussion because in it Paul mentions the gift of
prophecy as something that is “imperfect,” and then says that what is “imperfect” will
pass away” (1 Cor. 13:10). He even says when this will happen: “when the perfect comes.”
But when is that? And even if we can determine when it is, does that mean that Paul had
in mind something that would answer this “cessation” question for the church today?
Can the gift of prophecy in this passage be representative of miraculous gifts in general
in the church age?
a. The Purpose of 1 Corinthians 13:8-13: Paul interrupts his discussion of spiritual
gifts with chapter 13 of 1 Corinthians, in which he intends to put the entire discussion
of gifts in proper perspective. It is not enough simply to “seek the greater gifts” (12:31a,
author’s translation). One must also “seek after love” (14:1, author’s translation), thus
coupling proper goals with proper motives. Without love, the gifts are without value
(13:1-3). In fact, Paul argues, love is superior to all the gifts and therefore it is more
important to act in love than to have any of the gifts.
In order to show the superiority of love, Paul argues that it lasts forever, whereas the
gifts are all temporary (13:8). Verses 9-12 further explain why the gifts are temporary.
Our present knowledge and prophesying are partial and imperfect (v. 9), but someday
something perfect will come to replace them (v. 10). This is explained by the analogy of
a child who gives up childish thought and speech for the thought and speech of an adult
(v. 11). Paul then elaborates further on verses 9- 10 by explaining that our present per-
ception and knowledge are indirect and imperfect, but that someday they will be direct
and perfect (v. 12).
In this argument Paul connects the function of prophecy with the time of its cessation.
It fills a certain need now, but does so only imperfectly. When “the perfect” comes, that
function will be better fulfilled by something else, and prophecy will cease because it
will be made obsolete or useless (this is the probable nuance of the Greek term used here,
katargeo, “pass away” in w. 8, 10). So the overall function of 1 Corinthians 13:8-13 is
to show that love is superior to gifts like prophecy because those gifts will pass away but
love will not pass away.
CHAPTER 52 • GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (1)
1033
b. 1 Corinthians 13:10: The Cessation of Prophecy When Christ Returns: Paul writes
in verse 10, “But when the perfect comes , the imperfect will pass away.” The phrase “the
imperfect” (Gk. ek merous, “partial, imperfect”) refers most clearly to knowing and
prophesying, the two activities that are said to be done “partially, imperfectly” in verse 9
(also using in both cases the same Greek phrase, ek merous ). To bring out this connection,
we could translate,
Love never fails. Whether there be prophecies, they will pass away; whether
there be tongues, they will cease; whether there be knowledge, it will pass away.
This is because we know imperfectly and we prophesy imperfectly — but when
the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away.
Thus, the strong links between the statements are made clear by the repetition of two key
terms, “pass away” and “imperfect.”
No doubt Paul also intended tongues to be included in the sense of verse 9 as among
those activities that are “imperfect,” but omitted overly pedantic repetition for stylistic
reasons. Yet tongues must be understood as part of the sense of verse 9, for verse 9 is the
reason for verse 8, as the word “for” (Gk. gar) shows. Thus verse 9 must give the reason
why tongues, as well as knowledge and prophecy, will cease. In fact, the repeated “if. . .
if . . . if” in verse 8 suggests that Paul could have listed more gifts here (wisdom, healing,
interpretation?) if he had wished.
So 1 Corinthians 13:10 could be paraphrased, “When the perfect is come, prophecy
and tongues and other imperfect gifts will pass away.” The only remaining problem is to
determine what time is meant by the word “when.” Several factors argue that the time of
the Lord’s return is what Paul has in mind.
(1) First, the meaning of verse 12 seems to require that verse 10 is talking about the
time of the Lord’s return. The word “then” (Gk. tote) in verse 12 refers to the time “when
the perfect comes” in verse 10. This is evident from looking at verse 12: “For now we see
in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know even as I
have been known” (author’s translation).
When shall we see “face to face”? When shall we know “even as we have been known”?
These events can only happen when the Lord returns.
The phrase “see face to face” is several times used in the Old Testament to refer to see-
ing God personally 24 — not fully or exhaustively, for no finite creature can ever do that,
but personally and truly nonetheless. So when Paul says, “but then face to face” he clearly
means, “but then we shall see God face to face.” Indeed, that will be the greatest blessing
of heaven and our greatest joy for all eternity (Rev. 22:4: “They shall see his face”).
The second half of verse 12 says, “Now I know in part; then I shall know even as I
have been known.” The second and third word for “know” — the one used for “Then I
shall know even as I have been known ,y — is a somewhat stronger word for knowing (Gk.
epiginosko), but certainly does not imply infinite knowledge or omniscience. Paul does
24 See, for example, Gen. 32:30 and Judg. 6:22 (exactly concept, and the same wording as some of the preceding
the same Greek wording as 1 Cor. 13:12); Deut. 5:4; 34:10; passages in Hebrew, but different wording this time in the Greek
Ezek. 20:35 (very similar wording); Ex. 33:11 (the same translation of the Septuagint).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1034
not expect to know all things, and he does not say, “Then I shall know all things,” which
would have been easy to say in Greek. 25 Rather, he means that when the Lord returns Paul
expects to be freed from the misconceptions and inabilities to understand (especially to
understand God and his work) which are part of this present life. His knowledge will
resemble God’s present knowledge of him because it will contain no false impressions
and will not be limited to what is able to be perceived in this age. But such knowledge will
only occur when the Lord returns.
Now what is the word “then” in verse 12 referring to? Paul says, “For now we see in a
mirror dimly, but then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; but then I shall know
even as I have been known” (author’s translation). His word “then” has to refer back to
something in the previous verses that he has been explaining. We look first to verse 11,
but see that nothing in verse 11 can be a future time Paul refers to as “then”: “When I was
a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a
man, I gave up childish ways.” All of this refers to the past, not the future. It speaks of past
events in Paul’s life byway of providing a natural human illustration of what he has said in
verse 10. But nothing in the verse speaks of a future time when something will happen.
So we look back to verse 10: “but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass
away.” Here is a statement about the future. At some point in the future, Paul says that
“the perfect” will come, and “the imperfect” will pass away, will be “made useless.” When
will this happen? This is what is explained by verse 12. Then , at the time the perfect
comes, we shall see “face to face” and know “even as we are known.”
This means that the time when “the perfect” comes must be the time of Christ’s
return. 26 Therefore, we can paraphrase verse 10: “But when Christ returns , the imperfect
will pass away.” 27 Or, to use our conclusion above that “the imperfect” included prophecy
and tongues, we can paraphrase, “But when Christ returns , prophecy and tongues (and
other imperfect gifts) will pass away Thus we have in 1 Corinthians 13:10 a definite state-
ment about the time of the cessation of imperfect gifts like prophecy: they will “be made
useless” or “pass away” when Christ returns. And this would imply that they will continue
to exist and be useful for the church, throughout the church age, including today, and
right up to the day when Christ returns.
(2) Another reason why the time when “the perfect” comes is the time when Christ
returns is also evident from the purpose of the passage: Paul is attempting to empha-
size the greatness of love, and in so doing he wants to establish that “Love never ends”
(1 Cor. 13:8). To prove his point he argues that it will last beyond the time when the
25 Greek epignosomai ta panta would say, “I shall know all sition of 1 Corinthians 12-14 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987),
things.” pp. 70 - 72, gives several similar reasons why the time “when
26 I have stated it this way because, more precisely, “the the perfect comes” must be the time of Christ’s return (with
perfect” in 1 Cor. 13:10 is not Christ himself, but is a method references to other views, and to the relevant literature),
of acquiring knowledge which is so superior to present knowl- Among “cessationists” (those who hold that gifts such as
edge and prophecy that it makes these two obsolete. For when prophecy have “ceased” and are not valid for today) , some,
this “perfect” comes it renders the imperfect useless. But only but not all, agree that the time “when the perfect comes”
the kind of knowledge Paul expected in the final consum- must be the time of Christ’s return: see John F. MacArthur,
mation of all things could be so qualitatively different from Jr., The Charismatics: A Doctrinal Perspective (Grand Rapids:
present knowledge that it could provide this kind of contrast Zondervan, 1978), pp. 165-66, and Richard B. Gaffin, Per-
and be called “the perfect” as opposed to “the imperfect.” spectives on Pentecost (Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and
27 D. A. Carson, Showing the Spirit: A Theological Expo- Reformed, 1979), p. 109.
CHAPTER 52 • GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (1)
1035
Lord returns, unlike present spiritual gifts. This makes a convincing argument: love is
so fundamental to God's plans for the universe that it will last beyond the transition
from this age to the age to come at Christ's return — it will continue for eternity.
(3) A third reason why this passage refers to the time of the Lord's return can be
found in a more general statement from Paul about the purpose of spiritual gifts in the
New Testament age. In 1 Corinthians 1:7 Paul ties the possession of spiritual gifts (Gk.
charismata) to the activity of waiting for the Lord's return: “you are not lacking in any
spiritual gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ.''
This suggests that Paul saw the gifts as a temporary provision made to equip believers
for ministry until the Lord returned. So this verse provides a close parallel to the thought
of 1 Corinthians 13:8-13, where prophecy and knowledge (and no doubt tongues) are
seen, similarly, as useful until Christ’s return but unnecessary beyond that time.
1 Corinthians 13:10, therefore, refers to the time of Christ’s return and says that these
spiritual gifts will last among believers until that time. This means that we have a clear
biblical statement that Paul expected these gifts to continue through the entire church
age and to function for the benefit of the church until the Lord returns.
c. Objections: Various objections to this conclusion have been raised, usually by those
who hold that these gifts have ceased in the church and should no longer be used.
(1) This Passage Does Not Specify When the Gifts Will Cease: The first objection to our
conclusion above comes from Richard Gaffin’s thoughtful study, Perspectives on Pente-
cost. While Dr. Gaffin agrees that “when the perfect comes” refers to the time of Christ’s
return, he does not think that this verse specifies the time of the cessation of certain
gifts. He thinks, rather, that Paul is just viewing “the entire period until Christ's return,
without regard to whether or not discontinuities may intervene during the course of this
period.” 28
In fact, Gaffin argues, Paul’s overall purpose is to emphasize the enduring qualities
of faith, hope, and love, especially love, and not to specify the time in which certain gifts
will cease. He says:
Paul is not intending to specify the time when any particular mode will cease.
What he does affirm is the termination of the believer’s present, fragmentary
knowledge . . . when “the perfect” comes. The time of the cessation of prophecy
and tongues is an open question so far as this passage is concerned and will have
to be decided on the basis of other passages and considerations. 29
He also says that, in addition to prophecy, tongues, and knowledge, Paul might just as
well have added “inscripturation,” too — and if he had done this, the list would then
have included an element that ceased long before Christ's return. (Inscripturation is the
process of writing Scripture.) So, Gaffin concludes, it might be true of some of the others
in the list as well.
In response to this objection it must be said that it does not do justice to the actual
words of the text. Evangelicals have rightly insisted (and I know that Dr. Gaffin agrees
28 Richard B. Gaffin, Perspectives on Pentecost> pp. 109- 10.
29 Ibid., p. 111.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1036
with this) that passages of Scripture are true not only in the main point of each passage,
but also in the minor details that are affirmed as well. The main point of the passage may
well be that love lasts forever, but another point, and certainly an important one as well,
is that verse 10 affirms not just that these imperfect gifts will cease sometime, but that
they will cease “when the perfect comes.” Paul specifies a certain time: “When the perfect
comes , the imperfect will pass away.” But Dr. Gaffin seems to claim that Paul is not actu-
ally saying this. Yet the force of the words cannot be avoided by affirming that the overall
theme of the larger context is something else.
In addition, Dr. Gaffin’s suggestion does not seem to fit with the logic of the passage.
Paul’s argument is that it is specifically the coming of “the perfect,” which does away with
prophecy, tongues, and knowledge, because then there is a new, far-superior way of learn-
ing and knowing things “even as I have been known.” But until that time, the new and
superior way of knowing has not come, and therefore these imperfect gifts are still valid
and useful. Finally, it is precarious to put much weight on something we think Paul might
have said but in fact did not say. To say that Paul might have included “inscripturation” in
this list means that Paul might have written, “When Christ returns, inscripturation will
cease.” But I cannot believe at all that Paul could have written such a statement, for it would
have been false — indeed, a “false prophecy” in the words of Scripture. For “inscriptura-
tion” ceased long ago, when the book of Revelation was written by the apostle John.
So Dr. Gaffin’s objections do not seem to overturn our conclusions on 1 Corinthians
13:10. If “the perfect” refers to the time of Christ’s return, then Paul says that gifts such
as prophecy and tongues will cease at that time, and implies therefore that they continue
through the church age.
(2) “When the Perfect Comes” in 1 Corinthians 13:10 Refers to a Time Earlier Than
the Time of the Lord’s Return: Those who make this second objection argue that “when
the perfect comes” means one of several different things, such as “when the church
is mature” or “when Scripture is complete” or “when the Gentiles are included in the
church.” Probably the most careful statement of this view is found in the book by Robert
L. Reymond, What About Continuing Revelations and Miracles in the Presbyterian Church
Today? 30 but another clear statement of a similar position is found in Walter Chantry’s
book, Signs of the Apostles 31
Chantry’s argument depends on the fact that elsewhere in 1 Corinthians the word
here translated “perfect” (Gk. teleios) is used to refer to human maturity (1 Cor. 14:20,
“in thinking be mature”) or to maturity in the Christian life (as in 1 Cor. 2:6). Yet here
again we must note that a word does not have to be used to refer to the same thing every
time it is used in Scripture — in some cases teleios may refer to “mature” or “perfect”
manhood, in other cases some other kind of “completeness” or “perfection.” The word
teleios is used in Hebrews 9:11, for example, to refer to the “more perfect tent” — yet we
30 Robert L. Reymond, What About Continuing Revelations
and Miracles in the Presbyterian Church Today? (Phillipsburg,
N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1977), pp. 32-34. Kenneth
L. Gentry, Jr., The Charismatic Gift of Prophecy: A Reformed
Analysis (Memphis, Tenn.: Whitefield Seminary Press, 1986),
pp. 31-33, lists both this view and the view of Dr. Gaffin (see
objection 1, above) as acceptable options. See also the entries
under Robert Thomas, Victor Budgen, and Thomas Edgar in
the bibliography to chapter 53, pp. 1084-87.
31 Walter J. Chantry, Signs of the Apostles y pp. 50-52.
CHAPTER 52 • GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (1)
1037
would not therefore conclude that “perfect” in 1 Corinthians 13:10 must refer to a perfect
tent. The precise referent of the word must be determined by the individual context, and
there, as we have seen, the context indicates that “when the perfect comes” refers to the
time of Christ’s return.
Dr. Reymond ’s argument is somewhat different. He reasons as follows (p. 34):
(a) “The imperfect” things mentioned in verses 9-10 — prophecy, tongues, and
knowledge — are incomplete means of revelation, “all relating to God’s making his will
known to his church.”
(b) “The perfect” in this context must refer to something in the same category as the
“imperfect” things.
(c) Therefore “the perfect” in this context must refer to a means of revelation, but a
completed one. And this completed means of God’s making his will known to his church
is Scripture.
(d) Conclusion: “When the perfect comes” refers to the time when the canon of
Scripture will be complete.
Reymond notes that he is not saying that “the perfect” refers exactly to the canon of
Scripture, but rather to “the completed revelatory process” that resulted in Scripture
(p. 32). And in response to the objection that “then we shall see face to face” in verse 12
refers to seeing God face to face, he answers that it may not mean this, but may simply
mean seeing “plainly” as opposed to “obscurely” (p. 32).
In response, it may be said that this argument, while careful and consistent in itself,
still depends on one prior assumption which is really the point at issue in this whole
discussion: the authority of New Testament prophecy and related gifts. Once Reymond
assumes that prophecy (and tongues and the kind of “knowledge” mentioned here) are
Scripture-quality revelation, the whole argument falls into place. The argument could
be recast as follows:
(a) Prophecy and tongues are Scripture-quality revelation.
(b) Therefore this whole passage is about Scripture-quality revelation.
(c) Therefore “the perfect” refers to the perfection or completion of Scripture-quality
revelation, or the completion of Scripture.
In such an argument the initial assumption determines the conclusion. However,
before this assumption can be made, it needs to be demonstrated from an inductive
analysis of the New Testament texts on prophecy. 32 Yet, to my knowledge, no such induc-
tive demonstration of the Scripture-quality authority of New Testament congregational
prophecy has been made.
Moreover, there are some other factors in the text of 1 Corinthians 13:8-13 that
are hard to reconcile with Reymond’s position. The regular Old Testament usage of
seeing “face to face” as an expression not just for seeing dearly but for personally see-
ing God (see above) remains unexplained. And the fact that Paul includes himself in
the expressions “Then we shall see face to face” and “Then I shall know even as I have
been known” make it difficult to view these as references to the time of the completion
32 See chapter 53, pp. 1049-61, for a fuller discussion of the
gift of prophecy; also Wayne Grudem, The Gift of Prophecy in
the New Testament and Today.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1038
of Scripture. Does Paul really think that when the other apostles finally finish their con-
tributions to the New Testament he will suddenly gain such a remarkable change in his
knowledge that he will know as he has been known, and will go from seeing in a mirror
dimly to seeing face to face?
In addition to the views of Reymond and Chantry, there have been other attempts to
see “when the perfect comes” as some time before Christ’s return, but we will not treat
them in detail here. Such views all break down at verse 12, where Paul implies that believ-
ers will see God “face to face” “when the perfect comes.” This cannot be said about the
time suggested in any of these other proposals.
The proposal about the completion of the canon of New Testament Scripture (the
group of writings that came to be included in the New Testament) also fails to fit Paul’s
purpose in the context. If we take A.D. 90 as the approximate date of the writing of Reve-
lation, the last New Testament book written, then the end of the writing of Scripture came
about thirty-five years after Paul wrote 1 Corinthians (about A.D. 55). But would it be
persuasive to argue as follows: “We can be sure that love will never end, for we know that
it will last more than thirty- five years”? This would hardly be a convincing argument.
The context requires rather that Paul be contrasting this age with the age to come, and
saying that love will endure into eternity. 33 In fact, we see a similar procedure elsewhere in
1 Corinthians. When Paul wants to demonstrate the eternal value of something, he does
this by arguing that it will last beyond the day of the Lord’s return (cf, 1 Cor. 3:13-15;
15:51-58). By contrast, prophecy and other gifts will not last beyond that day.
Finally, these proposals fail to find any support in the immediate context. Whereas
Christ’s return is mentioned clearly in verse 12, no verse in this section mentions anything
about the completion of Scripture or a collection of the books of the New Testament or
the inclusion of the Gentiles in the church or the “maturity” of the church (whatever that
means — is the church really mature even today?). All of these suggestions bring in new
elements not found in the context to replace the one element — Christ’s return — which
clearly is right there in the context already. In fact, Richard Gaffin, who himself holds
that the gift of prophecy is not valid for today, nevertheless says that the “perfect” in verse
10 and the “then” in verse 12 “no doubt refer to the time of Christ’s return. The view that
they describe the point at which the New Testament canon is completed cannot be made
credible exegetically.” 34
Dr. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones observes that the view that makes “when the perfect
comes” equal the time of the completion of the New Testament encounters another
difficulty:
It means that you and I, who have the Scriptures open before us, know much
more than the apostle Paul of God’s truth. ... It means that we are altogether
superior . . . even to the apostles themselves, including the apostle Paul! It
33 Some argue that faith and hope will not endure in and hope in heaven. (See Carson’s good discussion of faith,
heaven, so 1 Cor. 13:13 only means that faith and hope last hope, and love as “eternally permanent virtues” in Showing
until, not beyond, Christ’s return. However, if faith is depen- the Spirit , pp. 74-75.)
dence on God and trust in him, and if hope is a confident 34 Gaffin, Perspectives y p. 109; cf. Max Turner, “Spiritual
expectation of future blessings to be received from God, then Gifts Then and Now,” Vox Evangelica 15 (1985), p. 38.
there is no reason to think that we will cease to have faith
CHAPTER 52 • GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (1)
1039
means that we are now in a position in which . . . “we know, even as also we are
known” by God . . . indeed, there is only one word to describe such a view, it is
nonsense. 35
John Calvin, referring to 1 Corinthians 13:8-13, says, “It is stupid of people to make
the whole of this discussion apply to the intervening time.” 36
2. Would the Continuation of Prophecy Today Challenge the
Sufficiency of Scripture?
a. The Authority of the Gift of Prophecy: Those who take a “cessationist” view argue
that once the last New Testament book was written (probably the book of Revelation
around A.D. 90), there were to be no more “words of God” spoken or written in the
church. This is especially relevant for the gift of prophecy, according to the cessationist
position, because from that point on Scripture was the complete and sufficient source
of God’s words for his people. To add any more words from continuing prophetic utter-
ances would be, in effect, either to add to Scripture or to compete with Scripture. In both
cases, the sufficiency of Scripture itself would be challenged, and, in practice, its unique
authority in our lives compromised.
Now i/ New Testament congregational prophecy was like Old Testament prophecy
and New Testament apostolic words in its authority, then this cessationist objection
would indeed be true, if prophets today, for example, spoke words that we knew were
the very words of God, then these words would be equal to Scripture in authority, and
we would be obligated to write them down and add them to our Bibles whenever we
heard them. But if we are convinced that God stopped causing Scripture to be written
when the book of Revelation was completed, then we have to say that this kind of speech,
uttering the very words of God, cannot happen today. And any claims to have “new”
Scripture, “new” words of God, must be rejected as false.
This question is very important, because the claim that New Testament congregational
prophecy had authority equal to Scripture is the basis of many cessationist arguments.
Yet it must be noted that noncessationists themselves do not seem to view prophecy that
way. George Mallone writes, “To my knowledge no noncessationist in the mainstream
of Christianity claims that revelation today is equal with Scripture.” 37 Perhaps it would
be good for those arguing against continuing prophecy today to give a more sympathetic
hearing to the most responsible charismatic writers, simply for the purpose of being able
to respond to something that charismatics actually believe (even if not always expressed
in theologically precise form), instead of responding to something that cessationists say
that charismatics believe or say that charismatics should believe.
Furthermore, aside from the question of current practice or belief, I have argued
extensively elsewhere that ordinary congregational prophecy in New Testament churches
35 D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Prove All Things , ed. by Chris-
topher Catherwood (Eastbourne, England: Kingsway, 1985),
pp. 32-33.
36 John Calvin, The First Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the
CorinthianSy trans. by J. W. Fraser, ed. by D. W. Torrance and
T. F. Torrance (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1960), p. 281 (on 1
Cor. 13:10).
37 George Mallone, ed., Those Controversial Gifts (Downers
Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press, 1983), p. 21.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1040
did not have the authority of Scripture . 38 It was not spoken in words that were the very
words of God, but rather in merely human words. And because it has this lesser authority,
there is no reason to think that it will not continue in the church until Christ returns. It
does not threaten or compete with Scripture in authority but is subject to Scripture, as
well as to the mature judgment of the congregation.
b. The Question of Guidance: Another objection is sometimes raised at this point. Some
will argue that even if those who use the gift of prophecy today say that it does not equal
Scripture in authority, in fact it functions in their lives to compete with or even replace
Scripture in giving guidance concerning Gods will. Thus, prophecy today, it is said,
challenges the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture for guidance in our lives.
Here it must be admitted that many mistakes have been made in the history of the
church. John MacArthur points to the way in which the idea of further revelations has
given rise to many heretical movements in the church . 39
But here the question must be, Are abuses necessary to the functioning of the gift of
prophecy? If we are to argue that mistakes and abuses of a gift make the gift itself invalid,
then we would have to reject Bible teaching too (for many Bible teachers have taught error
and started cults), and church administration as well (for many church leaders have led
people astray), and so forth. The abuse of a gift does not mean that we must prohibit the
proper use of the gift, unless it can be shown that there cannot be proper use — that all
use has to be abuse . 40
Moreover, specifically with respect to guidance, it is good to note how cautious many
in the charismatic movement are about the use of prophecy to give specific guidance.
Several quotations will illustrate this point.
Michael Harper (Church of England):
38 For further discussion of the authority of the gift of proph-
ecy, see chapter 53, pp. 1049-61. See also Wayne Grudem, The
Gift of Prophecy in 1 Corinthians; Wayne Grudem, The Gift of
Prophecy in the New Testament and Today; D. A. Carson, Show-
ing the Spirit: A Theological Exposition of 1 Corinthians 12-14>
pp. 91-100; Graham Houston, Prophecy: A Gift For Today?
(Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press, 1989). (Alternative
views are noted in the discussion in chapter 53; see esp. the book
by Richard Gaffin, Perspectives on Pentecost.)
39 John F. MacArthur, Jr., The Charismatics: A Doctri-
nal Perspective , chapters 2-6; see esp. pp. 27ff. MacArthur
has expanded his criticisms in an updated edition, Charis-
matic Chaos (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992), pp. 47-84.
A thoughtful and extensive critique of MacArthur is found
in Rich Nathan, A Response to Charismatic Chaos (Anaheim,
Calif.: Association of Vineyard Churches, 1993).
40 Some may object that prophecy has more potential for
abuse than other gifts because the idea that God can reveal
things to people today (in prophecies) inevitably leads to com-
petition with the authority of Scripture. In response, three
points can be made: (1) Teaching on the fallible nature of all
contemporary prophecies has not been as extensive as needed
to prevent abuse, especially at the popular level, among groups
that allow prophecy today. Therefore there has been more
misuse of prophecy than there should have been. Even where
strong cautions have been proclaimed, there has seldom been
an explanation of how prophecy can be from God but still not
equal to God’s words in authority — that is, very few Pentecos-
tal or charismatic writers have explained prophecy as a human
report of something that God has spontaneously brought to
mind (the view which I defend in chapter 53, pp. 1049-61).
(However, see the helpful cautions from several charismatic
writers in the following paragraphs in the text above.) (2) It
is simply not true that teaching a congregation that prophecy
must always be subject to Scripture inevitably leads people
to exalt prophecies above Scripture. This will happen where
such teaching is neglected, not where it is propagated. (3) If
the Bible indeed teaches that prophecy can be expected to
continue today in a form that does not challenge scriptural
authority, then we are not free to reject it because we recognize
a potential for abuse. (Other gifts have potential for abuse in
other areas.) Rather, we should encourage the gift and do our
best to guard against abuse.
CHAPTER 52 • GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (1)
1041
Prophecies which tell other people what they are to do — are to be regarded with
great suspicion. 41
Dennis and Rita Bennett (American Episcopalians):
We should also be careful of personal, directive prophecy, especially outside
the ministry of a mature and submitted man of God. Unrestrained “personal
prophecy” did much to undermine the movement of the Holy Spirit which
began at the turn of the century. . . . Christians are certainly given words for one
another “in the Lord” . . . and such words can be most refreshing and helpful,
but there must be a witness of the Spirit on the part of the person receiving the
words, and extreme caution should be used in receiving any alleged directive
or predictive prophecy. Never undertake any project simply because you were
told to by presumed prophetic utterance or interpretation of tongues, or by a
presumed word of wisdom, or knowledge. Never do something just because a
friend comes to you and says: “The Lord told me to tell you to do thus and thus.”
If the Lord has instructions for you, He will give you a witness in your own
heart, in which case the words coming from a friend . . . will be a confirmation
to what God has already been showing you. Your guidance must also agree with
Scripture 42
Donald Gee (Assemblies of God):
[There are] grave problems raised by the habit of giving and receiving personal
“messages” of guidance through the gifts of the Spirit The Bible gives a place
for such direction from the Holy Spirit But it must be kept in proportion.
An examination of the Scriptures will show us that as a matter of fact the early
Christians did not continually receive such voices from heaven. In most cases
they made their decisions by the use of what we often call “sanctified common-
sense” and lived quite normal lives. Many of our errors where spiritual gifts are
concerned arise when we want the extraordinary and exceptional to be made
the frequent and habitual. Let all who develop excessive desire for “messages”
through the gifts take warning from the wreckage of past generations as well as
of contemporaries The Holy Scriptures are a lamp unto our feet and a light
unto our path. 43
On the other hand, even among very Reformed cessationists, there is a willingness to
admit some kind of continuing “illumination” by the Holy Spirit in believers’ lives. For
example, Westminster Seminary professor Richard Gaffin says,
Often, too, what is seen as prophecy is actually a spontaneous, Spirit-worked
application of Scripture, a more or less sudden grasp of the bearing that biblical
“Michael Harper, Prophecy: A Gift for the Body of Christ 43 Donald Gee, Spiritual Gifts in the Work of Ministry
(Plainhill, N.J.: Logos, 1964), p. 26. Today (Springfield, Mo.: Gospel Publishing House, 1963),
42 Dennis and Rita Bennett, The Holy Spirit and You, pp. 51-52.
p. 107.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1042
teaching has on a particular situation or problem. All Christians need to be open
to these more spontaneous workings of the Spirit. 44
And Robert Reymond defines illumination as “the Holy Spirit s enabling of Chris-
tians generally to understand, to recall to mind, and to apply the Scriptures they have
studied.” 45
But if these writers will allow for the present activity of the Holy Spirit enabling
Christians to “understand” or “recall to mind” or “apply” or “grasp” the teachings of
Scripture, then there does not seem to be such a great difference in principle between
what they are saying and what many in the charismatic movement are doing (even
though there will probably be some remaining differences over the precise way guid-
ance functions — yet this is not so much a difference about prophecy as about guidance
generally, and particularly the way guidance from Scripture relates to guidance from
advice, counsel, conscience, circumstances, sermons, etc.). The larger point is that
what Gaffin and Reymond here call “illumination,” the New Testament seems to call
a “revelation,” and what they would call a spoken report of such illumination, the New
Testament seems to call a “prophecy.”
So I wonder if there may be room for more joint theological reflection in this area.
Charismatics need to realize that cessationists are skeptical about the scope and fre-
quency of such “illumination,” whether it is right to call it New Testament prophecy,
whether it really does have value for the church, and whether it should be sought after.
And cessationists need to realize that their own highly developed and carefully formu-
lated doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture in guidance is not usually shared or even
understood by much of evangelicalism, including those in the charismatic movement.
Nevertheless, perhaps the Reformed idea of “illumination” allows for what is happen-
ing in prophecy today, and may provide a way of understanding it that is not seen as
challenging the sufficiency of Scripture.
What shall we conclude then about the relationship between the gift of prophecy and
the sufficiency of Scripture? We must say that we appreciate the desire of the cessation-
ists to protect the uniqueness of Scripture and not to allow anything to compete with the
authority of Scripture in our lives. We also must be thankful for the desire of cessationists
that Christians understand and follow sound principles of guidance in their daily lives,
and not get off into an area of excessive subjectivism that does not have the controls
of Scripture attached to it. On the other hand, there is certainly a danger that comes
with the cessationist viewpoint if it is wrong here. It is the very real danger of opposing
something that God is doing in the church today and failing to give him glory for that
work. God is jealous for his works and seeks glory from them for himself, and we must
continually pray not only that he would keep us from endorsing error, but also that he
would keep us from opposing something that is genuinely from him.
3, Were Miraculous Gifts Limited to the Apostles and Their Companions? Another
cessationist argument is that miraculous gifts were limited to the apostles and their close
44 Gaffin, Perspectivesy p. 120.
45 Reymond, What About. . . ?pp. 28-29.
CHAPTER 52 • GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (1)
1043
companions. Since I have discussed this argument at length in chapter 17, 1 will not
repeat the discussion here. 46
4. Did Miraculous Gifts Only Accompany the Giving of New Scripture? Another objec-
tion is to say that miraculous gifts accompanied the giving of Scripture, and since there
is no new Scripture given today, we should expect no new miracles today.
But in response to that it must be said that this is not the only purpose for miraculous
gifts. As we noted in chapter 17, miracles have several other purposes in Scripture: (1)
they authenticate the gospel message throughout the church age; (2) they give help to
those in need, and thereby demonstrate God’s mercy and love; (3) they equip people for
ministry; and (4) they glorify God. 47
We should also note that not all miracles accompany the giving of additional Scrip-
ture. For example, the ministries of Elijah and Elisha were marked by several miracles in
the Old Testament, but they wrote no books or sections of the Bible. In the New Testa-
ment, there were many occurrences of miracles that were not accompanied by the giving
of Scripture. Both Stephen and Philip in the book of Acts worked miracles but wrote no
Scripture. There were prophets who wrote no Scripture in Caesarea (Acts 21:4) and Tyre
(Acts 21:9-11) and Rome (Rom. 12:6) and Thessalonica (1 Thess. 5:20-21) and Ephe-
sus (Eph. 4:11) and the communities to which 1 John was written (1 John 4:1 -6). There
were apparently many miracles in the churches of Galatia (Gal. 3:5). There were many
miraculous things occurring at Corinth (1 Cor. 12:8-10), but in 1 Corinthians 14:36
Paul denies that any Scripture has come forth from the Corinthian church. 48 And James
expects that healing will occur at the hands of the elders in all the churches to which he
writes (see James 5:14-16).
5. Is It a Historical Fact That Miraculous Gifts Ceased Early in the History of the
Church? Some cessationists have argued that miraculous gifts in fact ceased when the
apostles died, because the purpose of miracles was to give authentication to the apostles.
For this reason, it is argued, there should be no miraculous gifts today. B. B. Warfield
argued this extensively in his book, Counterfeit Miracles.* 9
In response, it must be said first that the premise just stated is very doubtful on his-
torical grounds. There is increasing historical evidence 50 that miraculous gifts were
46 See chapter 17, pp. 361 -68, for a discussion of the question
of whether miraculous gifts were limited to the apostles and
their close companions.
47 See chapter 17, pp. 359-61, for a discussion of these pur-
poses for miracles.
48 See chapter 53, p. 1054, for a discussion of 1 Cor. 14:36.
49 London: Banner of Truth, 1972 (reprint of 1918 edi-
tion). It should be noted that Warfield’s argument, though
frequently quoted, is really a historical survey, not an analy-
sis of biblical texts. Moreover, Warfield’s purpose was not to
refute any use of spiritual gifts among Christians like those
in much of the charismatic movement today, whose doctrine
(on all matters other than spiritual gifts) and whose church
affiliation put them in the mainstream of evangelical Prot-
estantism. Warfield rather was refuting the spurious claims
to miracles which had come from some branches of Roman
Catholicism at various periods in the history of the church,
and from various heretical sects (Warfield includes discussion
of the followers of Edward Irving [1792-1834], who strayed
into eccentric teachings and was excommunicated from the
Church of Scotland in 1833). It is open to question whether
modern-day cessationists are right to claim Warfield’s support
when opposing something which is far different in doctrine
and life from that which Warfield himself opposed.
50 Warfield’s position has come in for criticism from recent
evangelical studies: see Max Turner, “Spiritual Gifts Then and
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1044
occurring throughout the history of the church in greater or lesser degree, even when
exaggerated or evidently spurious claims are discounted. Healings and other kinds of
miraculous answers to prayer are often recorded. There were also people claiming to be
prophets throughout the history of the early church — the problem was that too often
they misunderstood their gift, or others misunderstood it, so that their utterances were
(mistakenly) treated like actual words of God. Sometimes they would be tolerated, and
sometimes they were too much of a threat to the established leadership of the churches
and they would begin splinter groups — tragically, no longer under the restraining and
evaluating authority of the established churches. Then too, others may have had “revela-
tions” given to them which they then did not express, or simply included without com-
ment in a prayer, or in a sermon or word of exhortation, or in the writing of a hymn or
some devotional literature. 51
It should also be clear that when Paul said, “When the perfect comes, the imperfect
will pass away” (1 Cor. 13:10), he was not saying anything about the relative frequency of
miraculous gifts in the history of the church. That would be subject to much variation
depending on the spiritual maturity and vitality of the church in various periods, the
degree to which these gifts were sought as a blessing or rejected as a heresy, the frequency
with which the meetings of the church normally made provision for the exercise of these
gifts, the degree to which the nature of these gifts was correctly understood, and, over all
of this, the Holy Spirit’s sovereign work in distributing gifts to the church.
Now,” Vox Evangelica 15 (1985), pp. 41-43, with notes to other
literature; Donald Bridge, Signs and Wonders Today (Leicester:
Inter-Varsity Press, 1985), pp. 166-77; and Ronald A. Kydd,
Charismatic Gifts in the Early Church (Peabody, Mass.: Hen-
driksen, 1984). Significant evidence of miraculous gifts in
early church history is found in Eusebius A. Stephanou, “The
Charismata in the Early Church Fathers,” The Greek Orthodox
Theological Review 21:2 (Summer, 1976), pp. 125-46.
A broad-ranging but popularly written study of the history
of miraculous gifts in the church is found in Paul Thigpen,
“Did the Power of the Spirit Ever Leave the Church?” Cha-
risma 18:2 (Sept. 1992), pp. 20-28. Most recently, see Jon
Ruthven, On the Cessation of the Charismata: The Protestant
Polemic on Post-Biblical Miracles (Sheffield: Sheffield Univer-
sity Academic Press, 1993); this is a revision and expansion of
the author’s Ph.D. dissertation responding to the arguments
of cessationists from Warfield to the present.
The argument from church history can be turned the other
way by an analysis of events from about 1970 to the present.
Church growth analysts tell us that Pentecostal and charis-
matic churches, which encourage miraculous gifts, are expe-
riencing growth unprecedented in the history of the church.
Fuller Seminary professor C. Peter Wagner says, “While back
in 1945 Pentecostals/charismatics could count only sixteen
million members worldwide, by 1975 they had grown to
ninety-six million and then ten years later in 1985 they num-
bered an astounding 247 million. I am not aware of any non-
political, non-militaristic voluntary association which has
grown at that rate in all of human history” (“Exploring the
Supernatural Dimensions of Church Growth,” Global Church
Growth [Oct.-Dec., 1988], p. 3). (By way of comparison, if the
world population was 5 billion, the 1985 figure of 247 million
constituted 5 percent of the population of the world.)
51 We must realize that unless people understand proph-
ecy as the fallible report of something that God spontane-
ously brings to mind, it will be very difficult for the church to
encourage or even tolerate it. If prophecy is indeed based on
something God suddenly brings to mind, it would eventually
be very easy for Christian prophets, whether for good or ill
motives, to begin to claim not only that they had received a
“revelation” from God or Christ, but also that they spoke with
a divine authority like that of Scripture. This apparently hap-
pened, at least in Montanism (second century A.D.) and prob-
ably in many other cases as well. Of course, if these prophets
began to promote heretical ideas, the reaction of the rest of
the church would eventually be to drive them out altogether:
someone who claims absolute divine authority would eventu-
ally be accepted or rejected; he could not be merely tolerated.
But along with this rejection of prophets who misunder-
stood their status there was perhaps also a rejection of the
gift of prophecy altogether, so that a failure on the part of the
church itself to understand the nature of the gift of prophecy
might have been the cause of a fairly complete suppression of
at least the public expression of the gift of prophecy in the
church.
CHAPTER 52 • GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (1)
1045
What Paul is speaking about, however, is the total and final abolition of these gifts
that is to be brought about by divine initiative at the return of Christ. And he is saying
that he thinks that until the time of the return of Christ these gifts will at least to some
extent remain available for use, and the Holy Spirit will continue to distribute these gifts
to people. Calvin notes the abundance of spiritual gifts in Paul’s day and then comments
(on 1 Cor. 14:32):
Today we see our own slender resources, our poverty in fact; but this is undoubt-
edly the punishment we deserve, as the reward for our ingratitude. For God’s
riches are not exhausted, nor has His liberality grown less; but we are not worthy
of His largess, or capable of receiving all that He generously gives. 52
6. Are Miraculous Gifts Today the Same As the Miraculous Gifts in Scripture? Yet
another objection to the continuation of miracles today is to say that the alleged miracles
today are not like the miracles in Scripture because they are far weaker and often are only
partially effective. In response to this objection we must ask whether it really matters
whether the miracles today are exactly as powerful as those that occurred at the time
of the New Testament. For one thing, we have very little information about the kind of
miracles done by ordinary Christians in various congregations, such as the Christians at
Corinth or in the churches in Galatia. Moreover, although remarkable miracles done by
Jesus are recorded in the gospels, when Jesus healed “every disease and every infirmity”
(Matt. 9:35) this must have included many with less serious diseases. We must also ask
what the expected benefit is for the objection that miracles today are not as powerful as
those in Scripture. If today only three hundred are converted at an evangelistic meeting
instead of the three thousand converted on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:41), shall we say
that the speaker does not really have the gift of evangelism, since the gift did not operate
as powerfully as it did with the apostles? Or if only 30 percent of the people we pray for
regarding physical illness are fully healed instead of 100 percent in the life of Jesus or of the
apostles, shall we say this is not the New Testament gift of healing? 53 We must remember
that gifts can vary in strength and no gift is perfect in this age. But does that mean that
52 John Calvin, The First Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Cor-
inthians, p. 305.
53 The figure of 30 percent is simply an example for illustra-
tive purposes, but it is close to two recent tabulations concern-
ing people who received prayer for healing. One tabulation is
found in David C. Lewis, Healing: Fiction, Fantasy, or Fact ?
(London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1989), an academic inves-
tigation of 1,890 people who attended one of John Wimber’s
conferences in Harrogate, England, in 1986. The author is a
social anthropologist who prepared a detailed questionnaire
that people filled out during the conference, and then fol-
lowed up some randomly selected cases several months later.
Of 862 cases of prayer for physical healing, 32 percent (or 279)
reported a “great deal” of healing or “total healing.” Another
26 percent (or 222) reported a “fair amount” of healing. The
remaining 42 percent (or 366) reported “little” or “no heal-
ing” (pp. 21 -22). Many case studies are reported in detail, in
several instances with medical reports quoted at length. All
the physical problems prayed for are listed in a detailed appen-
dix (pp. 276-83). (These physical problems are distinguished
from prayer for spiritual problems such as inner healing and
deliverance, which are tabulated separately by Lewis.) The
other tabulation is found in John Wimber, Power Healing, p.
188, who says that, of people who received extended prayer
for healing at his church, “During 1986 thirty-two percent
of all people prayed for were completely healed, while overall
eighty-six percent showed evidence of some significant heal-
ing.” (D. A. Carson, How Long, OLord? [Grand Rapids: Baker,
1990] , p. 124, says, “Wimber is quite candid: he estimates that
his ‘success rate’ is about 2 percent,” but Carson gives no docu-
mentation for this statement, and it is apparently incorrect in
light of what Wimber has actually written.)
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1046
we should stop using these gifts altogether, or oppose them where we see them function-
ing with some degree of effectiveness? Shall we not praise God if 300 are converted rather
than three thousand, or if 30 percent are healed rather than 100 percent of those for whom
we pray? Is not the work of the Lord being done? If the quantity is not as great as in New
Testament times, then we may ask the Lord for more grace or mercy, but it does not seem
appropriate to give up on the use of these gifts or to oppose those who do use them.
7. Is It Dangerous for a Church to Allow for the Possibility of Miraculous Gifts Today?
A final objection from the cessationist position is to say that a church that emphasizes the
use of miraculous gifts is in danger of becoming imbalanced, and will likely neglect other
important things such as evangelism, sound doctrine, and moral purity of life.
To say that the use of miraculous gifts is “dangerous” is not by itself an adequate
criticism, because some things that are right are dangerous, at least in some sense. Mis-
sionary work is dangerous. Driving a car is dangerous. If we define dangerous to mean
“something might go wrong,” then we can criticize anything that anybody might do as
“dangerous,” and this just becomes an all-purpose criticism when there is no specific
abuse to point to. A better approach with respect to spiritual gifts is to ask, “Are they
being used in accordance with Scripture?” and “Are adequate steps being taken to guard
against the dangers of abuse?”
Of course it is true that churches can become imbalanced, and some in fact have
done so. But not all will, nor do they have to do so. Furthermore, since this argument is
one based on actual results in the life of a church, it is also appropriate to ask, “Which
churches in the world today have the most effective evangelism? Which have the most
sacrificial giving among their members? Which in fact have the most emphasis on purity
of life? Which have the deepest love for the Lord and for his Word?” It seems to me that it
is difficult to answer these questions clearly, but I do not think that we can fairly say that
those churches in the charismatic and Pentecostal movements by and large are weaker in
these areas than other evangelical churches. In fact, in some cases they may be stronger
in these areas. The point is simply that any argument that says that churches emphasizing
miraculous gifts will become imbalanced is simply not proven in actual practice.
8. A Final Note: Cessationists and Charismatics Need Each Other. Finally, it can
be argued that those in the charismatic and Pentecostal camps, and those in the ces-
sationist camp (primarily Reformed and dispensational Christians) really need each
other, and they would do well to appreciate each other more. The former tend to have
more practical experience in the use of spiritual gifts and in vitality in worship that
cessationists could benefit from, if they were willing to learn. On the other hand,
Reformed and dispensational groups have traditionally been very strong in under-
standing of Christian doctrine and in deep and accurate understanding of the teach-
ings of Scripture. Charismatic and Pentecostal groups could learn much from them if
they would be willing to do so. But it certainly is not helpful to the church as a whole
for both sides to think they can learn nothing from the other, or that they can gain no
benefit from fellowship with each other.
CHAPTER 52 • GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (1)
1047
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. Before reading this chapter, what spiritual gift or gifts did you think you had?
Has your understanding of your own spiritual gift(s) changed after studying this
chapter? In what way?
2. Explain how each of the spiritual gifts that you understand yourself to have is
greater than what would have been known to most old covenant believers. Explain
how each gift is a foretaste of some knowledge or ability you will have after Christ
returns.
3. What can you do to stir up or strengthen those spiritual gifts in you that need
strengthening? Are there some gifts that you have been given but have neglected?
Why do you think you have neglected them? What could be done to stir up or
rekindle them in you?
4. As you think about your own church, which spiritual gifts do you think are most
effectively functioning at the present time? Which are most needed in your church?
Is there anything you can do to help meet those needs?
5. What do you think could be done to help churches avoid having controversies, and
even divisions, over the question of spiritual gifts? Are there tensions in your own
church with regard to these questions today? If so, what can you do to help alleviate
these tensions?
6. Do you think that some spiritual gifts mentioned in the New Testament ceased
early in the history of the church, and are no longer valid for today? Has your
opinion on this question changed as a result of reading this chapter?
7. In your viewpoint, would a church be healthier and more unified if it concentrated
on a few gifts and used them carefully and well, or if it encouraged a multiplicity of
different gifts, and allowed them to be used at many different times by many differ-
ent people? If you answered with the latter option, what things might your church
do to include a greater diversity and distribution in the use of spiritual gifts? What
are some of the dangers that might accompany such widespread use, and how can
they be guarded against?
SPECIAL TERMS
See the list at the end of the next chapter.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
See the list at the end of the next chapter.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1048
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
1 Peter 4:10-11: As each has received a gift, employ it for one another, as good stewards
of God's varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who utters oracles of God; whoever renders
service, as one who renders it by the strength which God supplies; in order that in everything
God may be glorified through Jesus Christ To him belong glory and dominion for ever and
ever. Amen.
HYMN
“Come, Thou Almighty King”
This is a trinitarian hymn in which the first verse is addressed to God the Father, the
second to God the Son, and the third to God the Holy Spirit. The third verse is a request
that the Holy Spirit would come and rule in our hearts, be ever-present among us, and
dwell among us as the “Spirit of power.” The final verse is a hymn of praise to God “the
great One in Three.” In the midst of a long discussion on spiritual gifts, it is good to
refocus our attention on God himself, who is the giver of all good gifts, and whose glory
is the goal of the use of every gift.
Come, thou almighty King, Help us thy name to sing,
Help us to praise:
Father, all glorious, O’er all victorious,
Come, and reign over us, Ancient of Days.
Come, thou incarnate Word, Gird on thy mighty sword,
Our prayer attend:
Come, and thy people bless, And give thy Word success;
Spirit of holiness, on us descend.
Come, holy Comforter, Thy sacred witness bear
In this glad hour:
Thou who almighty art, Now rule in every heart,
And ne’er from us depart, Spirit of pow’r.
To the great One in Three, Eternal praises be,
Hence evermore.
His sovereign majesty May we in glory see,
And to eternity love and adore.
AUTHOR: ANON., 1757
Chapter
GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT:
(PART 2)
SPECIFIC GIFTS
How should we understand and
use specific spiritual gifts ?
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
In this chapter we will build on the general discussion about spiritual gifts in the
previous chapter and examine several specific gifts in more detail. We will not consider
every gift mentioned in the New Testament, but will focus on several gifts that are not
well understood or whose use has aroused some controversy today. Therefore we will
not examine gifts whose meaning and use are self-evident from the term involved (such
as serving, encouraging, contributing, showing leadership, or showing mercy), but will
rather concentrate on those in the following list, primarily taken from 1 Corinthians
12:28 and 12:8-10:
1. prophecy
2. teaching
3. miracles
4. healing
5. tongues and interpretation
6. word of wisdom/word of knowledge
7. distinguishing between spirits
A. Prophecy
Although several definitions have been given for the gift of prophecy, a fresh
examination of the New Testament teaching on this gift will show that it should be
defined not as “predicting the future,” nor as “proclaiming a word from the Lord,”
1049
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1050
nor as “powerful preaching” — but rather as “telling something that God has spontane-
ously brought to mind” The first four points in the following material support this
conclusion; the remaining points deal with other considerations regarding this gift. 1
1. The New Testament Counterparts to Old Testament Prophets Are New Testament
Apostles. Old Testament prophets had an amazing responsibility — they were able to
speak and write words that had absolute divine authority. They could say, “Thus says
the Lord,” and the words that followed were the very words of God. The Old Testament
prophets wrote their words as God’s words in Scripture for all time (see Num. 22:38;
Deut. 18:18-20; Jer. 1:9; Ezek. 2:7, et al). Therefore, to disbelieve or disobey a prophet’s
words was to disbelieve or disobey God (see Deut. 18:19; 1 Sam. 8:7; 1 Kings 20:36; and
many other passages).
In the New Testament there were also people who spoke and wrote God’s very words
and had them recorded in Scripture, but we may be surprised to find that Jesus no longer
calls them “prophets” but uses a new term, “apostles.” The apostles are the New Testa-
ment counterpart to the Old Testament prophets (see 1 Cor. 2:13; 2 Cor. 13:3; Gal. 1:8-9,
11-12; 1 Thess. 2:13; 4:8, 15; 2 Peter 3:2). It is the apostles, not the prophets, who have
authority to write the words of New Testament Scripture.
When the apostles want to establish their unique authority they never appeal to the
title “prophet” but rather call themselves “apostles” (Rom. 1:1; 1 Cor. 1:1; 9:1-2; 2 Cor.
1:1; 11:12-13; 12:11-12; Gal. 1:1; Eph. 1:1; 1 Peter 1:1; 2 Peter 1:1; 3:2, et al.).
2. The Meaning of the Word Prophet in the Time of the New Testament. Why did Jesus
choose the new term apostle to designate those who had the authority to write Scripture?
It was probably because the Greek word prop hetes (“prophet”) at the time of the New Tes-
tament had a very broad range of meanings. It generally did not have the sense “one who
speaks God’s very words” but rather “one who speaks on the basis of some external influ-
ence” (often a spiritual influence of some kind). Titus 1:12 uses the word in this sense,
where Paul quotes the pagan Greek poet Epimenides: “One of themselves, a prophet of
their own, said, ‘Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.’ ” The soldiers who
mock Jesus also seem to use the word prophesy in this way, when they blindfold Jesus
and cruelly demand, “Prophesy! Who is it that struck you?” (Luke 22:64). They do not
Tor a more extensive development of all of the following
points about the gift of prophecy, see Wayne Grudem, The Gift
of Prophecy in 1 Corinthians , and Wayne Grudem, The Gift of
Prophecy in the New Testament and Today : (The first book is
more technical, with much more interaction with the scholarly
literature.)
Much of the following material on prophecy is adapted
from my article, “Why Christians Can Still Prophesy,” in CT
(Sept. 16, 1988), pp. 29-35, and is used by permission; see
also my articles, “What Should Be the Relationship Between
Prophet and Pastor?” in Equipping the Saints (Fall 1990), pp.
7-9, 21-22; and “Does God Still Give Revelation Today?” in
Charisma (Sept. 1992), pp. 38-42.
Several writers have differed with my understanding of
the gift of prophecy. For alternative views to the position
presented in this chapter, see Richard Gaffin, Perspectives on
Pentecost: (Gaffin is primarily responding to an unpublished
version of my 1982 book), and the bibliography entries at the
end of the chapter under Victor Budgen, F. David Farnell,
Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr., Robert Saucy, Robert L. Thomas, and
R. Fowler White. On the other hand, the studies listed in
the bibliography by D. A. Carson, Roy Clements, Graham
Houston, Charles Hummel, and M. M. B. Turner, along with
several book reviews, have expressed substantial agreement
with the position I advocated in my 1982 and 1988 books.
CHAPTER 53 ♦ GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (2)
1051
mean, “Speak words of absolute divine authority,” but, “Tell us something that has been
revealed to you” (cf. John 4:19).
Many writings outside the Bible use the word prophet (Gk. prophetes) in this way,
without signifying any divine authority in the words of one called a “prophet.” In fact,
by the time of the New Testament the term prophet in everyday use often simply meant
“one who has supernatural knowledge” or “one who predicts the future” — or even just
“spokesman” (without any connotations of divine authority). Several examples near the
time of the New Testament are given in Helmut Kramer’s article in Theological Dictionary
of the New Testament: 2
A philosopher is called “a prophet of immortal nature” (Dio Chrysostom, A.D.
40-120)
A teacher (Diogenes) wants to be “a prophet of truth and candor” (Lucian of
Samosata, A.D. 120- 180)
Those who advocate Epicurean philosophy are called “ prophets of Epicurus”
(Plutarch, A.D. 50-120)
Written history is called “the prophetess of truth” (Diodorus Siculus, wrote c.
60-30 B.C.)
A “specialist” in botany is called a “ prophet ” (Dioscurides of Cilicia, first cen-
tury A.D.)
A “quack” in medicine is called a “ prophet ” (Galen of Pergamum, A.D.
129-199)
Kramer concludes that the Greek word for “prophet” (prophetes) “simply expresses the
formal function of declaring, proclaiming, making known.” Yet, because “every prophet
declares something which is not his own,” the Greek word for “herald” ( keryx ) “is the
closest synonym.” 3
Of course, the words prophet and prophecy were sometimes used of the apostles in
contexts that emphasized the external spiritual influence (from the Holy Spirit) under
which they spoke (so Rev. 1:3; 22:7; and Eph. 2:20; 3:5), 4 but this was not the ordinary
terminology used for the apostles, nor did the terms prophet and prophecy in themselves
2 The following examples are taken from TDNT 6, p. 794.
3 Ibid., p. 795.
4 I have a long discussion of Eph. 2:20 in The Gift of Proph-
ecy in the New Testament and Today , pp. 45-63, in which I
argue that Paul says that the church is “built up on the foun-
dation of the apostle-prophets” (or “apostles who are also
prophets”). This is a grammatically acceptable translation
of the phrase ton apostolon kai propheton. As such, the pas-
sage refers to the apostles, to whom the mystery of Gen-
tile inclusion in the church was revealed (see Eph. 3:5,
which specifies that this mystery “has now been revealed
to his holy apostles and prophets [or “apostle-prophets”
or, “apostles who are also prophets”] by the Spirit”).
I do not think that Eph. 2:20 has much relevance to
the entire discussion of the nature of the gift of prophecy.
Whether we see one group here as I do (apostle-prophets) or
two groups, as Richard Gaffin and several others do (apostles
and prophets), we all agree that these prophets are ones who
provided the foundation of the church, and therefore these
are prophets who spoke infallible words of God. Where we
disagree is on the question of whether this verse describes the
character of all who had the gift of prophecy in the New Testa-
ment churches. I see no convincing evidence that it describes
all who prophesied in the early church. Rather, the context
clearly indicates a very limited group of prophets who were
(a) part of the very foundation of the church, (b) closely con-
nected with the apostles, and (c) recipients of the revelation
from God that the Gentiles were equal members with Jews in
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1052
imply divine authority for their speech or writing. Much more commonly, the words
prophet and prophecy were used of ordinary Christians who spoke not with absolute
divine authority, but simply to report something that God had laid on their hearts or
brought to their minds. There are many indications in the New Testament that this ordi-
nary gift of prophecy had authority less than that of the Bible, and even less than that of
recognized Bible teaching in the early church, as is evident from the following section.
3. Indications That “Prophets” Did Not Speak With Authority Equal to the
Words of Scripture.
a. Acts 21:4: In Acts 21:4, we read of the disciples at Tyre: “Through the Spirit they
told Paul not to go on to Jerusalem .” This seems to be a reference to prophecy directed
towards Paul, but Paul disobeyed it! He never would have done this if this prophecy
contained God’s very words and had authority equal to Scripture.
b. Acts 21:10-11: Then in Acts 21:10-11, Agabus prophesied that the Jews at Jerusalem
would bind Paul and “deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles,” a prediction that was
nearly correct but not quite: the Romans, not the Jews, bound Paul (v. 33; also 22:29), 5 and
the Jews, rather than delivering him voluntarily, tried to kill him and he had to be rescued
by force (v. 32). 6 The prediction was not far off, but it had inaccuracies in detail that would
have called into question the validity of any Old Testament prophet. On the other hand,
this text could be perfectly well explained by supposing that Agabus had had a vision of
Paul as a prisoner of the Romans in Jerusalem, surrounded by an angry mob of Jews. His
own interpretation of such a “vision” or “revelation” from the Holy Spirit would be that the
Jews had bound Paul and handed him over to the Romans, and that is what Agabus would
(somewhat erroneously) prophesy. This is exactly the kind of fallible prophecy that would
fit the definition of New Testament congregational prophecy proposed above — reporting
in one’s own words something that God has spontaneously brought to mind.
One objection to this view is to say that Agabus’ prophecy was in fact fulfilled, and
that Paul even reports that in Acts 28:17: “I was delivered prisoner from Jerusalem into
the hands of the Romans.” 7
the church (Eph. 3:5). Whether we say this group was only the
apostles, or was a small group of prophets closely associated with
the apostles who spoke Scripture-quality words, we are still left
with a picture of a very small and unique group of people who
provide this foundation for the church universal.
My friend Dan Wallace, for whom I have great respect,
incorrectly says that my view of the grammar of Eph. 2:20
is “essential to [Grudem’s] view of NT prophecy” (Daniel
Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics [Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 1996], p. 284). But as I point out above, it is not
essential at all, for whether someone understands one group
(apostle-prophets) or two groups (apostles and prophets),
the context shows this to be a limited group, not to all who
had the gift of prophecy at the time of the NT. (See also Rom.
16:7 and Col. 1:2, each of which includes a plural noun in a
similar construction used to refer to one group.) For further
discussion see Wayne Grudem, The Gift of Prophecy in the New
Testament and Today , Revised Edition (Wheaton: Crossway,
2000), pp. 345-346.
5 In both verses Luke uses the same Greek verb (deo) that
Agabus had used to predict that the Jews would bind Paul.
6 The verb that Agabus used (paradidomi, “to deliver, hand
over”) requires the sense of voluntarily, consciously, deliber-
ately giving over or handing over something to someone else.
That is the sense it has in all 119 other instances of the word
in the New Testament. But that sense is not true with respect
to the treatment of Paul by the Jews: they did not voluntarily
hand Paul over to the Romans!
7 This is the view of Gaffin, Perspectives, pp. 65-66, and
F. David Farnell, “The Gift of Prophecy in the Old and New
Testaments,” BibSac 149:596 (Oct. -Dec. 1992), p. 395, both of
whom refer to Acts 28:17 for support.
CHAPTER 53 ■ GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (2)
1053
But the verse itself will not support that interpretation. The Greek text of Acts 28:17
explicitly refers to Paul’s transfer out o/Jerusalem as a prisoner, 8 Therefore Paul’s statement
describes his transfer out of the Jewish judicial system (the Jews were seeking to bring him
again to be examined by the Sanhedrin in Acts 23:15, 20) and into the Roman judicial
system at Caesarea (Acts 23:23-35). Therefore Paul correctly says in Acts 28:18 that the
same Romans into whose hands he had been delivered as a prisoner (v. 17) were the ones
who (Gk. hoitines , v. 18), “When they had examined me . . . wished to set me at liberty,
because there was no reason for the death penalty in my case” (Acts 28:18; cf. 23:29; also
25:11, 18-19; 26:31-32). Then Paul adds that when the Jews objected he was compelled
“to appeal to Caesar” (Acts 28:19; cf. 25:11). This whole narrative in Acts 28:17-19 refers
to Paul’s transfer out of Jerusalem to Caesarea in Acts 23:12-35, and explains to the Jews
in Rome why Paul is in Roman custody. The narrative does not refer to Acts 21:27-36
and the mob scene near the Jerusalem temple at all. So this objection is not persuasive.
The verse does not point to a fulfillment of either half of Agabus’ prophecy: it does not
mention any binding by the Jews, nor does it mention that the Jews handed Paul over to
the Romans. In fact, in the scene it refers to (Acts 23:12-35), once again Paul had just
been taken from the Jews “by force” (Acts 23: 10), and, far from seeking to hand him over
to the Romans, they were waiting in an ambush to kill him (Acts 23:13-15).
Another objection to my understanding of Acts 21 : 10 - 1 1 is to say that the Jews did not
really have to bind Paul and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles for the prophecy
of Agabus to be true, because the Jews were responsible for these activities even if they did
not carry them out. Robert Thomas says, “It is common to speak of the responsible party
or parties as performing an act even though he or they may not have been the immediate
agent (s).” 9 Thomas cites similar examples from Acts 2:23 (where Peter says that the Jews
crucified Christ, whereas the Romans actually did it) and John 19:1 (we read that Pilate
scourged Jesus, whereas his soldiers no doubt carried out the action). Thomas concludes,
therefore, “the Jews were the ones who put Paul in chains just as Agabus predicted.” 10
In response, I agree that Scripture can speak of someone as doing an act that is carried
out by that person’s agent. But in every case the person who is said to do the action both
wills the act to be done and gives directions to others to do it. Pilate directed his soldiers
to scourge Jesus. The Jews actively demanded that the Romans would crucify Christ. By
contrast, in the situation of Paul’s capture in Jerusalem, there is no such parallel. The
Jews did not order him to be bound but the Roman tribune did it: “Then the tribune
came up and arrested him, and ordered him to be bound with two chains” (Acts 21:33).
And in fact the parallel form of speech is found here, because, although the tribune
ordered Paul to be bound, later we read that “the tribune also was afraid, for he realized
that Paul was a Roman citizen and that he had bound him ” (Acts 22:29). So this narrative
8 The NIV translation, “I was arrested in Jerusalem and
handed over to the Romans,” completely misses the idea (which
the Greek text requires) of being delivered out of (ex) Jerusalem,
and removes the idea that he was delivered as a prisoner (Gk.
desmios ), adding rather the idea that he was arrested in Jerusa-
lem, an event that is not mentioned here in the Greek text.
9 Robert L. Thomas, “Prophecy Rediscovered? A Review
of The Gift of Prophecy in the New Testament and Today,”
BibSac 149:593 (Jan. -Mar. 1992), p. 91. The same argument is
made by Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr. The Charismatic Gift of Proph-
ecy: A Reformed Response to Wayne Grudem t 2d ed. (Memphis,
Tenn.: Footstool Publications, 1989), p. 43.
10 Thomas, “Prophecy Rediscovered?,” p. 91.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1054
does speak of the binding as done either by the responsible agent or by the people who
carried it out, but in both cases these are Romans, not Jews. In summary, this objection
says that the Jews put Paul in chains. But Acts says twice that the Romans bound him.
This objection says that the Jews turned Paul over to the Gentiles. But Acts says that they
violently refused to turn him over, so that he had to be taken from them by force. The
objection does not fit the words of the text. 11
c. 1 Thessalonians 5:19-21: Paul tells the Thessalonians, “do not despise prophesying,
but test everything; hold fast what is good” (1 Thess. 5:20-21). If the Thessalonians had
thought that prophecy equaled God’s Word in authority, he would never have had to tell
the Thessalonians not to despise it — they “received” and “accepted” God’s Word “with
joy from the Holy Spirit” (1 Thess. 1:6; 2:13; cf. 4:15). But when Paul tells them to “test
everything” it must include at least the prophecies he mentioned in the previous phrase.
He implies that prophecies contain some things that are good and some things that are
not good when he encourages them to “hold fast what is good” This is something that
could never have been said of the words of an Old Testament prophet, or the authoritative
teachings of a New Testament apostle.
d. 1 Corinthians 14:29-38: More extensive evidence on New Testament prophecy is
found in 1 Corinthians 14. When Paul says, “Let two or three prophets speak, and let the
others weigh what is said” (1 Cor. 14:29), he suggests that they should listen carefully and
sift the good from the bad, accepting some and rejecting the rest (for this is the implica-
tion of the Greek word diakrind, here translated “weigh what is said”). We cannot imag-
ine that an Old Testament prophet like Isaiah would have said, “Listen to what I say and
weigh what is said — sort the good from the bad, what you accept from what you should
not accept” ! If prophecy had absolute divine authority, it would be sin to do this. But here
Paul commands that it be done, suggesting that New Testament prophecy did not have
the authority of God’s very words. 12
In 1 Corinthians 14:30, Paul allows one prophet to interrupt another one: “If a revela-
tion is made to another sitting by, let the first be silent. For you can all prophesy one by
one.” Again, if prophets had been speaking God’s very words, equal in value to Scripture,
it is hard to imagine that Paul would say they should be interrupted and not be allowed
to finish their message. But that is what Paul commands.
Paul suggests that no one at Corinth, a church that had much prophecy, was able to
speak God’s very words. He says in 1 Corinthians 14:36, “What! Did the word of God come
forth from you, or are you the only ones it has reached?” (author’s translation). 13
u See below, p. 1056, on the question of Agabus’ introduc- 13 The RSV translates, "Did the word of God originate with
tory phrase, "Thus says the Holy Spirit.” you?” but there is no need to make the Greek verb here (the
12 Paul*s instructions are different from those in the early aorist of exerchomai, "to go out”) speak so specifically of the
Christian document known as the Didache , which tells peo- origin of the gospel message: Paul does not say, “Did the word
pie, “Do not test or examine any prophet who is speaking in of God first go forth from you?” but simply, "Did the word of
a spirit (or: in the Spirit)” (chapter 11). But the Didache says God go forth from you? ” He realizes they must admit that the
several things that are contrary to New Testament doctrine Word of God has not come forth from them — therefore, their
(see W. Grudem, The Gift of Prophecy in the New Testament prophets cannot have been speaking words of God equal to
and Today , pp. 106-8; also p. 67, above). Scripture in authority.
CHAPTER 53 ■ GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (2)
1055
Then in verses 37 and 38, he claims authority far greater than any prophet at Corinth:
“If any one thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he should acknowledge that what I
am writing to you is a command of the Lord. If any one does not recognize this, he is
not recognized.”
All these passages indicate that the common idea that prophets spoke “words of the
Lord” when the apostles were not present in the early churches is simply incorrect.
e. Apostolic Preparations for Their Absence: In addition to the verses we have con-
sidered so far, one other type of evidence suggests that New Testament congregational
prophets spoke with less authority than New Testament apostles or Scripture: the prob-
lem of successors to the apostles is solved not by encouraging Christians to listen to the
prophets (even though there were prophets around) but by pointing to the Scriptures , 14
So Paul, at the end of his life, emphasizes “rightly handling the word of truth”
(2 Tim. 2:15), and the “God-breathed” character of “scripture” for “teaching, for reproof,
for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16). Jude urges his readers to
“contend for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). Peter, at
the end of his life, encourages his readers to “pay attention” to Scripture, which is like “a
lamp shining in a dark place” (2 Peter 1 : 19 - 20) , and reminds them of the teaching of the
apostle Paul “in all his letters” (2 Peter 3:16). In no case do we read exhortations to “give
heed to the prophets in your churches” or to “obey the words of the Lord through your
prophets,” etc. Yet there certainly were prophets prophesying in many local congrega-
tions after the death of the apostles. It seems that they did not have authority equal to the
apostles, and the authors of Scripture knew that. The conclusion is that prophecies today
are not “the words of God” either.
4. How Should We Speak About the Authority of Prophecy Today? So prophecies in the
church today should be considered merely human words, not God’s words, and not equal
to God’s words in authority. But does this conclusion conflict with current charismatic
teaching or practice? I think it conflicts with much charismatic practice, but not with
most charismatic teaching.
Most charismatic teachers today would agree that contemporary prophecy is not equal
to Scripture in authority. Though some will speak of prophecy as being the “word of
God” for today, there is almost uniform testimony from all sections of the charismatic
movement that prophecy is imperfect and impure, and will contain elements that are not
to be obeyed or trusted. For example, Bruce Yocum, the author of a widely used charis-
matic book on prophecy, writes, “Prophecy can be impure — our own thoughts or ideas
can get mixed into the message we receive — whether we receive the words directly or
only receive a sense of the message.” 15
But it must be said that in actual practice much confusion results from the habit of
prefacing prophecies with the common Old Testament phrase, “Thus says the Lord”
(a phrase nowhere spoken in the New Testament by any prophets in New Testament
14 I have taken this idea from the very helpful booklet by Roy Showing the Spirit , p. 96.
Clements, Word and Spirit: The Bible and the Gift of Prophecy 15 See Prophecy (Ann Arbor: Word of Life, 1976), p. 79.
Today (Leicester: UCCF Booklets, 1986), p. 24; cf. D. A. Carson,
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1056
churches). This is unfortunate, because it gives the impression that the words that follow
are God’s very words, whereas the New Testament does not justify that position and,
when pressed, most responsible charismatic spokesmen would not want to claim it for
every part of their prophecies anyway. So there would be much gain and no loss if that
introductory phrase were dropped.
Now it is true that Agabus uses a similar phrase (“Thus says the Holy Spirit”) in Acts
21:11, but the same words (Gk. fade legei) are used by Christian writers just after the
time of the New Testament to introduce very general paraphrases or greatly expanded
interpretations of what is being reported (so Ignatius, Epistle to the Philadelphians
7:1-2 [about A.D. 108] and Epistle of Barnabas 6:8; 9:2, 5 [A.D. 70-100]). The phrase
can apparently mean, “This is generally (or approximately) what the Holy Spirit is
saying to us.”
If someone really does think God is bringing something to mind which should be
reported in the congregation, there is nothing wrong with saying, “7 think the Lord is
putting on my mind that . . ” or “It seems to me that the Lord is showing us . . .” or some
similar expression. Of course that does not sound as “forceful” as “Thus says the Lord,”
but if the message is really from God, the Holy Spirit will cause it to speak with great
power to the hearts of those who need to hear.
5. A Spontaneous “Revelation” Made Prophecy Different From Other Gifts. If proph-
ecy does not contain God’s very words, then what is it? In what sense is it from God?
Paul indicates that God could bring something spontaneously to mind so that the per-
son prophesying would report it in his or her own words. Paul calls this a “revelation”: “If
a revelation is made to another sitting by, let the first be silent. For you can all prophesy
one by one, so that all may learn and all be encouraged” (1 Cor. 14:30-31). Here he uses
the word revelation in a broader sense than the technical way theologians have used it to
speak of the words of Scripture — but the New Testament elsewhere uses the terms reveal
and revelation in this broader sense of communication from God that does not result in
written Scripture or words equal to written Scripture in authority (see Phil. 3:15; Rom.
1:18; Eph. 1:17; Matt. 11:27).
Paul is simply referring to something that God may suddenly bring to mind, or some-
thing that God may impress on someone’s consciousness in such a way that the person
has a sense that it is from God. It may be that the thought brought to mind is surprisingly
distinct from the person’s own train of thought, or that it is accompanied by a sense of
vividness or urgency or persistence, or in some other way gives the person a rather clear
sense that it is from the Lord. 16
Figure 53.1 illustrates the idea of a revelation from God that is reported in the proph-
et’s own (merely human) words.
Thus, if a stranger comes in and all prophesy, “the secrets of his heart are disclosed;
and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among
16 Although we argued above that the authority of prophecy With respect to the form in which the revelation comes to the
in the New Testament church is far different from the authority prophet, there may be not only words or ideas that come to
of Old Testament canonical prophecy, this does not mean that mind, but also mental pictures (or “visions,” Acts 2:17) and
everything about New Testament prophecy has to be different. dreams (Acts 2 : 1 7) as well.
CHAPTER 53 ♦ GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (2)
1057
you” (1 Cor. 14:25). I have heard a report of this happening in a clearly noncharismatic
Baptist church in America. A missionary speaker paused in the middle of his message
and said something like this: “I didn’t plan to say this, but it seems the Lord is indicat-
ing that someone in this church has just walked out on his wife and family. If that is so,
let me tell you that God wants you to return to them and learn to follow God’s pattern
for family life.” The missionary did not know it, but in the unlit balcony sat a man who
had entered the church moments before for the first time in his life. The description
fit him exactly, and he made himself known, acknowledged his sin, and began to seek
after God.
Prophecy
(= Report of
the Revelation)
PROPHECY OCCURS WHEN A REVELATION FROM GOD IS REPORTED
IN THE PROPHET'S OWN (MERELY HUMAN) WORDS
Figure 53. 1
In this way, prophecy serves as a “sign” for believers (1 Cor. 14:22) — it is a clear dem-
onstration that God is definitely at work in their midst, a “sign” of God’s hand of blessing
on the congregation. And since it will work for the conversion of unbelievers as well, Paul
encourages this gift to be used when “unbelievers or outsiders enter” (1 Cor. 14:23).
Many Christians in all periods of the church have experienced or heard of similar
events — for example, an unplanned but urgent request may have been given to pray for
certain missionaries in Nigeria. Then much later those who prayed discovered that just at
that time the missionaries had been in an auto accident or at a point of intense spiritual
conflict, and had needed those prayers. Paul would call the sense or intuition of those
things a “revelation,” and the report to the assembled church of that prompting from God
would be called a “prophecy.” It may have elements of the speaker’s own understanding
or interpretation in it and it certainly needs evaluation and testing, yet it has a valuable
function in the church nonetheless. 17
17 We must caution people, however, that the mere fact of a
“revelation” that seems supernatural (and that even may con-
tain some surprisingly accurate information) does not guar-
antee that a message is a true prophecy from God, for false
prophets can “prophesy” under demonic influence. (See chap.
20, pp. 415 - 16, on the fact that demons can know about hidden
activities or private conversations in our lives, even though they
cannot know the future or read our thoughts.)
John warns that “many false prophets have gone out into
the world” (1 John 4:1), and he gives tests of true doctrine to
discern them (vv. 1-6), and says “The world listens to them”
(v. 5). Other marks of false prophets can be found in 2 John
7-9 (denying the incarnation and not abiding in the doc-
trine of Christ); Matt. 7:15-20 (“You will know them by their
fruits,” v. 16); Matt. 24:11 (leading many astray); and Matt.
24:24 (showing signs and wonders for the purpose of lead-
ing astray the elect). On the other hand, 1 Cor. 12:3 seems to
tell us that we should not think that genuine Christians will
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1058
6. The Difference Between Prophecy and Teaching. As far as we can tell, all New Testa-
ment “prophecy” was based on this kind of spontaneous prompting from the Holy Spirit
(cf. Acts 11:28; 21:4, 10- 11; and note the ideas of prophecy represented in Luke 7:39;
23:63-64; John 4:19; 11:51). Unless a person receives a spontaneous “revelation” from
God, there is no prophecy.
By contrast, no human speech act that is called a “teaching” or done by a “teacher,” or
described by the verb “teach,” is ever said to be based on a “revelation” in the New Testa-
ment. Rather, “teaching” is often simply an explanation or application of Scripture (Acts
15:35; 18:11, 24-28; Rom. 2:21; 15:4; Col. 3:16; Heb. 5:12) or a repetition and explana-
tion of apostolic instructions (Rom. 16:17; 2 Tim. 2:2; 3:10, et al.). It is what we would
call “Bible teaching” or “preaching” today.
So prophecy has less authority than “teaching,” and prophecies in the church are always
to be subject to the authoritative teaching of Scripture. Timothy was not told to prophesy
Paul’s instructions in the church; he was to teach them (1 Tim. 4:11; 6:2). Paul did not
prophesy his lifestyle in Christ in every church; he taught it (1 Cor. 4:17). The Thessalo-
nians were not told to hold firm to the traditions that were “prophesied” to them but to
the traditions that they were “taught” by Paul (2 Thess. 2:15). Contrary to some views, it
was teachers, not prophets, who gave leadership and direction to the early churches.
Among the elders, therefore, were “those who labor in preaching and teaching” (1 Tim.
5:17), and an elder was to be “an apt teacher” (1 Tim. 3:2; cf. Titus 1:9) — but nothing is
said about any elders whose work was prophesying, nor is it ever said that an elder has to
be “an apt prophet” or that elders should be “holding firm to sound prophecies.” In his
leadership function Timothy was to take heed to himself and to his “teaching” (1 Tim.
4:16), but he is never told to take heed to his prophesying. James warned that those who
teach, not those who prophesy, will be judged with greater strictness (James 3:1).
The task of interpreting and applying Scripture, then, is called “teaching” in the New
Testament. Although a few people have claimed that the prophets in New Testament
churches gave “charismatically inspired” interpretations of Old Testament Scripture,
that claim has hardly been persuasive, primarily because it is hard to find in the New
Testament any convincing examples where the “prophet” word group is used to refer to
someone engaged in this kind of activity.
So the distinction is quite clear: if a message is the result of conscious reflection on
the text of Scripture, containing interpretation of the text and application to life, then it
is (in New Testament terms) a teaching. But if a message is the report of something God
brings suddenly to mind, then it is a prophecy. And of course, even prepared teachings
can be interrupted by unplanned additional material that the Bible teacher suddenly felt
God was bringing to his mind — in that case, it would be a “teaching” with an element
of prophecy mixed in.
7. Objection: This Makes Prophecy “Too Subjective.” At this point some have objected
that waiting for such “promptings” from God is “just too subjective” a process. But in
be false prophets, speaking by the power of demons (see the Christians that “he who is in you is greater than he who is in
discussion of 1 Cor. 12:3 on p. 1077, and 1 John 4:4 reassures the world”
CHAPTER 53 * GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (2)
1059
response, it may be said that, for the health of the church, it is often the people who
make this objection who need this subjective process most in their own Christian lives!
This gift requires waiting on the Lord, listening for him, hearing his prompting in our
hearts. For Christians who are completely evangelical, doctrinally sound, intellectual,
and “objective,” probably what is needed most is the strong balancing influence of a more
vital “subjective” relationship with the Lord in everyday life. And these people are also
those who have the least likelihood of being led into error, for they already place great
emphasis on solid grounding in the Word of God.
Yet there is an opposite danger of excessive reliance on subjective impressions for
guidance, and that must be dearly guarded against. People who continually seek subjec-
tive “messages” from God to guide their lives must be cautioned that subjective personal
guidance is not a primary function of New Testament prophecy. They need to place much
more emphasis on Scripture and seeking God’s sure wisdom written there.
Many charismatic writers would agree with this caution, as the following quotations
indicate:
Michael Harper (Anglican charismatic pastor):
Prophecies which tell other people what they are to do — are to be regarded with
great suspicion. 18
Donald Gee (Assemblies of God):
Many of our errors where spiritual gifts are concerned arise when we want the
extraordinary and exceptional to be made the frequent and habitual. Let all
who develop excessive desire for “messages” through the gifts take warning
from the wreckage of past generations as well as of contemporaries The
Holy Scriptures are a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. 19
Donald Bridge (British charismatic pastor):
The illuminist constantly finds that “God tells him” to do things Illumi-
nists are often very sincere, very dedicated, and possessed of a commitment to
obey God that shames more cautious Christians. Nevertheless they are tread-
ing a dangerous path. Their ancestors have trodden it before, and always with
disastrous results in the long run. Inner feelings and special promptings are by
their very nature subjective. The Bible provides our objective guide. 20
8. Prophecies Could Include Any Edifying Content. The examples of prophecies in
the New Testament mentioned above show that the idea of prophecy as only “predict-
ing the future” is certainly wrong. There were some predictions (Acts 11:28; 21:11), but
there was also the disclosure of sins (1 Cor. 14:25). In fact, anything that edified could
have been included, for Paul says, “He who prophesies speaks to men for their upbuild-
ing and encouragement and consolation ” (1 Cor. 14:3). Another indication of the value
18 Prophecy : A Gift for the Body of Christ (Plainfield, N.J.: Mo.: Gospel Publishing House, 1963), pp. 51-52.
Logos, 1964), p. 26. 20 Signs and Wonders Today (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press,
l9 Spiritual Gifts in the Work of Ministry Today (Springfield, 1985), p. 183.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1060
of prophecy was that it could speak to the needs of people’s hearts in a spontaneous,
direct way.
9. Many People in the Congregation Can Prophesy. Another great benefit of prophecy
is that it provides opportunity for participation by everyone in the congregation, not just
those who are skilled speakers or who have gifts of teaching. Paul says that he wants “all”
the Corinthians to prophesy (1 Cor. 14:5), and he says, “You can all prophesy one by one,
so that all may learn and all be encouraged” (1 Cor. 14:31). 21 This does not mean that
every believer will actually be able to prophesy, for Paul says, “Not all are prophets, are
they?” (1 Cor. 12:29, author’s translation). But it does mean that anyone who receives a
“revelation” from God has permission to prophesy (within Paul’s guidelines), and it sug-
gests that many will. 22 Because of this, greater openness to the gift of prophecy could help
overcome the situation where many who attend our churches are merely spectators and
not participants. Perhaps we are contributing to the problem of “spectator Christianity”
by quenching the work of the spirit in this area.
10. We Should “Earnestly Desire” Prophecy. Paul valued this gift so highly that he told
the Corinthians, “Make love your aim, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts especially
that you may prophesy” (1 Cor. 14:1). Then at the end of his discussion of spiritual gifts
he said again, “So, my brethren, earnestly desire to prophesy ” (1 Cor. 14:39). And he said,
“He who prophesies edifies the church” (1 Cor. 14:4).
If Paul was eager for the gift of prophecy to function at Corinth, troubled as the
church was by immaturity, selfishness, divisions, and other problems, then should we
not also actively seek this valuable gift in our congregations today? We evangelicals who
profess to believe and obey all that Scripture says, should we not also believe and obey
this? And might a greater openness to the gift of prophecy perhaps help to correct a dan-
gerous imbalance in church life, an imbalance that comes because we are too exclusively
intellectual, objective, and narrowly doctrinal?
11. Encouraging and Regulating Prophecy in the Local Church. Finally, if a church
begins to encourage the use of prophecy where it has not been used before, what should
it do? How can it encourage this gift without falling into abuse?
For all Christians, and especially for pastors and others who have teaching respon-
sibilities in the church, several steps would be both appropriate and pastorally wise:
(1) Pray seriously for the Lord’s wisdom on how and when to approach this subject in
the church. (2) There should be teaching on this subject in the regular Bible teach-
ing times the church already provides. (3) The church should be patient and proceed
slowly — church leaders should not be “domineering” (or “pushy”) (1 Peter 5:3), and
a patient approach will avoid frightening people away or alienating them unneces-
sarily. (4) The church should recognize and encourage the gift of prophecy in ways it
21 Here Pauls meaning is that all who receive a revelation 22 In a large church, only few would be able to speak when
in the sense just mentioned in v. 29 will be able to take turns the whole church assembled, for Paul says, “Let two or three
and prophesy one at a time. He does not mean that every single prophets speak” (1 Cor. 14:29). But many more would find
Christian at Corinth had the gift of prophecy. opportunities to prophesy in smaller gatherings in homes.
CHAPTER 53 ■ GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (2)
1061
has already been functioning in the church — at church prayer meetings, for example,
when someone has felt unusually “led” by the Holy Spirit to pray for something, or
when it has seemed that the Holy Spirit was bringing to mind a hymn or Scripture
passage, or when giving a common sense of the tone or the specific focus of a time of
group worship or prayer. Even Christians in churches not open to the gift of prophecy
can at least be sensitive to promptings from the Holy Spirit regarding what to pray for
in church prayer meetings, and can then express those promptings in the form of a
prayer (what might be called a “prophetic prayer”) to the Lord.
(5) If the first four steps have been followed, and if the congregation and its lead-
ership will accept it, some opportunities for the gift of prophecy to be used might be
made in the less formal worship services of the church, or in smaller home groups. If
this is allowed, those who prophesy should be kept within scriptural guidelines (1 Cor.
14:29-36), should genuinely seek the edification of the church and not their own prestige
(1 Cor. 14:12, 26), and should not dominate the meeting or be overly dramatic or emo-
tional in their speech (and thus attract attention to themselves rather than to the Lord).
Prophecies should certainly be evaluated according to the teachings of Scripture (1 Cor.
14:29-36; 1 Thess. 5:19-21).
(6) If the gift of prophecy begins to be used in a church, the church should place even
more emphasis on the vastly superior value of Scripture as the source to which Christians
can always go to hear the voice of the living God. Prophecy is a valuable gift, as are many
other gifts, but it is in Scripture that God and only God speaks to us his very words, even
today, and throughout our lives. Rather than hoping at every worship service that the
highlight would be some word of prophecy, those who use the gift of prophecy need to be
reminded that we should find our focus of joy, our expectation, and our delight in God
himself as he speaks to us through the Bible. There we have a treasure of infinite worth:
the actual words of our Creator speaking to us in language we can understand. And
rather than seeking frequent guidance through prophecy, we should emphasize that it is
in Scripture that we are to find guidance for our lives. In Scripture is our source of direc-
tion, our focus when seeking God’s will, our sufficient and completely reliable standard.
It is of God’s words in Scripture that we can with confidence say, “Your word is a lamp to
my feet and a light to my path” (Ps. 119:105).
B. Teaching
The gift of teaching in the New Testament is the ability to explain Scripture and apply
it to people's lives . This is evident from a number of passages. In Acts 15:35, Paul and
Barnabas and “many others” are in Antioch “teaching and preaching the word of the
Lord.” At Corinth, Paul stayed one and a half years “ teaching the word of God among
them” (Acts 18:11). And the readers of the epistle to the Hebrews, though they ought
to have been teachers, needed rather to have someone to teach them again “the first
principles of God’s word” (Heb. 5:12). Paul tells the Romans that the words of the Old
Testament Scriptures “were written for our instruction (or “teaching,” Gk. didaska-
lia )” (Rom. 15:4), and writes to Timothy that “all scripture” is “profitable for teaching
[didaskalia]” (2 Tim. 3:16).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1062
Of course, if “teaching” in the early church was so often based on Old Testament
Scripture, it is not surprising that it could also be based on something equal to Scripture
in authority, namely, a received body of apostolic instructions. So Timothy was to take
the teaching he had received from Paul and commit it to faithful men who would be able
to “teach others also” (2 Tim. 2:2). And the Thessalonians were to “hold firm to the tra-
ditions” they were “taught” by Paul (2 Thess. 2:15). Far from being based on a spontane-
ous revelation that came during the worship service of the church (as prophecy was), this
kind of “teaching” was the repetition and explanation of authentic apostolic teaching.
To teach contrary to Paul’s instructions was to teach different or heretical doctrine (het-
erodidaskalo) and to fail to give heed to “the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and
the teaching that accords with godliness” (1 Tim. 6:3). In fact, Paul said that Timothy was
to remind the Corinthians of Paul’s ways “as I teach them everywhere in every church”
(1 Cor. 4:17). Similarly, Timothy was to “command and teach” (1 Tim. 4:11) and to “teach
and urge” (1 Tim. 6:2) Paul’s instructions to the Ephesian church. Thus it was not proph-
ecy but teaching which in a primary sense (from the apostles) first provided the doctrinal
and ethical norms by which the church was regulated. And as those who learned from the
apostles also taught, their teaching guided and directed the local churches. 23
So teaching in terms of the New Testament epistles consisted of repeating and explain-
ing the words of Scripture (or the equally authoritative teachings of Jesus and of the
apostles) and applying them to the hearers. In the New Testament epistles, “teaching” is
something very much like what is described by our phrase “Bible teaching” today.
C. Miracles
Just after apostles, prophets and teachers, Paul says “then miracles” (1 Cor. 12:28).
Although many of the miracles seen in the New Testament were specifically miracles of
healing, Paul here lists healing as a separate gift. Therefore in this context he must have
something other than physical healing in view.
We should realize that the English word miracles may not give a very close approxima-
tion to what Paul intended, since the Greek word is simply the plural form of the word
dynamis, “power.” 24 This means that the term may refer to any kind of activity where God’s
mighty power is evident. It may include answers to prayer for deliverance from physical
danger (as in the deliverance of the apostles from prison in Acts 5:19-20 or 12:6-11), or
powerful works of judgment on the enemies of the gospel or those who require discipline
within the church (see Acts 5:1-11; 13:9- 12), or miraculous deliverance from injury (as
with Paul and the viper in Acts 28:3—6). But such acts of spiritual power may also include
power to triumph over demonic opposition (as in Acts 16:18; cf. Luke 10:17).
Since Paul does not define “works of miracles” any more specifically than this, we
can say that the gift of miracles may include the working of divine power in deliver-
ance from danger, in intervention to meet special needs in the physical world (as in the
case of Elijah in 1 Kings 17:1 - 16), in judgment on those who irrationally and violently
23 See also the discussion in section A.6 above, p. 1058, on the 1 Cor. 12:10, and the NASB mg. translates “works of power”
differences between prophecy and teaching. in both places.
24 The NIV translates this word “miraculous powers” at
CHAPTER 53 ■ GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (2)
1063
oppose the gospel message, in vanquishing the demonic forces that wage war against
the church, and in any other way in which God’s power is manifested in an evident
way to further God’s purposes in a situation. All of these would be works of “power” in
which the church would be helped and God’s glory would be made evident. (See also
the discussion of miracles in chapter 17.)
D. Healing
1. Introduction: Sickness and Health in the History of Redemption. We must realize
at the outset that physical sickness came as a result of the fall of Adam, and illness and
disease are simply part of the outworking of the curse after the fall, and will eventually
lead toward physical death. However, Christ redeemed us from that curse when he died
on the cross: “Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows . . . by his wounds
we are healed ” (Isa. 53:4-5 NIV). This passage refers to both physical and spiritual heal-
ing that Christ purchased for us, for Peter quotes it to refer to our salvation: “He himself
bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By
his wounds you have been healed ” (1 Peter 2:24).
But Matthew quotes the same passage from Isaiah with reference to the physical heal-
ings Jesus performed: “and he cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were
sick. This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah, ‘ He took our infirmities
and bore our diseases’ ” (Matt. 8:16-17).
All Christians would probably agree that in the atonement Christ has purchased for
us not only complete freedom from sin but also complete freedom from physical weak-
ness and infirmity in his work of redemption (see chapter 42 on glorification). And all
Christians would also no doubt agree that our full and complete possession of all the
benefits that Christ earned for us will not come until Christ returns: it is only “at his
coming” (1 Cor. 15:23) that we receive our perfect resurrection bodies. So it is with
physical healing and redemption from the physical sickness that came as a result of the
curse in Genesis 3: our complete possession of redemption from physical illness will not
be ours until Christ returns and we receive resurrection bodies. 25
But the question that confronts us with respect to the gift of healing is whether God
may from time to time grant us a foretaste or a down payment of the physical healing
which he will grant us fully in the future. 26 The healing miracles of Jesus certainly dem-
onstrate that at times God is willing to grant a partial foretaste of the perfect health that
will be ours for eternity. And the ministry of healing seen in the lives of the apostles and
others in the early church also indicates that this was part of the ministry of the new
covenant age. As such, it fits the larger pattern of blessings in the new covenant, many or
25 When people say that complete healing is “in the atone-
ment,” the statement is true in an ultimate sense, but it really
does not tell us anything about when we will receive “complete
healing” (or any part of it).
26 For two very helpful treatments of this question, and of
the gift of healing in general, see John Wimber, with Kevin
Springer, Power Healing, and Ken Blue, Authority to Heal
(Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press, 1987). See also the
excellent discussion in Jack Deere, Surprised by the Power of
the Holy Spirit (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1993). Several
scholarly defenses of a ministry of healing today are found
in Gary Greig and Kevin Springer, eds., The Kingdom and the
Power (Ventura, Calif.: Gospel Light, 1993).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1064
all of which give partial foretastes of the blessings that will be ours when Christ returns.
We “already” possess some of the blessings of the kingdom, but those blessings are “not
yet” fully ours.
2. The Purposes of Healing. As with other spiritual gifts, healing has several purposes.
Certainly it functions as a “sign” to authenticate the gospel message, and show that the
kingdom of God has come. Then also healing brings comfort and health to those who are
ill, and thereby demonstrates God’s attribute of mercy toward those in distress. Third,
healing equips people for service, as physical impediments to ministry are removed.
Fourth, healing provides opportunity for God to be glorified as people see physical evi-
dence of his goodness, love, power, wisdom, and presence.
3. What About the Use of Medicine? What is the relationship between prayer for healing
and the use of medicine and the skill of a physician? Certainly we should use medicine if
it is available because God has also created substances in the earth that can be made into
medicine with healing properties. Medicines thus should be considered part of the whole
creation that God considered “very good” (Gen. 1:31). We should willingly use medicine
with thankfulness to the Lord, for “The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof” (Ps.
24:1). In fact, when medicine is available and we refuse to use it (in cases where it would
put ourselves or others in danger), then it seems that we are wrongly “forcing a test” on
the Lord our God (cf. Luke 4:12): this is similar to the case of Satan tempting Jesus to
jump from the temple rather than walking down the steps. Where ordinary means of
getting down from the temple (the steps) are available, it is “forcing a test” on God to
jump and thereby demand that he perform a miracle at that exact moment. To refuse to
use effective medicine, insisting that God perform a miracle of healing instead of healing
through the medicine, is very similar to this.
Of course, it is wrong to rely on doctors or medicine instead of relying on the Lord, a
mistake tragically made by King Asa:
In the thirty-ninth year of his reign Asa was diseased in his feet, and his disease
became severe; yet even in his disease he did not seek the Lord, but sought help
from physicians. And Asa slept with his fathers, dying in the forty-first year of
his reign. (2 Chron. 16:12-13)
But if medicine is used in connection with prayer, then we should expect God to bless
and often multiply the effectiveness of the medicine. 27 Even when Isaiah had received
from the Lord a promise of healing for King Hezekiah, he told Hezekiah’s servants to
bring a cake of figs and apply it (as a medical remedy) to a boil that Hezekiah suffered
from: “And Isaiah said, ‘Bring a cake of figs. And let them take and lay it on the boil, that
he may recover’ ” (2 Kings 20:7).
However, sometimes there is no appropriate medicine available, or the medicine does
not work. Certainly we must remember that God can heal where doctors and medicine
27 Note Paul’s recommendation of a use of wine for health a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent
purposes in 1 Tim. 5:23: “No longer drink only water, but use ailments.”
CHAPTER 53 • GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (2)
1065
cannot heal (and it may amaze us to realize how frequently doctors cannot heal, even in
the most medically advanced countries). Moreover, there may be many times when an
illness is not putting us or others in immediate danger, and we decide to ask God to heal
our sickness without the use of medicine, simply because we wish for another oppor-
tunity to exercise our faith and give him glory, and perhaps because we wish to avoid
spending the time or money to use medical means, or we wish to avoid the side-effects
that some medicines have. In all of these cases, it is simply a matter of personal choice and
would not seem to be “forcing a test” on God. (However, a decision not to use medicine
in these cases should be a personal choice and not one that is forced on others.)
We see Jesus healing explicitly where medical means have failed, when “a woman
who had had a flow of blood for twelve years and could not be healed by any one ” then
“came up behind him, and touched the fringe of his garment; and immediately her flow
of blood ceased” (Luke 8:43-44). There were no doubt many people beyond the help
of physicians who came whenever Jesus was teaching and healing, yet we read that “ all
those who had any that were sick with various diseases brought them to him; and he laid
his hands on every one of them and healed them” (Luke 4:40). There was no disease that
Jesus was unable to heal.
4. Does the New Testament Show Common Methods Used in Healing? The methods
used by Jesus and the disciples to bring healing varied from case to case, but most fre-
quently they included laying on of hands. 28 In the verse just quoted, Jesus no doubt
could have spoken a powerful word of command and healed everyone in the large crowd
instantly, but instead, “he laid his hands on every one of them and healed them” (Luke
4:40). Laying on of hands seems to have been the primary means Jesus used to heal,
because when people came and asked him for healing they did not simply ask for prayer
but said, for example, “come and lay your hand on her, and she will live” (Matt. 9:18). 29
Another physical symbol of the Holy Spirit’s power coming for healing was anointing
with oil. Jesus’ disciples “ anointed with oil many that were sick and healed them” (Mark
6:13). And James tells the elders of the church to anoint the sick person with oil when
they pray: “Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them
pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer of faith will
save the sick man, and the Lord will raise him up; and if he has committed sins, he will
be forgiven” (James 5:14- 15). 30
The New Testament often emphasizes the role of faith in the healing process — some-
times the faith of the sick person (Luke 8:48; 17:19), but at other times the faith of others
who bring the sick person for healing. In James 5:15 it is the elders who pray, and James
says it is “the prayer of faith” that saves the sick person — this then must be the faith of
28 See the discussion of laying on of hands in chapter 48,
pp. 959-61.
29 See also Luke 5:13; 13:13; Acts 28:8; also Mark 6:2, and
several other verses in the gospels that mention laying on of
hands. Jesus did not always heal in this way, however.
30 The anointing with oil in James 5:14 should be under-
stood as a symbol of the power of the Holy Spirit, not simply
as medicinal, because oil would not be appropriate as a medi-
cine for all diseases. Moreover, if its use were just medicinal,
it is hard to see why only the elders should apply it. Oil is fre-
quently a symbol of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament (see
Ex. 29:7; 1 Sam. 16:13; cf. Ps. 45:7), and this seems to be the
case here as well. (See the thorough discussion in Douglas J.
Moo, The Letter of James, pp. 177-81.)
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1066
the elders praying, 31 not the faith of the one who is sick. When the four men let down a
paralytic through a hole in the roof where Jesus was preaching, we read, “And when Jesus
saw their faith . . .” (Mark 2:5). At other times Jesus mentions the faith of the Canaanite
woman regarding the healing of her daughter (Matt. 15:28), or of the centurion for the
healing of his servant (Matt. 8:10, 13). 32
5. How Then Should We Pray for Healing? How then should we pray regarding physical
illness? Certainly it is right to ask God for healing, for Jesus tells us to pray, “Deliver us
from evil” (Matt. 6:13), and the apostle John writes to Gaius, “I pray that all may go well
with you and that you may be in health ” (3 John 2). Moreover, Jesus frequently healed all
who were brought to him, and he never sent people away, telling them it would be good
for them to remain ill for a longer time! In addition to this, whenever we take any kind of
medicine or seek any medical help for an illness, by those actions we admit that we think
it to be God’s will that we seek to be well If we thought that God wanted us to continue in
our illness, we would never seek medical means for healing! So when we pray it seems
right that our first assumption, unless we have specific reason to think otherwise, should
be that God would be pleased to heal the person we are praying for — as far as we can tell
from Scripture, this is God’s revealed will. 33
Ken Blue has a helpful observation here. He argues that if we want to understand
God’s attitude toward physical healing we should look at Jesus’ life and ministry. Blue
says, “If Jesus truly reveals the character of God to us, then we may cease speculating
about and arguing over God’s will in sickness and healing. Jesus healed people because
he loved them. Very simply, he had compassion for them; he was on their side; he wanted
to solve their problems.” 34 This is a strong argument, especially when coupled with the
realization that Jesus came to inaugurate the presence of the kingdom of God among us
and to show us what the kingdom of God would be like.
How then should we pray? Certainly it is right to ask God for healing, and we should
go to him with the simple request that he give physical healing in time of need. James
warns us that simple unbelief can lead to prayerlessness and failure to receive answers
from God: “You do not have, because you do not ask” (James 4:2). But when we pray for
healing we should remember that we must pray for God to be glorified in the situation,
whether he chooses to heal or not. And we also ought to pray out of the same compas-
sion of heart that Jesus felt for those whom he healed. When we pray this way, God will
sometimes — and perhaps often — grant answers to our prayers.
31 We may wonder why it is the elders who are called 32 By contrast, we can note that when the disciples could
to come and pray for healing in James 5:14-15. Although not cast out a demon, Jesus says it was “because of your little
James does not give a reason, it may be because they had faith” (Matt. 17:20).
responsibilities for pastoral care, maturity and wisdom in 33 See discussion in chapter 13, pp. 213-16, on the secret
dealing with the possible sin involved (see vv. 15 - 16), and and revealed will of God. Of course we realize that God’s secret
a measure of spiritual authority that accompanied their will, unknown to us in any specifics, is that not all will be
office. They would certainly be able to bring others with healed, just as it is his secret will that not all will be saved. But
gifts of healing if they wished. Moreover, James broadens in both situations we should pray for what we see in Scripture
his directions to include all Christians in v. 16: “Therefore to be God’s revealed will: to save sinners and to heal those
confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, who are ill.
that you may be healed Authority to Heal, pp. 72, 78.
CHAPTER 53 * GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (2)
1067
Someone may object at this point that, from a pastoral standpoint, much harm is done
when people are encouraged to believe that a miracle of healing will occur and then noth-
ing happens — disappointment with the church and anger at God may result. Those who
pray for people to be healed today need to hear this objection and use wisdom in what
they tell people who are ill.
But we also need to realize that there is more than one kind of mistake to make:
(1) Not praying for healing at all is not a correct solution, for it involves disobedience to
James 5. (2) Telling people that God seldom heals today and that they should expect noth-
ing to happen is not a correct solution either, for it does not provide an atmosphere con-
ducive to faith and is inconsistent with the pattern we see in the ministry of Jesus and the
early church in the New Testament. (3) Telling people that God always heals today if we
have enough faith is a cruel teaching not supported by Scripture (see section 6 below).
The pastorally wise solution, it seems, lies between (2) and (3) above. We can tell
people that God frequently heals today (if we believe that is true), and that it is very pos-
sible that they will be healed, 35 but that we are still living in an age when the kingdom
of God is “already” here but “not yet” fully here. Therefore Christians in this life will
experience healing (and many other answers to prayer), but they will also experience
continuing illness and eventual death. In each individual case it is God’s sovereign wis-
dom that decides the outcome, and our role is simply to ask him and wait for him to
answer (whether “yes” or “no” or “keep praying and wait”).
Those with “gifts of healings” (a literal translation of the plurals in 1 Cor. 12:9, 28)
will be those people who find that their prayers for healing are answered more frequently
and more thoroughly than others. When that becomes evident, a church would be wise
to encourage them in this ministry and give them more opportunities to pray for others
who are ill. We should also realize that gifts of healing could include ministry not only
in terms of physical healing, but also in terms of emotional healing. And it may at times
include the ability to set people free from demonic attack, for this is also called “healing”
sometimes in Scripture (see Luke 6:18; Acts 10:38). Perhaps the gifts ofbeing able to pray
effectively in different kinds of situations and for different kinds of needs are what Paul
referred to when he used the plural expression, “ gifts of healings”
6. But What if God Does Not Heal? Nonetheless, we must realize that not all prayers for
healing will be answered in this age. Sometimes God will not grant the special “faith”
(James 5:15) that healing will occur, and at times God will choose not to heal, because of
his own sovereign purposes. In these cases we must remember that Romans 8:28 is still
true: though we experience the “sufferings of this present time,” and though we “groan
inwardly as we wait for . . . the redemption of our bodies” (Rom. 8:18, 23), nonetheless,
“we know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called
35 Sometimes God may grant a strong subjective assurance
of faith, something like what James calls “the prayer of faith”
(James 5:15), and Heb. 11:1 calls “the assurance ofthings hoped
for,” and Mark 11:24 calls believing “that you have received it.”
In those cases the person praying may feel confidence to say that
it is probable or even very likely that someone will be healed.
But I do not think that God gives anyone warrant to promise
or “guarantee” healing in this age, for his written Word makes
no such guarantee, and our subjective sense of his will is always
subject to some degree of uncertainty and some measure of
error in this life.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1068
according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28). This includes working in our circumstances of
suffering and illness as well.
Whatever Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” was (and centuries of work by Bible-believing
interpreters have failed to turn up a definitive answer), Paul realized that God allowed
it to remain with him “to keep me from being too elated” (2 Cor. 12:7), that is, to keep
Paul humble before the Lord. 36 So the Lord told him, “My grace is sufficient for you,
for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9). There are indications in the
early church that even in the presence of the apostles not all people were healed. Paul
recognized that “our outer nature is wasting away” (2 Cor. 4:16), and sometimes dis-
ease and illness will not be healed. When Epaphroditus came to visit Paul, he had an
illness that brought him “near to death” (Phil. 2:27). Paul indicates in the narrative of
Philippians 2 that it appeared as though Epaphroditus were going to die — that God
did not heal him immediately when he became ill. But eventually God did heal (Phil.
2:27) in answer to prayer. Paul told Timothy that he should drink a little wine “for the
sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments” (1 Tim. 5:23). He said, “Trophimus I
left ill at Miletus” (2 Tim. 4:20). And both Peter (1 Peter 1:6—7; 4:19) and James (James
1:2-4) have words of encouragement and counsel for those who are suffering trials of
various kinds: 37
Count it all joy, my brethren, when you meet various trials, for you know that
the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full
effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. (James 1:2-4)
When God chooses not to heal, even though we ask him for it, then it is right that we
“give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thess. 5:18) and realize that God can use sickness
to draw us closer to himself and to increase in us obedience to his will. So the psalmist
can say, “It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes” (Ps. 119:71),
and, “Before I was afflicted I went astray; but now I keep your word” (Ps. 119:67).
36 After some study of 2 Cor. 12:7, my own conclusion at
this point is that there is not enough information in the text
to decide what Paul’s thorn in the flesh was. There are rea-
sons that can be given in support of all three main possibili-
ties: (1) a physical ailment of some kind; (2) a demon that
was harassing him; or (3) Jewish persecutors. The fact that
we are unable to decide conclusively has some benefits, how-
ever: it means that we can apply this text to all of these kinds
of situations in our own lives, when the Lord in his sovereign
wisdom decides not to remove them from us.
37 Some have attempted to establish a difference between
sickness and other kinds of suffering, and to say that the pas-
sages in Scripture that tell Christians they should expect to
suffer have to do with other kinds of suffering, such as perse-
cution, but do not include physical sickness.
This argument seems unconvincing to me for two rea-
sons: first, Scripture talks about “ various trials” (James 1:2;
also 1 Peter 1:6), and the intention of the authors in both
cases seems to be to speak of all the kinds of trials that we
experience in this life, including physical illness and afflic-
tion. Did James and Peter not want Christians who were ill to
apply those passages to their own situations? This is hardly
likely. (These are both general epistles written to thousands
of Christians.)
Second, unless the Lord returns, we will all know the pro-
gressive aging and deterioration of our physical bodies, and
eventually we will die. Paul says, “Our outer nature is wast-
ing away” (2 Cor. 4:16). Almost inevitably this aging process
includes various kinds of physical ailments.
It seems best to conclude that the sufferings which God
allows us to experience from time to time in this life may at
times include physical illness, which God in his sovereign
wisdom decides not to heal. There may in fact be many cases
when, for various reasons, we do not feel freedom to ask in
faith for God to heal. Yet even in these cases the heart of faith
will take God’s Word as true and believe that this also has
come into our lives “for good” (Rom. 8:28), and that God will
bring good to us from it.
CHAPTER 53 • GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (2)
1069
Therefore God can bring increased sanctification to us through illness and
suffering — just as he can bring sanctification and growth in faith through miraculous
healing. But the emphasis of the New Testament, both in Jesus’ ministry and in the min-
istry of the disciples in Acts, seems to be one that encourages us in most cases eagerly
and earnestly to seek God for healing, and then to continue to trust him to bring good
out of the situation, whether he grants the physical healing or not. The point is that in
everything God should receive glory and our joy and trust in him should increase.
E. Tongues and Interpretation
It should be said at the outset that the Greek word glossa, translated “tongue,” is used
not only to mean the physical tongue in a person’s mouth, but also to mean “language.”
In the New Testament passages where speaking in tongues is discussed, the meaning
“languages” is certainly in view. It is unfortunate, therefore, that English translations
have continued to use the phrase “speaking in tongues,” which is an expression not oth-
erwise used in ordinary English and which gives the impression of a strange experience,
something completely foreign to ordinary human life. But if English translations were
to use the expression “speaking in languages,” it would not seem nearly as strange, and
would give the reader a sense much closer to what first century Greek speaking readers
would have heard in the phrase when they read it in Acts or 1 Corinthians. 38 However,
because current usage of the phrase “speaking in tongues” is so widely established, we
will continue to use it in this discussion.
1. Tongues in the History of Redemption. The phenomenon of speaking in tongues is
unique to the new covenant age. Before Adam and Eve fell into sin, there was no need
to speak in other languages, because they spoke the same language and were united in
service of God and in fellowship with him. After the fall people spoke the same language
but eventually became united in opposition to God , and “the wickedness of man was great
in the earth” and “every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continu-
ally” (Gen. 6:5). This unified language used in rebellion against God culminated in the
building of the tower of Babel at a time when “the whole earth had one language and
few words” (Gen. 11:1). In order to stop this united rebellion against him, God at Babel
“confused the language of all the earth” and scattered people abroad over the face of the
earth (Gen. 11:9).
When God called Abraham to himself (Gen. 12:1), he promised to make of Abraham
a “great nation” (Gen. 12:2), and the nation of Israel that resulted from this call had one
language that God wanted them to use in service for him. Yet this language was not spo-
ken by the rest of the nations of the world, and they remained outside the reach of God’s
plan of redemption. So the situation was improved somewhat, for one language out of all
the languages of the world was used in service of God, whereas in Genesis 11 God was not
praised with any language.
38 The NIV margin does translate “or languages ” or “ other 12-14. This is a preferable translation, for reasons mentioned
languages ” in Acts 2:4, 11; 10:46; 19:6, and throughout 1 Cor. above.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1070
Now if we pass over the age of the New Testament church and look at eternity future,
we see that once again unity of language will be restored, but this time everyone will once
again speak the same language in service of God, and in praise to him (Rev. 7:9- 12; cf.
Zeph. 3:9; 1 Cor. 13:8; perhaps Isa. 19:18).
In the New Testament church, there is something of a foretaste of the unity of lan-
guage that will exist in heaven, but it is given only at some times, and only in a partial
way. At Pentecost, which was the point at which the gospel began to go to all nations,
it was appropriate that the disciples gathered in Jerusalem “began to speak in other
tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance” (Acts 2:4). 39 The result was that Jewish visi-
tors to Jerusalem from various nations all heard in their own languages a proclamation
of “the mighty works of God” (Acts 2:11). This was a remarkable symbol of the fact that
the gospel message was about to go forth to all the nations of the world. 40 Such a symbolic
action would have been inappropriate in the Old Testament, for there the evangelistic
message was one of inviting people from other nations to come and join themselves to
the Jewish people and become Jews, and thereby worship God. But here the message is
about to go to each nation in its own language, inviting people in every place to turn to
Christ and be saved. 41
Moreover, within the context of the worship service of the church, speaking in tongues
plus interpretation gives further indication of a promise that one day the differences in
languages that originated at Babel will be overcome. If this gift is operating in a church,
no matter what language a word of prayer or praise is given in, once there is an interpre-
tation, everyone can understand it. This is, of course, a two-step process that is “imper-
fect,” as are all gifts in this age (1 Cor. 13:9), but it is still an improvement on the situation
from Babel to Pentecost when there was no provision to enable people to understand a
message in a language they did not know.
Finally, prayer in tongues in a private setting is another form of prayer to God. Paul
says, “If I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful” (1 Cor. 14:14). In
the overall context of the history of redemption, this also may be seen as one more par-
tial solution to the results of the fall, whereby we were cut off from fellowship with God.
Of course, this does not mean that people’s spirits can only have fellowship with God
when they speak in tongues — for Paul affirms that he prays and sings both in tongues
and in his own language (1 Cor. 14:15). However, Paul does see prayer in tongues as an
additional means of fellowship directly with God in prayer and worship. Once again, this
aspect of the gift of speaking in tongues was not operative, so far as we know, before the
new covenant age.
2. What Is Speaking in Tongues? We may define this gift as follows: Speaking in tongues
is prayer or praise spoken in syllables not understood by the speaker.
39 This verse shows that the miracle was one of speaking, not of fire here may be a symbol of the fact that God was purifying
of hearing. The disciples “began to speak in other tongues (or language for use in his service.
languages).” 41 It is true that the first hearers of this message were still
40 The speaking in tongues at Pentecost was unusual in only Jews in Jerusalem (Acts 2:5), not Gentiles, but the sym-
that it was accompanied by “tongues as of fire, distributed and bolism of the gospel being proclaimed in many languages did
resting on each one of them” (Acts 2:3). Since fire in Scripture give an indication of the worldwide evangelistic effort that
is often a symbol of God’s purifying judgment, the presence would soon follow.
CHAPTER 53 • GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (2)
1071
a. Words of Prayer or Praise Spoken to God: This definition indicates that speaking in
tongues is primarily speech directed toward God (that is, prayer or praise). Therefore it
is unlike the gift of prophecy, which frequently consists of messages directed from God
toward people in the church. Paul says, “one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men
but to God” (1 Cor. 14:2), and if there is no interpreter present at the church service, Paul
says that someone who has a gift of speaking in tongues should “keep silence in church
and speak to himself and to God” (1 Cor. 14:28).
What kind of speech is this that is directed toward God? Paul says, “If I pray in a
tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful” (1 Cor. 14:14; cf. vv. 14- 17, where
Paul categorizes speech in tongues as praying and giving thanks, and v. 28). Therefore
speaking in tongues apparently is prayer or praise directed to God, and it comes from the
“spirit” of the person who is speaking. This is not inconsistent with the narrative in Acts
2, because the crowd said, “we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works
of God” (Acts 2:11), a description that certainly could mean that the disciples were all
glorifying God and proclaiming his mighty works in worship, and the crowd began to
listen to this as it occurred in various languages. In fact, there is no indication that the
disciples themselves were speaking to the crowd until Acts 2:14, when Peter then stands
and addresses the crowd directly, presumably in Greek. 42
b. Not Understood by the Speaker: Paul says that “one who speaks in a tongue speaks
not to men but to God; for no one understands him, but he utters mysteries in the Spirit”
(1 Cor. 14:2). Similarly, he says that if there is speaking in tongues without interpreta-
tion no meaning will be communicated: “I shall be a foreigner to the speaker and the
speaker a foreigner to me” (1 Cor. 14:11). Moreover, the entire paragraph of 1 Corin-
thians 14:13—19 assumes that speech in tongues in the congregation, when it is not
accompanied by interpretation, is not understood by those who hear:
Therefore, he who speaks in a tongue should pray for the power to interpret.
For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful. What am I
to do? I will pray with the spirit and I will pray with the mind also; I will sing
with the spirit and I will sing with the mind also. Otherwise, if you bless with
the spirit, how can any one in the position of an outsider say the “Amen” to your
thanksgiving when he does not know what you are saying? For you may give
thanks well enough, but the other man is not edified. I thank God that I speak
in tongues more than you all; nevertheless, in church I would rather speak five
words with my mind, in order to instruct others, than ten thousand words in a
tongue.
in 1 Cor. 14:2 is a generalization that is not intended to cover
every instance, and, in any case, the main point of the verse
is that only God can understand uninterpreted tongues, not
that God is the only one to whom speech in tongues can be
addressed. In fact, speech to men might be what is happening
in Acts 2. Nevertheless, the evidence that we do have in 1 Cor.
14 indicates speech directed toward God, and it seems safe to
say that that is generally what speaking in tongues will be.
42 In Acts 10:46 the people at Cornelius’ household began
“speaking in tongues and extolling God.” Again, this either
means that the speech consisted of praise to God or was very
closely connected with it — grammatically one cannot tell from
the text itself.
I do not want to rule out the possibility that speaking in
tongues could sometimes include speech directed to people,
not to God, because it is just possible that Paul’s statement
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1072
Now at Pentecost speech in tongues was in known languages that were understood
by those who heard: “each one heard them speaking in his own language ” (Acts 2:6). But
once again the speech was not understood by the speakers, for what caused the amaze-
ment was that Galileans were speaking all these different languages (v. 7). It seems, there-
fore, that at times speaking in tongues may involve speech in actual human languages,
sometimes even languages that are understood by some of those who hear. But at other
times — and Paul assumes that this will ordinarily be the case — the speech will be in a
language that “no one understands” (1 Cor. 14:2).
Some have objected that speaking in tongues must always consist of speech in known
human languages, since that is what happened at Pentecost. But the fact that speaking
in tongues occurred in known human languages once in Scripture does not require that
it always happen with known languages, especially when another description of speak-
ing in tongues (1 Cor. 14) indicates exactly the opposite. Paul does not say that foreign
visitors to Corinth will understand the speaker, but he says that when someone speaks
in tongues “ no one ” will understand and the outsider will not know what the person is
saying (1 Cor. 14:2, 16). 43 In fact, Paul explicitly says that quite the opposite of the phe-
nomenon at Pentecost will happen in the ordinary conduct of church life: if “all speak in
tongues” and “outsiders or unbelievers enter,” far from understanding the message, they
will say “that you are mad” (1 Cor. 14:23). Moreover, we must realize that 1 Corinthians
14 is Paul’s general instruction based on a wide experience of tongues-speaking in many
different churches, whereas Acts 2 simply describes one unique event at a significant
turning point in the history of redemption (Acts 2 is historical narrative while 1 Cor.
14 is doctrinal instruction). Therefore it would seem appropriate to take 1 Corinthians
14 as the passage that most closely describes the ordinary experience of New Testament
churches, and to take Paul’s instructions there as the standard by which God intends
churches to regulate the use of this gift. 44
Are tongues known human languages then? Sometimes this gift may result in speak-
ing in a human language that the speaker has not learned, but ordinarily it seems that
it will involve speech in a language that no one understands, whether that be a human
language or not. 45
43 Robertson and Plummer note that 1 Cor. 14:18, “I thank
God that I speak in tongues more than you all,” is “strong evi-
dence that Tongues are not foreign languages” (A. Robertson
and A. Plummer, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the
First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians, ICC [Edinburgh: T. &
T. Clark, 1914], p. 314). If they were known foreign languages
that foreigners could understand, as at Pentecost, why would
Paul speak more than all the Corinthians in private, where no
one would understand, rather than in church where foreign visi-
tors could understand?
44 Note that at Pentecost this speaking in tongues had
another characteristic that was not shared by any later speech
in tongues: there were tongues of fire appearing over the heads
of those who spoke (Acts 2:3). But this is not a paradigm for
all later experiences of speaking in tongues, not even for those
found later in Acts.
45 Paul does say, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of
angels ” (1 Cor. 13:1), suggesting that he sees the possibil-
ity that speaking in tongues may include more than merely
human speech. Whether he thinks this is only a hypothetical
possibility or a real one is difficult to say, but we certainly can-
not rule out the idea that angelic languages would be involved
with this speech as well.
Some have objected that since glossa elsewhere in Greek
(outside the New Testament) refers to known human lan-
guages, it must refer to known languages in the New Testa-
ment as well. But this objection is not convincing, since there
was no other word in Greek better suited to refer to this phe-
nomenon, even if it involved talking to God in languages that
were not human languages or not fully developed languages of
any sort, so long as some content or information was conveyed
by the speech. I am not here arguing that speaking in tongues
CHAPTER 53 • GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (2)
1073
c. Prayer With the Spirit, Not With the Mind: Paul says: “If I pray in a tongue, my spirit
prays but my mind is unfruitful. What am I to do? I will pray with the spirit and I will
pray with the mind also; I will sing with the spirit and I will sing with the mind also”
(1 Cor. 14:14-15).
Paul is not here talking about the Holy Spirit praying through us. The contrast between
“my spirit” and “my mind” in verse 14 indicates that it is Paul’s own human spirit that he
is talking about, the nonmaterial aspect of his being. As he uses this gift, his spirit speaks
directly to God, even though his mind does not have to formulate words and sentences
and decide what to pray for. 46 Paul sees this kind of prayer as an activity that occurs in
the spiritual realm, whereby our spirits speak directly to God but our mind is somehow
bypassed and does not understand what we are praying.
We may wonder why God would give the church a gift that operates in the unseen,
spiritual realm and that is not understood by our minds. One reason may be to keep us
humble, and to help prevent intellectual pride. Another reason may be to remind us that
God is greater than our understanding and that he works in ways that transcend our
understanding. Finally, it is characteristic of much that God does in the new covenant age
that it is done in the unseen, spiritual realm: regeneration, genuine prayer, worship “in
spirit and in truth,” the spiritual blessings that come through the Lord’s Supper, spiritual
warfare, laying up treasures in heaven, setting our minds on things above, where Christ
is — all these and many more elements of the Christian life involve activities that occur
in the unseen, spiritual realm, activities that we do not see or fully understand. In that
light, speaking in tongues is simply another activity that occurs in the unseen spiritual
realm, an activity we believe is effective because Scripture tells us it is, not because we
can comprehend it with our minds (cf. 1 Cor. 14:5).
d. Not Ecstatic but Self-controlled: The New English Bible translated the phrase “speak-
ing in tongues” as “ecstatic speech,” thus giving further support to the idea that those
who speak in tongues lose awareness of their surroundings or lose self-control or are
forced to speak against their will. Moreover, some of the extreme elements in the Pente-
costal movement have allowed frenzied and disorderly conduct at worship services, and
this has, in the minds of some, perpetuated the notion that speaking in tongues is a kind
of ecstatic speech.
in Acts 2 was a different phenomenon from the speaking in
tongues that Paul discusses in 1 Cor. 14. 1 am simply saying that
the phrase “speaking in tongues” in Acts 2 and 1 Cor. 14 refers
to speech in syllables not understood by the speaker but under-
stood by God, to whom this speech is directed. In Acts 2 this
happened to be speech in known human languages that had not
been learned by the speakers, whereas in 1 Cor. 14 the speech
may have been in unknown human languages, or in angelic
languages, or in some specialized kind of language given by the
Holy Spirit to various speakers individually. The expression is
broad enough to include a wide variety of phenomena.
46 The phrase “pray in the Holy Spirit” in Jude 20 is not
the same expression, since it is specifically the “Holy Spirit”
who is designated. Jude is simply saying that Christians should
pray in conformity to the character and leading of the Holy
Spirit, and that may certainly include prayer in tongues, but
it would include any other kind of prayer in an understand-
able language as well. Similarly, “Pray at all times in the Spirit ,
with all prayer and supplication” (Eph. 6:18) is specifically a
statement that claims to cover all prayer that is made at all
times. It refers to prayer in conformity to the character of the
Holy Spirit and sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit, but it
should not be restricted to speaking in tongues. Once again, it
may include speaking in tongues, but should include all other
types of prayer as well. (See the discussion of activities done
“in the Holy Spirit” in chapter 30, pp. 648-49.)
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1074
But this is not the picture given in the New Testament. Even when the Holy Spirit
came with overwhelming power at Pentecost, the disciples were able to stop speaking
in tongues so that Peter could give his sermon to the assembled crowd. More explicitly,
Paul says:
If any speak in a tongue, let there be only two or at most three , and each in turn;
and let one interpret. But if there is no one to interpret, let each of them keep
silence in church and speak to himself and to God. (1 Cor. 14:27-28)
Here Paul requires that those who speak in tongues take turns, and he limits the number
to three, indicating clearly that those who spoke in tongues were aware of what was going
on around them, and were able to control themselves so as to speak only when it was
their turn, and when no one else was speaking. If there was no one to interpret, they were
easily able to keep silence and not speak. All of these factors indicate a high degree of self-
control and give no support to the idea that Paul thought of tongues as ecstatic speech
of some kind.
e. Tongues Without Interpretation: If no one known to have the gift of interpretation
is present in the assembly, the passage just quoted indicates that speaking in tongues
should be in private. No speech in tongues without interpretation should be given in the
church service. 47
Paul speaks of praying in tongues and singing in tongues when he says, “I will pray
with the spirit and I will pray with the mind also; I will sing with the spirit and I will sing
with the mind also” (1 Cor. 14:15). This gives further confirmation to the definition
given above in which we viewed tongues as something primarily directed toward God in
prayer and praise. It also gives legitimacy to the practice of singing in tongues, whether
publicly or privately. Yet the same rules apply for singing as for speaking: if there is no
interpreter, it should only be done in private. 48
In 1 Corinthians 14:20-25 Paul says that if believers speak in tongues without inter-
pretation in church, they will be acting and thinking like “children” (1 Cor. 14:20). He
first quotes a prophecy of judgment from Isaiah 28:11-12: “In the law it is written, ‘By
47 It is troubling that, in some churches today where speaking musical chord. While many people will testify that there is
in tongues is allowed, those who do not give a message publicly beauty and spiritual power in such occurrences, once again we
(perhaps because it is not the appropriate time in the service or must object that it is directly contrary to Paul’s instructions
perhaps because they do not know if someone will interpret) in 1 Cor. 14:27-28, where those who speak in tongues are to
will still sometimes speak in tongues not “silently” but so that take turns, and there are to be at most three in a worship ser-
four or five people nearby can hear their speech in tongues. This vice, and interpretation is to follow. Though this practice may
is simply disobedience to Paul’s directive, and is not acting in sound beautiful to those who are familiar with it, and though
love toward others in the church. Paul says to “keep silence in God may at times graciously use it as a means of winning an
church” if one is not giving a public message in tongues. (Many unbeliever, Paul explicitly says that the expected result gener-
who have spoken in tongues today say that it can easily be done ally will be that unbelievers will say “that you are mad” (1
in an inaudible whisper, so that no one else will hear, and Paul’s Cor. 14:23). An alternative to this practice, and one that would
directions will be obeyed.) both be consistent with Scripture and follow the path of love
48 Many churches today, however, practice what is some- toward outsiders, would be for everyone to sing in this way,
times called “singing in the Spirit,” in which many or all the not in tongues, but in an understandable language (whether
congregation will simultaneously sing in tongues, individu- English or whatever language is commonly understood in the
ally improvising their melodies around a certain dominant area where the church assembles).
CHAPTER 53 • GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (2)
1075
men of strange tongues and by the lips of foreigners will I speak to this people, and even
then they will not listen to me, says the Lord’ ” (1 Cor. 14:21).
In the context of Isaiah 28, God is warning the rebellious people of Israel that the next
words they heard from him would be words of foreigners that they could not under-
stand — the Assyrian army would come on them as agents of God’s judgment. Now Paul
is about to take this as a general principle — when God speaks to people in language they
cannot understand, it is quite evidently a sign of God’s judgment.
Paul rightly applies that to the situation of speaking in tongues without interpretation
in the church service. He calls it a sign (that is, a sign of judgment) on unbelievers:
Thus, tongues are a sign not for believers but for unbelievers, while prophecy is
not for unbelievers but for believers. If, therefore, the whole church assembles
and all speak in tongues, and outsiders or unbelievers enter, will they not say
that you are mad? (1 Cor. 14:22-23)
Here Paul uses the word “sign” to mean “ sign of God’s attitude” (whether positive or
negative). Tongues that are not understood by outsiders are certainly a negative sign — a
sign of judgment. Therefore Paul cautions the Corinthians not to give such a sign to
outsiders who come in. He tells them if an outsider comes in and hears only unintel-
ligible speech, he will certainly not be saved but will conclude that the Corinthians
are mad, and the uninterpreted tongues will in his case function as a sign of God’s
judgment.
By contrast, Paul says that prophecy is a sign of God’s attitude as well, but here a
positive sign of God’s blessing. This is why he can say that prophecy is a sign “for believ-
ers” (v. 22). And this is why he concludes his section by saying, “If all prophesy, and an
unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, the
secrets of his heart are disclosed; and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and
declare that God is really among you” (vv. 24-25). When this happens, believers will
certainly realize that God is active among them to bring blessing, and prophecy will
regularly function as a sign for believers of God’s positive attitude for them. 49
Nevertheless, however much Paul warns against using tongues without interpretation
in church, he certainly views it positively and encourages it in private. He says, “He who
speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church” (1 Cor. 14:4).
What is his conclusion? It is not (as some would argue) that Christians should decide not
to use the gift or decide that it has no value when used privately. Rather he says, “What
am I to do? I will pray with the spirit and I will pray with the mind also” (v. 15). And he
says, “I thank God that I speak in tongues more than you all” (v. 18), and “Now I want
you all to speak in tongues, but even more to prophesy” (v. 5), and “Earnestly desire to
prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues” (v. 39). If our previous understand-
ing of tongues as prayer or praise to God is correct, then we would certainly expect that
edification would follow, even though the speaker’s mind does not understand what is
49 For further discussion of this passage, see Wayne Grudem,
“1 Corinthians 14:20-25: Prophecy and Tongues as Signs of
God’s Attitude,” WTJ 41:2 (Spring 1979), pp. 381-96.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1076
being said, but his or her own human spirit is communicating directly with God. Just as
prayer and worship in general edify us as we engage in them, so this kind of prayer and
worship edifies us too, according to Paul.
f. Tongues With Interpretation: Edification for the Church: Paul says, “He who proph-
esies is greater than he who speaks in tongues, unless someone interprets , so that the
church maybe edified” (1 Cor. 14:5). Once a message in tongues is interpreted, all can
understand. In that case, Paul says that the message in tongues is as valuable to the church
as prophecy. He does not say they have the same functions (for other passages indicate
that prophecy is communication from God toward humans, while tongues is generally
communication from humans to God). But Paul clearly says they have equal value in
edifying the church. We may define the gift of interpretation as reporting to the church
the general meaning of something spoken in tongues .
g. Not All Speak in Tongues: Just as not all Christians are apostles, and not all are proph-
ets or teachers, and not all possess gifts of healing, so not all speak with tongues. Paul
clearly implies this when he asks a series of questions, all of which expect the answer
“no,” and includes the question “Do all speak with tongues?” (1 Cor. 12:30). The implied
answer is no. 50 Some have argued that Paul here only means that not all speak with
tongues publicly ; but that perhaps he would have admitted that all can speak in tongues
privately. But this distinction seems foreign to the context and unconvincing. He does
not specify that not all speak with tongues publicly or in church , but simply says that not
all speak with tongues. His next question is, “Do all interpret?” (v. 30). His previous
two questions were, “Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing?” (w. 29-30).
Would we wish to make the same arguments about these gifts — that not all interpret
tongues publicly, but that all Christians are able to do it privately? Or that not all work
miracles publicly, but that all are able to work miracles privately? Such a distinction
seems unwarranted by the context in every case.
In actuality, the desire to say that every Christian can speak in tongues (even though
Paul says that not all speak in tongues) is probably motivated in most cases by a prior
doctrinal understanding that views baptism in the Holy Spirit as an experience subse-
quent to conversion, 51 and sees speaking in tongues as an initial “sign” of receiving this
baptism in the Holy Spirit. 52 But there are serious questions that remain about this doc-
trinal position (as explained in chapter 39). It seems better to take 1 Corinthians 12:30 to
mean just what it says: not all speak in tongues. The gift of tongues — just like every other
gift — is not given by the Holy Spirit to every Christian who seeks it. He “apportions to
each one individually as he wills” (1 Cor. 12:11).
However, there is nothing in Scripture that says that only a few will receive the gift
of speaking in tongues, and, since it is a gift Paul views as edifying and useful in prayer
and worship (on a personal level even if not in church), it would not be surprising if the
50 The Greek particle me, which precedes this question, 51 See chapter 39 about baptism in the Holy Spirit,
expects the answer “no” from the reader. The NASB captures 52 This is still the official doctrinal position of the
this sense: “All do not speak with tongues, do they?” Assemblies of God, for example.
CHAPTER 53 ■ GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (2)
1077
Holy Spirit gave a very widespread distribution of this gift and many Christians in fact
received it. 53
h. What About the Danger of Demonic Counterfeit? At times Christians have been
afraid to speak in tongues, wondering if speaking something they do not understand
might involve them in speaking blasphemy against God or speaking something that is
prompted by a demon rather than by the Holy Spirit.
First, it must be said that this is not Pauls concern, even in the city of Corinth where
many had come from pagan temple worship, and where Paul had clearly said that “what
pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God” (1 Cor. 10:20). Nonetheless, Paul
says, “I want you all to speak in tongues” (1 Cor. 14:5). He gives no warning that they
should beware of demonic counterfeit or even think that this would be a possibility when
they use this gift.
The theological reason underlying Paul’s encouragement at that point is the fact that
the Holy Spirit is working powerfully within the lives of believers. Paul says, “I want you
to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says ‘Jesus be cursed!’ and no
one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:3). Here Paul reassures the
Corinthians that if they are speaking by the power of the Holy Spirit working within them,
they will not say, “Jesus be cursed!” 54 Coming as it does at the beginning of a discussion
of spiritual gifts, 1 Corinthians 12:3 is intended to function as reassurance to the Corin-
thians who may have suspected some Christians who came from backgrounds of demon
worship in the temples at Corinth. Might this demonic influence still affect their use of a
spiritual gift? Paul lays down the ground rule that those who genuinely profess faith that
Jesus is Lord” are doing so by the Holy Spirit working within, and that no one speaking
by the power of the Holy Spirit will ever speak blasphemy or curses against Jesus. 55 This
fear, then, is not one that Paul seemed troubled by. He simply encouraged believers to pray
in tongues and said that if they did so they would be edifying themselves. 56
53 Mark 16:17 is sometimes used to claim that all Christians
can speak in tongues: “And these signs will accompany those
who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will
speak in new tongues.” But in response to this verse it must
be noted (1) that the verse probably was not originally part of
Mark s gospel, since many early and very reliable manuscripts
do not include Mark 16:9-20, and its doubtful status means
that it is a precarious basis upon which to build doctrine (see
chapter 17, p. 365); (2) that even if it is not part of Scripture, it
does of course bear witness to a very early tradition in the his-
tory of the church, but even in this case, it does not affirm that
all believers will speak with tongues: the immediately follow-
ing phrase says, “They will pick up serpents” (v. 18), something
that no responsible interpreter would say should be true of every
Christian; and (3) that no connection is made between speaking
in tongues and baptism in the Holy Spirit in this passage.
54 It might be objected at this point that speaking in tongues
is not speech empowered by the Holy Spirit, but is speech that
comes from the speaker’s own human spirit. But Paul clearly
views all these spiritual gifts as generally empowered by the
Holy Spirit, even the ones in which human personality comes
fully into play. This would be true of teachers and helpers and
administrators, as well as those who speak with tongues. In
each of these cases the active agent in performing the activity
is the Christian who has the particular gift and uses it, but all
these are nonetheless empowered by the Holy Spirit in their
functioning, and that would also be true of the gift of tongues
as well.
55 Also relevant at this point is John’s reassurance to his
readers, in the context of demonic spirits that had gone out
into the world: “He who is in you is greater than he who is in
the world” (1 John 4:4).
56 Some popular books have given anecdotal accounts of
Christians who say they spoke in tongues for a time and then
found that there was a demon within them who was empower-
ing this speech, and the demon was cast out. (See, for example,
C. Fred Dickason, Demon Possession and the Christian
[Westchester, 111.: Crossway, 1987], pp. 126-27; 188-91; 193-97.)
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1078
i. Is Romans 8:26-27 Related to Speaking in Tongues? Paul writes in Romans
8:26-27:
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray
as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for
words. And he who searches the hearts of men knows what is the mind of
the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will
of God.
Paul does not mention speaking in tongues explicitly here, and the statement is a general
one concerning the life of all Christians, so it does not seem correct to say that Paul here
is referring to speaking in tongues. He is referring to a more general experience that
occurs in the prayer life of every Christian.
But what exactly is he talking about? Some have thought that he is referring to an
intercessory activity completely imperceptible to us, in which the Holy Spirit intercedes
for us by making sighs and groans to the Father. On this view, such intercessory work
of the Spirit goes on continually, but we have no idea that it is happening (except for the
fact that Scripture tells us this). In this way it would be similar to the intercessory work
of Christ mentioned in Romans 8:34 and Hebrews 7:25.
But this does not appear to be a satisfactory explanation of the passage, for several
reasons: (1) It would not seem probable that Paul would say that the intercessory work of
the Holy Spirit, who is the infinite, omnipotent, omniscient God, would be carried out
in “wordless groans ” (literal translation of stenagmois alaletois in Rom. 8:26), especially
But this is just another example of a case where experience
is to be subject to Scripture and tested by Scripture, and the
teaching of Scripture should not be subject to experience. We
must be careful that we not let such reports of experiences
cause us to adopt a different position than Scripture itself
on this issue. Specifically, if 1 Cor. 12-14 views tongues as a
good gift from the Holy Spirit that is valuable for edification
and for the good of the church, and if Paul can say, “I want
you all to speak in tongues” (1 Cor. 14:5), then interpreta-
tions of contemporary experiences that, in effect, say, “I want
you all to be afraid of tongues,” go contrary to the emphasis
of the New Testament. (Note Dickason’s quotation of Kurt
Koch: “Seeking this gift for ourselves can be a very dangerous
experience” [p. 127] .) This is just not the perspective Paul has
in the New Testament.
I realize that Dickason has a cessationist view with respect
to speaking in tongues today (see p. 189: “I told her I doubted
that there were any genuine tongues from God today in the
New Testament sense”). Therefore, from his perspective, he
is not making Scripture subject to experience, but sees these
experiences as confirming his understanding of Scripture.
(I have discussed the cessationist position in chapter 52,
pp. 1031-46.)
There is the possibility of demonic counterfeit of every
gift in the lives of unbelievers (see Matt. 7:22; also chapter 17,
pp. 368-69, on false miracles). Therefore the fact that there is
some kind of “speaking in tongues” in pagan religions should
not surprise us or cause us to think that all speaking in tongues
is false. But in the lives of believers, especially when there is pos-
itive fruit in their lives and from their gifts, 1 Cor. 12:3, 1 John
4:4, Luke 11:11-13, and Matt. 7:16-20 tell us that these are
not counterfeit gifts but real gifts from God. We must remem-
ber that Satan and demons do not do good; they do evil; and
they do not bring blessing; they bring destruction.
(Neil T. Anderson, in The Bondage Breaker [Eugene, Oreg.:
Harvest House, 1990], pp. 159-60, relates a story of a man
who was apparently a Christian and who had a counterfeit gift
of tongues. But Anderson notes that the gift was conferred
on the man “by false teachers” [p. 159] and that this “gift”
brought obviously destructive consequences in the man’s life.
These factors, and not just the words of a demon as the only
evidence, gave clear indication of the counterfeit nature of that
supposed “gift.” Unlike Dickason, Anderson affirms that he is
not opposed to speaking in tongues; see p. 160.)
An alternative explanation for the stories given by Dicka-
son is to say that the demons who said they were “tongues spir-
its,” and that they came in when some charismatics laid hands
on the Christian in question, were lying. Satan “is a liar and the
father of lies” (John 8:44), and he would love to have Christians
afraid of as many of the Holy Spirit’s gifts as possible.
CHAPTER 53 • GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (2)
1079
when we realize that “groans” refers to the intense sighs of fatigue that are appropri-
ate to weary, burdened creatures in a fallen world. 57 (2) Within the larger context the
groanings in view seem to be those due to the burden of living in this present evil age,
particularly the groans associated with our suffering in this age (see vv. 17, 18, 23).
(3) The verb “helps” in Romans 8:26 (“The Spirit helps us in our weakness”) does not refer
to something the Holy Spirit does apart from us and on our behalf but rather something
the Holy Spirit does in cooperation with us. The verb Paul uses here ( sunantilambanomai )
is also used in Luke 10:40, where Martha wants Jesus to tell Mary “to help me” — certainly
she does not want Mary to do the food preparation instead of her, but rather to come and
take part with her in doing it. 58 Therefore Paul is not talking about something the Holy
Spirit does completely apart from our participation, but something the Holy Spirit does
in cooperation with our activity.
These reasons combine to indicate that Paul is not talking about a work of the Holy
Spirit done apart from us and unknown by us, but about the inarticulate sighs and
groans which we ourselves utter in prayer, which the Holy Spirit then makes into effec-
tive intercession before the throne of God. We could paraphrase, “The Holy Spirit assists
our prayers when he intercedes (for us) by taking our wordless groans and making them
into effective prayer.” 59
What is the relationship between this and speaking in tongues? There is some similar-
ity because it is effective prayer which we pray even though we do not understand fully
what we are praying. But there are some differences in that the sighs or groans that we
utter in prayer very often relate to situations or hardships that we are very conscious of
in our minds as we pray, so we know what we are praying about. But Paul says that we
do not know how to pray for these situations as we ought to pray. Therefore the Holy
Spirit helps us and intercedes in these situations “according to the will of God” (Rom.
8:27). There is no explicit mention of our spirit praying (though that may indeed be true
as well), nor is there mention of our mind being unfruitful or lacking understanding
(though that may at times be at least partially true). Nor do these sighs or groans come
forth in anything that could be called “other tongues” or “other languages.” So there are
several differences, even though Romans 8:26-27 talks about intercession that we make
in sounds that are not fully understood by us, and therefore it is a phenomenon that has
some similarities to speaking in tongues.
57 The word "groan” ( stenagmos ) is elsewhere used in the
New Testament only at Acts 7:34, of the groanings of Israel
under oppression in Egypt. But the related verb stenazo is
used several times, always of finite creatures groaning under
the burden of this fallen creation. In the immediately previous
context stenazo refers to our groaning because our redemption
is incomplete (Rom. 8:23; a related compound word is used in
v. 22 of the creation itself). The verb is also used of finite crea-
tures groaning under the burden of this creation in Mark 7:34
(Jesus as a man); 2 Cor. 5:2, 4 (believers who have a corruptible,
earthly body); Heb. 13:17 (church leaders who maybe tempted
to groan under the burden of church leadership); and James 5:9
(a warning for Christians not to grumble or groan against one
another). Though the verb was once used of Jesus who groaned
while under the limitations of this human existence, it does
not seem an appropriate term to use of the activity of the Holy
Spirit, who would not experience a similar weakness because he
never took on human nature.
58 Though the word is not elsewhere used in the New Testa-
ment, its sense is also transparent from the sun (“with”) prefix
that Paul attaches to a very common word for “help.”
59 An alternative view is found in the helpful discussion
by Douglas Moo, Romans 1-8 , pp. 559-63, who (hesitantly)
understands the groans to be not ours but the Holy Spirits.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1080
F. Word of Wisdom and Word of Knowledge
Paul writes, “For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, and to another
the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:8 NASB). At the beginning
of this discussion it must be understood that these two gifts are mentioned nowhere else
in Scripture, 60 and no other early Christian literature outside the Bible has been found
to use these phrases of any spiritual gift either. This means that the only information we
have about these gifts is contained in this verse: we have the words used to describe these
two gifts, and we have the context in which the phrases occur. No interpreter anywhere
has any more information than this to work with. This warns us that our conclusions will
probably be somewhat tentative in any case.
The major alternatives for understanding these gifts are two: (1) These gifts are com-
monly thought to be the ability to receive a special revelation from the Holy Spirit and
on that basis to speak words that give wisdom in a situation or give specific knowledge of
a situation in the life of someone present in a congregation. In this interpretation these
gifts would be more “miraculous,” in that they would call forth wonder and amazement
from the people present since they would not be based on information ordinarily avail-
able to the person using the gift.
(2) The other interpretation of these gifts would see them as more “non-miraculous”
or ordinary: the “word of wisdom” simply means the ability to speak a wise word in vari-
ous situations, and “word of knowledge” is the ability to speak with knowledge about a
situation. In both cases the knowledge and wisdom would not be based on a special rev-
elation spontaneously given by the Holy Spirit, but would be based on wisdom acquired
in the ordinary course of life, the knowledge and wisdom that would be characteristic
of Bible teachers or elders and other mature Christians in a church, for example. These
would be empowered by the Holy Spirit and thereby made effective when they were
spoken. Examples of “words of wisdom” in this sense would be found in Acts 6:1-6 (the
appointment of the first “deacons” or assistants to the apostles); Acts 6:10 (Stephen’s wis-
dom in proclaiming the gospel); Acts 15:19-29 (the decision of the Jerusalem council);
and even in King Solomon’s statement, “Divide the living child in two, and give half to
the one, and half to the other” (1 Kings 3:25; see also 1 Cor. 6:5-6).
In favor of the first interpretation, it might be argued that all the other seven gifts
listed in 1 Corinthians 12:8- 10 are in the “miraculous” category, and therefore these two
gifts should be understood that way as well.
However, there are some weighty considerations against this view: (1) The words Paul
uses for “word” (logos), “wisdom” (sophia), and “knowledge” ( gnosis ) are not specialized
or technical terms, but are extremely common words in the Greek New Testament. They
are simply the ordinary words frequently used for “word” and “wisdom” and “knowl-
edge.” Moreover, they are not ordinarily used to denote miraculous events (as are the
words revelation and prophecy, for example), but are simply the words used for human
knowledge and wisdom. So from the meanings of the words themselves, no indication
of a miraculous gift seems to be given.
60 At least no other place in Scripture calls something a
“word of wisdom” or “word of knowledge” or uses those phrases
in any other way.
CHAPTER 53 • GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (2)
1081
(2) In the context of 1 Corinthians 12:8, Paul’s purpose in the argument seems to
weigh against thinking of them as miraculous. Paul’s larger purpose in verses 8- 10 is to
demonstrate that no matter what kind of gift a person has , he or she can be assured that
that gift has been given by the Holy Spirit. He precedes the section by saying, “To each is
given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good,” and follows this immediate
section by saying, “All these are inspired by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to
each one individually as he wills” (vv. 7, 11). But if Paul’s purpose in this section is to
show that every Christian's gift is given by the Holy Spirit, then that purpose would not
be well served by giving only examples of miraculous gifts. If he did that, those with
non-miraculous gifts would feel left out of the argument and would not be persuaded
that their gifts are included in Paul’s discussion. Even more importantly, those with
miraculous gifts might look at this list and conclude that only those with miraculous gifts
really had the Holy Spirit at work within them to empower those gifts. This would lead
to a dangerous kind of elitism in the congregation. Therefore it seems necessary that Paul
would include some nonmiraculous gifts in his list in 1 Corinthians 12:8-10.
But which are the nonmiraculous gifts in this list?
Word of wisdom
Word of knowledge
Faith
Gifts of healings
Miracles
Prophecy
Distinguishing between spirits
Tongues
Interpretation of tongues
All the other gifts seem to fall in the more “miraculous” category (with the possible
exceptions of speaking in tongues and perhaps faith). But that would make it almost
necessary that word of wisdom and word of knowledge be nonmiraculous to guarantee
that there are some nonmiraculous gifts in the list. This would demonstrate Paul’s pasto-
ral wisdom in selecting examples of different kinds of gifts being exercised in the actual
congregation. So there must be some nonmiraculous gifts on the list — and if there are
some, then these are very good candidates. 61
(3) Probably the most decisive consideration is the fact that the New Testament already
has a term to describe the action of receiving a special revelation from the Holy Spirit and
reporting it in the congregation — this is what Paul calls “prophecy.” Since he discusses
prophecy at some length, describing it and regulating it, we can know fairly clearly what
prophecy was. But to say that these other gifts functioned in exactly the same way (per-
haps differing only in content) does not seem justified by anything in the text other than
a preconceived notion of what these gifts should be. 62
61 Even if faith and tongues are considered nonmiracu-
lous, then we have a list that is a mixture of miraculous and
nonmiraculous gifts, and then there is no reason why word
of wisdom and word of knowledge could not be considered
non-miraculous as well, especially on the basis of the fact that
the words used to describe them do not ordinarily denote
miraculous events.
62 In fact, everything that modern Pentecostal and char-
ismatic Christians call “words of knowledge” and “words of
wisdom” would fit exactly into the definition of prophecy
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1082
Therefore it would seem preferable to understand these in a “nonmiraculous” way,
simply as the ability to speak with wisdom or with knowledge in various situations.
What many people today call “word of wisdom” and “word of knowledge” in charismatic
circles, it would seem better simply to refer to as “prophecy.” 63
G. Distinguishing Between Spirits and Spiritual Warfare
The gift of distinguishing between spirits is another gift that is mentioned only once
in the New Testament (in the list at 1 Cor. 12:10), but the nature of this gift connects it
with a number of other passages that describe the spiritual warfare that occurs between
Christians and demonic spirits. We may define the gift of distinguishing between spirits
as follows: Distinguishing between spirits is a special ability to recognize the influence of the
Holy Spirit or of demonic spirits in a person.
In the perspective of the history of redemption, this gift also gives a foretaste of the
age to come in that it is a foretaste of the ability to recognize Satan and his influence,
which ability will be made perfect for us in heaven, when everything that is covered
or hidden will be revealed and brought to the light (Matt. 10:26; cf. Rev. 20:11-15).
This ability is probably also stronger than that possessed by most or all believers in the
old covenant, where mentions of demonic activity are infrequent, and where demonic
attacks against Gods people most often were embodied in military attacks by unbeliev-
ing nations against the people of Israel, or in overt temptations to go and serve pagan dei-
ties. Demonic activity was therefore perceived primarily through observation of outward
physical events and circumstances in which Satan’s purpose was carried out, and which
could be clearly seen.
This New Testament gift of distinguishing between spirits involves the ability to dis-
tinguish the presence of evil spirits from the presence of the work of the Holy Spirit in a
person’s life. Paul knows that the Corinthians previously were “led astray to dumb idols”
(1 Cor. 12:2), and John similarly realizes that there is a need for Christians to “test the
spirits to see whether they are of God; for many false prophets have gone out into the
world” (1 John 4:1).
Beyond this, it is also possible that the gift would involve distinguishing between
various types of evil spirits, such as a spirit of infirmity (Luke 13:11), a spirit of divina-
tion (Acts 16:16), a dumb and deaf spirit (Mark 9:25, 29), and a spirit of error (1 John
4:6). From a lexical and grammatical standpoint there is nothing that would prevent us
as given by Paul, and should in fact be put under the general that Paul gives in the New Testament. Whether that would
umbrella of prophecy. This would have the distinct advantage lead to misuse of the gift at some point in the future is impos-
of making the use of this gift subject to Paul’s rules for under- sible to predict. But it does seem to be rather anomalous to
standing and regulating prophecy in the church. have a miraculous gift that is quite widely used and that is
Will any harm come from continuing the fairly common only mentioned but never discussed or regulated at all in the
practice of thinking of words of wisdom and words of knowl- New Testament.
edge as miraculous gifts that depend on a special revelation 63 For further discussion of these gifts, see Wayne Gru-
from God? One immediate danger might be that, whereas dem, “What is the Real Meaning of a ‘Word of Wisdom’ and a
what is actually happening would be called “prophecy” by ‘Word of Knowledge’?” in Ministries Today (Jan.-Feb. 1993),
Paul, in some cases it is now being called something different, pp. 60-65.
and that tends to distance it from the regulations for prophecy
CHAPTER 53 * GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (2)
1083
from understanding the gift of “distinguishing between spirits” to include this kind of
ability as well. 64
Of course, to some degree the presence of demonic activity is outwardly evident, some-
times from the blurting out of blatantly false doctrinal statements (see 1 Cor. 12:2-3; 1
John 4:1-6), and sometimes from violent and bizarre physical actions, especially in the
face of Christian preaching (see Mark 1:24; 9:20; Matt. 8:29; etc.). Satan’s influence is
characteristically destructive, and the person influenced by a demon will have a destruc-
tive influence on the church and others around him or her, and also a self-destructive
influence that harms the life of the troubled individual himself or herself.
But in addition to these outward indications of demonic influence, there is prob-
ably also a more subjective perception that occurs at the spiritual and emotional level,
whereby the presence of demonic activity is distinguished. When this is more highly
developed, and is able to function for the benefit of the church as a whole, then Paul
would no doubt call it a gift of distinguishing between spirits. 65
In connection with the gift of distinguishing between spirits, the discussion of
spiritual warfare given above in chapter 20 (on Satan and demons) is also relevant.
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. Have you ever experienced a gift of prophecy as defined in this chapter? What have
you called it? Has this gift (or something like it) functioned in your church? If so,
what have been the benefits — and dangers? If not, do you think this gift might be
of help to your church? (Why or why not?)
2. Does the gift of teaching function effectively in your church? Who uses this gift in
addition to the pastor or elders? Do you think your church adequately appreciates
sound Bible teaching? In what areas (if any) do you think your church needs to
grow in its knowledge and love of the teachings of Scripture?
3. Of the other gifts discussed in this chapter, have you ever used any of them your-
self? Are there any which you think your church needs but does not have at this
time? What do you think would be best for you to do in response to this need?
SPECIAL TERMS
(This list applies to chapters 52 and 53.)
apostle gifts of the Holy Spirit
cessationist healing
distinguishing between spirits interpretation of tongues
64 For a very extensive linguistic and grammatical analysis
of this phrase, see Wayne Grudem, “A Response to Gerhard
Dautzenberg on 1 Cor. 12:10,” in Biblische Zeitschrift, N.F., 22:2
(1978), pp. 253-70.
65 Of course, no gift is perfect in any Christian in this age
(1 Cor. 13:9 - 10), and we should not expect that this gift would
be perfect, or that those who have it would never make mis-
takes. See chapter 52, pp. 1022-25, on the fact that spiritual
gifts vary in strength.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1084
miracles
miraculous gifts
nonmiraculous gifts
office
prophecy
speaking in tongues
teaching
word of wisdom
word of knowledge
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter 1,
pp. 38-39. Complete bibliographical data may be found on pp. 1224-30. Note: Very few
systematic theologies have sections on spiritual gifts, but a few that do are listed below.
This bibliography applies to chapters 52 and 53.)
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
(no explicit treatment)
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1983 Carter, 1:449-57
3. Baptist
1983-85 Erickson, 877-83
4. Dispensational
1947 Chafer, 7:215-20
1986 Ryrie, 367-74
5. Lutheran
(no explicit treatment)
6. Reformed (or Presbyterian)
(no explicit treatment)
7. Renewal (or charismatic/Pentecostal)
1988-92 Williams, 2:209-36, 243-63, 323-409, 3:159-77
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
1. Roman Catholic: Traditional
(no explicit treatment)
2. Roman Catholic: Post-Vatican II
1980 McBrien, 2:1086-88
Other Works
Baker, J. P. “Gifts of the Spirit.” In NDT, pp. 269-71.
Bennett, Dennis and Rita. The Holy Spirit and You . Plainfield, N.J.: Logos, 1971.
(Charismatic.)
CHAPTER 53 ■ GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (2)
1085
Blue, Ken. Authority to Heal Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press, 1987.
Bridge, Donald. Signs and Wonders Today . Leicester: Inter- Varsity Press, 1985.
(Charismatic.)
, and David Phypers. Spiritual Gifts and the Church. Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity
Press, 1973. (Charismatic.)
Budgen, Victor. The Charismatics and the Word of God. Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and
Reformed, 1985. (Cessationist.)
Carson, D. A. Showing the Spirit: A Theological Exposition of 1 Corinthians 12-14. Grand
Rapids: Baker, 1987.
Chantry, Walter J. Signs of the Apostles. 2d ed. Edinburgh and Carlisle, Pa.: Banner of Truth,
1976. (Cessationist.)
Clements, Roy. Word and Spirit: The Bible and the Gift of Prophecy Today. Leicester: UCCF
Booklets, 1986.
Deere, Jack. Surprised by the Power of the Spirit: A Former Dallas Seminary Professor Discov-
ers That God Still Speaks and Heals Today. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1993. (This is
the most balanced and persuasive argument I have ever read against the cessationist
position.)
Edgar, Thomas. “The Cessation of the Sign Gifts.” In BibSac 145:180 (Oct.-Dec. 1988), pp.
371-86. (Cessationist.)
Ellis, E. E. “Prophecy, Theology of.” In NDT t pp. 537-38.
Farnell, F. David. “The Current Debate About New Testament Prophecy.” In BibSac 149:595
(July- Sept. 1992), pp. 277-303.
. “Does the New Testament Teach Two Prophetic Gifts?” In BibSac 150 (Jan. -March,
1993), pp. 62-88.
. “Fallible New Testament Prophecy/Prophets? A Critique of Wayne Grudem’s
Hypothesis.” In The Master’s Seminary Journal 2:2 (Fall 1991), pp. 157-80.
. “The Gift of Prophecy in the Old and New Testaments ” In BibSac 149:596
(Oct-Dec., 1992), pp. 387-410.
. “When Will the Gift of Prophecy Cease?” In BibSac 150 (April -June, 1993),
pp. 171-202.
Gaffin, Richard B. Perspectives on Pentecost: Studies in New Testament Teaching on the
Gifts of the Holy Spirit. Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1979.
(Cessationist.)
Gee, Donald. Concerning Spiritual Gifts. Springfield, Mo.: Gospel Publishing House, 1972
(revised edition). (Traditional Pentecostal.)
. Spiritual Gifts in the Work of Ministry Today. Springfield, Mo.: Gospel Publishing
House, 1963. (Traditional Pentecostal.)
Gentry, Kenneth L., Jr. The Charismatic Gift of Prophecy: A Reformed Response to Wayne
Grudem. 2d ed. Memphis, Tenn.: Footstool Publications, 1989. (Cessationist.)
Green, Michael. I Believe in the Holy Spirit. London: Hodder and Stoughton, and Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975.
Greig, Gary, and Kevin Springer, eds. The Kingdom and the Power: Are Healing and the
Spiritual Gifts Used by Jesus and the Early Church Meant for the Church Today ?
Ventura, Calif.: Regal Books, 1993.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1086
Gromacki, Robert G. The Modern Tongues Movement. Rev. ed. Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presby-
terian and Reformed, 1972. (Cessationist.)
Grudem, Wayne. “Does God Still Give Revelation Today?” In Charisma y Sept., 1992,
pp. 38-42.
. The Gift of Prophecy in 1 Corinthians . Lanham, Md.: University Press of America,
1982.
• The Gift of Prophecy in the New Testament and Today. Westchester, 111.: Crossway,
1988.
. Power and Truth: A Response to the Critiques of Vineyard Teaching and Practice by
D. A. Carson, James Montgomery Boice, and John H. Armstrong in Power Religion .
Anaheim, Calif.: Association of Vineyard Churches, 1993.
. “What Is the Real Meaning of a ‘Word of Wisdom* and a ‘Word of Knowledge 5 ?” In
Ministries Today (Jan.-Feb. 1993), pp. 60-65.
. “What Should Be the Relationship Between Prophet and Pastor?” In Equipping the
Saints (Fall 1990), pp. 7-9,21-22.
Hayford, Jack W. The Beauty of Spiritual Language. Irvine, Tex.: Waco, 1993.
Horton, Michael Scott, ed. Power Religion: The Selling Out of the Evangelical Church ?
Chicago: Moody Press, 1992.
Houston, Graham. Prophecy: A Gift For Today? Leicester and Downers Grove, 111.: Inter-
Varsity Press, 1989.
Hummel, Charles E. Fire in the Fireplace: Charismatic Renewal in the Nineties. Downers
Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press, 1993.
MacArthur, John F., Jr. Charismatic Chaos . Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992.
(Cessationist.)
• The Charismatics: A Doctrinal Perspective. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1978.
(Cessationist.)
Mallone, George. Those Controversial Gifts. Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press, 1983.
Moo, Douglas. “Divine Healing in the Health and Wealth Gospel.” In TrinJ, Vol. 9 N.S., No.
2 (Fall 1988), pp. 191-209.
Nathan, Richard. A Response to Charismatic Chaos. Anaheim, Calif.: Association of Vine-
yard Churches, 1993. (An extensive response to John MacArthurs 1992 book.)
Osborne, Grant. “Tongues, Speaking in.” In EDT, pp. 1 100- 1 103.
Poythress, Vern. “Linguistic and Sociological Analyses of Modern Tongues-Speaking: Their
Contributions and Limitations.” In WTJ 42 (1979): 367-98.
Pytches, David. Spiritual Gifts in the Local Church. Originally published as Come, Holy
Spirit. Minneapolis: Bethany, 1985. (Charismatic.)
Reymond, Robert L. What About Continuing Revelations and Miracles in the Presbyterian
Church Today? Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1977. (Cessationist.)
Robertson, O. Palmer. The Final Word. Edinburgh and Carlisle, Pa.: Banner of Truth, 1993.
(Cessationist.)
Ruthven, Jon. On the Cessation of the Charismata: The Protestant Polemic on Post-Biblical
Miracles. Sheffield: Sheffield University Academic Press, 1993. (Charismatic; a revi-
sion and expansion of the author’s Ph.D. dissertation, in which he responds to the
arguments of cessationists from Warfield to the present.)
CHAPTER 53 ■ GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (2)
1087
Saucy, Robert. “Prophecy Today? An Initial Response .” In Sundoulos (Talbot Seminary;
Spring 1990), pp. 1-5. (Cessationist.)
Schatzmann, Siegfried. A Pauline Theology of Charismata. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson,
1987.
Stephanou, Eusebius A. “The Charismata in the Early Church Fathers,” The Greek Orthodox
Theological Review 21:2 (Summer 1976), pp. 125-46.
Storms, C. Samuel. Healing and Holiness: A Biblical Response to the Faith-Healing Phenom-
enon. Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1990.
Thomas, Robert L. “Prophecy Rediscovered? A Review of The Gift of Prophecy in the
New Testament and Today.” In BibSac 149:593 (Jan. -Mar. 1992), pp. 83-96.
(Cessationist.)
Thompson, J. G. S. S. and Walter A. Elwell. “Spiritual Gifts ” In EDT, pp. 1042-46.
Turner, M. M. B. “Spiritual Gifts Then and Now.” In Vox Evangelica 15 (1985), pp. 7-64.
Warfield, Benjamin B. Counterfeit Miracles. London: Banner of Truth, 1972 (first published
in 1918).
White, John. When the Spirit Comes with Power. Downers Grove, 111.: Inter- Varsity Press,
1988.
White, R. Fowler. “GafHn and Grudem on Ephesians 2:20: In Defense of Gafftn’s Cessation-
ist Exegesis.” In WTJ 54 (Fall 1993), pp. 303-20. (Cessationist.)
. “Richard Gaffin and Wayne Grudem on 1 Corinthians 13:10: A Comparison
of Cessationist and Noncessationist Argumentation.” In JETS 35:2 (June 1992),
pp. 173-82. (Cessationist.)
Wilkenson, J. “Healing.” In NDT, pp. 287-88.
Wimber, John. With Kevin Springer. Power Evangelism. San Francisco: Harper and Row,
1986.
. Power Healing. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1987.
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
1 Corinthians 12:7-11: To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common
good . To one is given through the Spirit the utterance ofwisdom y and to another the utter-
ance of knowledge according to the same Spirit , to another faith by the same Spirit , to another
gifts of healing by the one Spirit , to another the working of miracles , to another prophecy,
to another the ability to distinguish between spirits , to another various kinds of tongues, to
another the interpretation of tongues. All these are inspired by one and the same Spirit, who
apportions to each one individually as he wills.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1088
HYMN
“Come, O Come, Thou Quickening Spirit”
(A possible alternative tune is the tune for “Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah”)
Come, O come, thou quick’ning Spirit, God from all eternity!
May thy power never fail us; dwell within us constantly.
Then shall truth and life and light banish all the gloom of night.
Grant our hearts in fullest measure wisdom, counsel, purity,
That we ever may be seeking only that which pleaseth thee.
Let thy knowledge spread and grow, working error’s overthrow.
Show us, Lord, the path of blessing; when we trespass on our way,
Cast, O Lord, our sins behind thee and be with us day by day.
Should we stray, O Lord, recall; work repentance when we fall.
Holy Spirit, strong and mighty, thou who makest all things new,
Make thy work within us perfect and the evil foe subdue.
Grant us weapons for the strife and with vict’ry crown our life.
AUTHOR: HEINRICH HELD, 1664
Part
THE DOCTRINE
OF THE FUTURE
Chapter
THE RETURN OF CHRIST:
WHEN AND HOW?
When and how will Christ return ? Could he
come back at any hour ?
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
As we begin the final unit of this book, we turn to consider events that will happen
in the future. The study of future events is often called “eschatology” from the Greek
word eschatos, which means “last.” The study of eschatology, then, is the study of “the
last things.”
Unbelievers can make reasonable predictions about future events based on patterns
of past occurrences, but in the nature of human experience it is clear that human beings
of themselves cannot know the future. Therefore unbelievers can have no certain knowl-
edge of any future event. But Christians who believe the Bible are in a different situation.
Although we cannot know everything about the future, God knows everything about the
future and he has in Scripture told us about the major events yet to come in the history
of the universe. About these events occurring we can have absolute confidence because
God is never wrong and never lies.
Regarding our own personal future as individuals, we have already discussed the
teaching of Scripture in chapter 41 (on death and the intermediate state) and chapter
42 (on glorification). The study of these future events that will happen to individuals
is sometimes called “ personal eschatology” But the Bible also talks about certain major
events that will affect the entire universe. Specifically, it tells us about the second coming
of Christ, the millennium, the final judgment, eternal punishment for unbelievers and
eternal reward for believers, and life with God in the new heaven and new earth. The
study of these events is sometimes called “general eschatology” In this chapter we will
study the question of the return of Christ, or his “second coming.” Subsequent chapters
will deal with the remaining topics in a study of the last things.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1092
There have been many debates — often heated ones — in the history of the church
over questions regarding the future. In this chapter we will begin with aspects of Christ’s
second coming with which all evangelicals agree, and then at the end move to one matter
of disagreement: whether Christ could return at any time. Then in the following chapter
we will discuss the question of the millennium, a topic that has long been a source of
disagreement among Christians.
A. There Will Be a Sudden, Personal, Visible, Bodily
Return of Christ
Jesus often spoke about his return. “You also must be ready; for the Son of Man is
coming at an hour you do not expect” (Matt. 24:44). He said, “I will come again and will
take you to myself, that where I am you may be also” (John 14:3). Immediately after Jesus
had ascended into heaven, two angels said to the disciples, “This Jesus, who was taken up
from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven” (Acts
1:11). Paul taught, “The Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command,
with the archangel’s call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God” (1 Thess. 4:16). The
author of Hebrews wrote that Christ “ will appear a second time , not to deal with sin but
to save those who are eagerly waiting for him” (Heb. 9:28). James wrote, “the coming 1 of
the Lord is at hand” (James 5:8). Peter said, “The day of the Lord will come like a thief”
(2 Peter 3:10). John wrote, “when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as
he is” (1 John 3:2). And the book of Revelation has frequent references to Christ’s return,
ending with Jesus’ promise, “Surely I am coming soon,” and John’s response, “Amen.
Come, Lord Jesus!” (Rev. 22:20).
This theme, then, is frequently mentioned throughout the New Testament. It is the
dominant hope of the New Testament church. These verses predict a sudden return of
Christ that will be dramatic and visible (“He is coming with the clouds, and every eye
will see him,” Rev. 1:7). The passages are far too explicit to allow the idea (once popular
in liberal Protestant circles) that Christ himself will not return, but simply that the spirit
of Christ, meaning an acceptance of his teaching and an imitation of his lifestyle of love,
would increasingly return to the earth. It is not his teachings or his style of conduct, but
“ the Lord himself” who will descend from heaven (1 Thess. 4:16). It is Jesus himself “who
was taken up from you into heaven” who “will come in the same way as you saw him
go into heaven” (Acts 1:11). His appearing will not be a mere spiritual coming to dwell
within people’s hearts, but will be a personal and bodily return “in the same way as you
saw him go into heaven.”
B. We Should Eagerly Long for Chrises Return
John’s response at the end of Revelation should characterize Christians’ hearts in all
ages: “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!” (Rev. 22:20). True Christianity trains us “to live sober,
The term parousia is used in theology to mean “second second coming in James 5:8 and several other New Testa-
coming” (of Christ). This term comes from the Greek word ment passages. Because parousia is not a commonly used
for “coming” ( parousia ) which is used to refer to Christ’s term in ordinary English, I have not used it in this book.
CHAPTER 54 • THE RETURN OF CHRIST: WHEN AND HOW?
1093
upright, and godly lives in this world, awaiting our blessed hope , the appearing of the glory
of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:12- 13). 2 Paul says, “our commonwealth
is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior ; the Lord Jesus Christ” (Phil. 3:20). 3 The term
“Maranatha” in 1 Corinthians 16:22 (NASB) similarly means, “Our Lord, come!” (1 Cor.
16:22 RSV).
Do Christians in fact eagerly long for Christ’s return? The more Christians are caught
up in enjoying the good things of this life, and the more they neglect genuine Christian
fellowship and their personal relationship with Christ, the less they will long for his
return. On the other hand, many Christians who are experiencing suffering or perse-
cution, or who are more elderly and infirm, and those whose daily walk with Christ is
vital and deep, will have a more intense longing for his return. To some extent, then, the
degree to which we actually long for Christ’s return is a measure of the spiritual condition
of our own lives at the moment. It also gives some measure of the degree to which we see
the world as it really is, as God sees it, in bondage to sin and rebellion against God, and
in the power of the evil one (1 John 5:19).
But does this mean that we should not undertake long-term projects? If a scientist
who is a Christian eagerly longs for Christ’s return, then should he or she begin a ten-
year research project? Or should a Christian begin a three-year course in a theological
seminary or a Bible college? What if Christ were to return the day before graduation from
that institution, before there was any chance to give a significant amount of one’s time
to actual ministry?
Certainly we should commit ourselves to long-term activities. It is precisely for this
reason that Jesus does not allow us to know the actual time of his return (see below): he
wants us to be engaged in obedience to him, no matter what our walk of life, up until the
very moment of his return. To “be ready” for Christ’s return (Matt. 24:44) is to be faith-
fully obeying him in the present, actively engaged in whatever work he has called us to. In
the nature of the situation, since we do not know when he will return, on that day there
will no doubt be some missionaries just departing for the mission field, who will never
reach their destination. There will be some men in their last year of seminary education
who will never use their training to pastor a church. There will be some researchers hand-
ing in their doctoral dissertations on that day, the fruit of years of research that will never
be published and never have an influence on the world. But to all of those people who are
Christians, Jesus will say, “Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful
over a little, I will set you over much; enter into the joy of your master” (Matt. 25:21).
C. We Do Not Know When Christ Will Return
Several passages indicate that we do not, and cannot, know the time when Christ will
return. “The Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect ” (Matt. 24:44). “Watch
therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour” (Matt. 25:13). Moreover, Jesus said,
2 The word translated “awaiting” here ( prosdechomai ) has a for the consolation of Israel” (Luke 2:25).
nuance of earnest or eager expectation: it is used of Joseph of 3 The word here translated “await” is apekdechomai , “await
Arimathea, who was “looking for the kingdom of God” (Mark eagerly” (note its use in this sense in Rom. 8:19, 23; 1 Cor. 1:7;
15:43; Luke 23:51) and of righteous Simeon who was “looking Gal. 5:5).
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1094
“But of that day or that hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son,
but only the Father. Take heed, watch; for you do not know when the time will come”
(Mark 13:32-33).
It is simply an evasion of the force of those passages to say that we cannot know the day
or the hour, but that we can know the month or the year. The fact remains that Jesus is
coming “at an hour you do not expect” (Matt. 24:44), and “at an unexpected hour” (Luke
12:40). (In these verses the word “hour” [hora] is best understood in a more general
sense, to refer to the time when something will take place, not necessarily a sixty-minute
period of time.) 4 The point of these passages is that Jesus is telling us that we cannot know
when he is coming back. Since he will come at an unexpected time, we should be ready
at all times for him to return.
The practical result of this is that anyone who claims to know specifically when Jesus
is coming back is automatically to be considered wrong. The Jehovah’s Witnesses have
made many predictions of specific dates for Christ’s return, and all of them have turned
out to be wrong. 5 But others in the history of the church have made such predictions as
well, sometimes claiming new insight into biblical prophecies, and sometimes claiming
to have received personal revelations from Jesus himself indicating the time of his return.
It is unfortunate that many people have been deceived by these claims, because if people
are convinced that Christ will return (for example) within a month, they will begin to
withdraw from all long-term commitments. They will take their children out of school,
sell their houses, quit their jobs, and give up work on any long-term projects whether in
the church or elsewhere. They may initially have an increased zeal for evangelism and
prayer, but the unreasonable nature of their behavior will offset any evangelistic impact
they may have. Moreover, they are simply disobeying the teaching of Scripture that the
date of Christ’s return cannot be known, which means that even their prayer and fellow-
ship with God will be hindered as well. Anyone who claims to know the date on which
Christ will return — from whatever source — should be rejected as incorrect. 6
D. All Evangelicals Agree on the Final Results of Christ’s Return
No matter what their differences on the details, all Christians who take the Bible as
their final authority agree that the final and ultimate result of Christ’s return will be the
4 BAGD, p. 896, 3.
5 Their attempt to save face by claiming that Jesus actually
did return on October 1, 1914, in an invisible way, is incorrect
because it denies the visible, bodily nature of Christ’s return
that is so clearly specified in several passages quoted above.
6 Even in the “enlightened” twentieth century, such alarms
can be persuasive to many people. In the summer of 1988 a
former rocket scientist with impressive academic credentials
circulated a booklet claiming that Jesus would return on
September 12, 1988, and tens of thousands of copies of the
book found their way around the United States and to various
parts of the world. I was surprised to find that some otherwise
sober Christian friends had read it and were alarmed, and
to hear that some Christians in our community had pulled
their children out of school in order to be together as a fam-
ily when Christ came back. When the prediction failed, the
author, Edgar Whisenant, revised his prediction, saying his
calculations were one year off and Christ would return instead
on September 1, 1989 (or one day earlier or later), or, if not
then, on Rosh Hashanah 1990 or 1991 or 1992, or, at the lat-
est, September 15-17, 1993. Of course, those predictions also
failed. But many lives were disrupted and many people had
false expectations aroused and then dashed by the publication
of this booklet and its sequel. See Edgar Whisenant, 88 Rea-
sons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988 (Nashville, Tenn.: World
Bible Society, 1988), and Edgar Whisenant and Greg Brewer,
The Final Shout: Rapture Report 1989 (Nashville, Tenn.: World
Bible Society, 1989).
CHAPTER 54 • THE RETURN OF CHRIST: WHEN AND HOW?
1095
judgment of unbelievers and the final reward of believers, and that believers will live with
Christ in a new heaven and a new earth for all eternity. God the Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit will reign and will be worshiped in a never-ending kingdom with no more sin or
sorrow or suffering. We will discuss these details more fully in the following chapters.
E. There Is Disagreement Over the Details of Future Events
Nevertheless, Christians differ over specific details leading up to and immediately
following Christ’s return. Specifically, they differ over the nature of the millennium and
the relationship of Christs return to the millennium, the sequence of Christ’s return and
the great tribulation period that will come to the earth, and the question of the salvation
of the Jewish people (and the relationship between Jews who are saved and the church).
Before we examine some of those questions in more detail, it is important to affirm
the genuine evangelical standing of those who have differing positions on these ques-
tions. Evangelicals who hold to these various positions all agree that Scripture is inerrant,
and they have a commitment to believe whatever is taught by Scripture. Their differ-
ences concern the interpretation of various passages relating to these events, but their
differences on these matters should be seen as matters of secondary importance, not as
differences over primary doctrinal matters.
Nevertheless, it is worth our time to study these questions in more detail, both
because we may gain further insight into the nature of the events that God has planned
and promised for us, and because there is still hope that greater unity will come about
in the church when we agree to examine these issues again in more detail and to engage
in discussion about them.
F. Could Christ Come Back at Any Time?
One of the significant areas of disagreement is over the question of whether Christ
could return at any time. On the one hand, there are many passages encouraging us to
be ready because Christ will return at an hour we do not expect. On the other hand,
there are several passages that speak of certain events that will happen before Christ
returns. There have been different ways of resolving the apparent tension between these
two sets of passages, with some Christians concluding that Christ could still return at
any time, and others concluding that he could not return for at least a generation, since
it would take that long to fulfill some of the predicted events that must occur before
his return.
1. Verses Predicting a Sudden and Unexpected Coming of Christ. In order to feel the
cumulative force of the passages that predict that Christ could come very soon, it is
helpful simply to list them here in order:
Watch therefore , for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But
know this, that if the householder had known in what part of the night the thief
was coming, he would have watched and would not have let his house be broken
into. Therefore you also must be ready; for the Son of man is coming atari hour
you do not expect (Matt. 24:42-44; cf. vv. 36-39)
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1096
The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at
an hour he does not know. (Matt. 24:50)
Watch therefore , for you know neither the day nor the hour. (Matt. 25:13)
But of that day or that hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the
Son, but only the Father. Take heed, watch; for you do not know when the time
will come. (Mark 13:32-33)
It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his servants in
charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch.
Watch therefore — for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in
the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or in the morning — lest he come
suddenly and find you asleep. And what I say to you I say to all: Watch . (Mark
13:34-37)
You also must be ready; for the Son of man is coming at an unexpected hour ;
(Luke 12:40)
Our Lord, come! (1 Cor. 16:22)
For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the
Lord Jesus Christ. (Phil. 3:20 NASB)
For you yourselves know well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the
night (1 Thess. 5:2)
Training us to . . . live sober, upright, and godly lives in this world, awaiting our
blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.
(Titus 2:12-13)
Encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near ;
(Heb. 10:25)
Be patient, therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord Establish your
hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand Behold, the Judge is standing at
the doors, (James 5:7-9)
The end of all things is at hand. (1 Peter 4:7)
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away
with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and
all the works that are upon it will be burned up. (2 Peter 3:10)
The time is near. (Rev. 1:3)
Behold, I am coming soon. (Rev. 22:7)
Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense, to repay everyone for what
he has done. (Rev. 22:12)
He who testifies to these things says, “ Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come,
Lord Jesus! (Rev. 22:20)
What shall we say to these passages? If there were no passages in the New Testament
about signs that would precede Christ’s return, we would probably conclude from the
passages just quoted that Jesus could come at any moment. In this sense, we can say that
CHAPTER 54 * THE RETURN OF CHRIST: WHEN AND HOW?
1097
Christ’s return is imminent 7 It would seem to blunt the force of the commands to be
ready and to watch if there was a reason to think that Christ would not come soon.
Before we look at passages on signs that precede Christ’s coming, another problem
must be considered at this point. Were Jesus and the New Testament authors wrong in
their expectation that he would return soon? Did they not think and even teach that the
second coming of Christ would be in just a few years? In fact, a very prominent view
among liberal New Testament scholars has been that Jesus mistakenly taught that he
would return soon.
But none of the texts just quoted require this interpretation. The texts that say to be
ready do not say how long we will have to wait, nor do the texts that say that Jesus is com-
ing at a time we do not expect. As for the texts that say Jesus is coming “soon,” we must
realize that biblical prophets often speak in terms of “prophetic foreshortening,” which
sees future events but does not see the intervening time before those events occur.
George Ladd says:
The prophets were little interested in chronology, and the future was always
viewed as imminent . . . the Old Testament prophets blended the near and the
distant perspectives so as to form a single canvas. Biblical prophecy is not pri-
marily three-dimensional but two; it has height and breadth but is little con-
cerned about depth, i.e., the chronology of future events ... the distant is viewed
through the transparency of the immediate. It is true that the early church lived
in expectancy of the return of the Lord, and it is the nature of biblical prophecy
to make it possible for every generation to live in expectancy of the end. 7 8
Peter also reminds us that the Lord has a different perspective on time than we do,
so that “soon” with him may not be what we expect: “But do not ignore this one fact,
beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one
day. The Lord is not slow about his promise as some count slowness” (2 Peter 3:8-9).
2. Signs That Precede Christ’s Return. The other set of texts to be considered tells of
several signs that Scripture says will precede the time of Christ’s return. In fact, Berkhof
says, “According to Scripture several important events must occur before the return of
the Lord, and therefore it cannot be called imminent.” 9
Here it will be helpful to list those passages that most directly refer to signs that must
occur before Christ’s return.
7 In this chapter, it must be made clear that I am not using any generation. I am not using the term in that way in this
imminent as a technical term for a pre-tribulational rapture chapter.)
position (explained below), but simply to mean that Christ 8 George Eldon Ladd, A Commentary on the Revelation of
could return at any day, or even any hour. John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972), p. 22.
Furthermore, I am not using the word imminent to mean 9 Berkhof, Systematic Theology ; p. 696. He lists several events,
that Christ certainly will come soon (for then the verses teach- such as the preaching of the gospel to all nations, the conver-
ing imminence would have been untrue when they were writ- sion of the fullness of Israel, the great tribulation, the revela-
ten). I am using the word imminent to mean that Christ could tion of the antichrist, and a remarkable conjunction of many
come and might come at any time, and that we are to be pre- ominous signs and wonders (wars, famines, earthquakes, false
pared for him to come at any day. (Others define imminent prophets doing miracles, and fearful signs in the sun, moon,
more broadly, taking it to mean that Christ could come in and stars), all of which he discusses on pp. 697-703.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1098
a. The Preaching of the Gospel to All Nations:
And the gospel must first be preached to all nations. (Mark 13:10; cf. Matt.
24:14)
b. The Great Tribulation:
And when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must
take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and king-
dom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places, there will
be famines; this is but the beginning of the birth-pangs. (Mark 13:7-8; cf. Matt.
24:15-22; Luke 21:20-24)
For in those days there will be such tribulation as has not been from the beginning
of the creation which God created until now, and never will be. And if the Lord had
not shortened the days, no human being would be saved; but for the sake of the
elect, whom he chose, he shortened the days. (Mark 13:19-20)
c. False Prophets Working Signs and Wonders:
False Christs and false prophets will arise and show signs and wonders, to lead
astray, if possible, the elect. (Mark 13:22; cf. Matt. 24:23-24)
d. Signs in the Heavens:
But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened, and the moon
will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in
the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of man coming in
clouds with great power and glory. (Mark 13:24-25; cf. Matt. 24:29-30; Luke
21:25-27)
e. The Coming of the Man of Sin and the Rebellion: Paul writes to the Thessalonians
that Christ will not come unless the man of sin is first revealed, and then the Lord Jesus
will destroy him at his coming. This “man of sin” is sometimes identified with the beast
in Revelation 13, and is sometimes called the antichrist, the final and worst of the series
of “antichrists” mentioned in 1 John 2:18. Paul writes:
Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ . . . that day will not come,
unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of
perdition, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object
of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be
God. . . . And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed
in his time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now
restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. And then the lawless one will be
revealed, and the Lord Jesus will slay him with the breath of his mouth and destroy
him by his appearing and his coming. The coming of the lawless one by the activ-
ity of Satan will be with all power and with pretended signs and wonders, and with
CHAPTER 54 • THE RETURN OF CHRIST: WHEN AND HOW?
1099
all wicked deception for those who are to perish y because they refused to love the
truth and so be saved. (2 Thess. 2:1-10)
f. The Salvation of Israel: Paul talks about the fact that many Jews have not trusted in
Christ, but he says that sometime in the future a large number would be saved:
Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means
riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean! (Rom.
11:12) 10
For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery, lest you be
wise in your own estimation, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel
until the fulness of the Gentiles has come in; and thus all Israel will be saved.
(Rom. 11:25-26)
g. Conclusions From These Signs That Precede Christ’s Return: The impact of these
passages seems so clear that, as was mentioned above, many Christians have felt that
Christ simply cannot return at any moment. 11 As we look over the list of signs given
above, it would not seem to take much argument to demonstrate that most of these
events, or perhaps all of them, have not yet occurred. Or at least that is what appears to
be the case on a first reading of these passages. 12
3. Possible Solutions. How can we reconcile the passages that seem to warn us to be ready
because Christ could suddenly return, with passages that indicate that several important
and visible events must take place before Christ can return? Several solutions have been
proposed.
One solution is to say that Christ could not come at any time. This position is taken
by Louis Berkhof, in the sentence quoted above. Just how long it would be before Christ
would return depends on each person’s estimate of how long it will take some of the signs
to be fulfilled, such as the preaching of the gospel to all nations, the coming of the great
tribulation, and the ingathering of the full number of the Jews who will be saved.
The difficulty with this view is twofold. First, it really seems to nullify the force of the
warnings of Jesus that we should watch, be ready, and that he is returning at an hour we
do not expect. What force is there in a warning to be ready for Christ to come at an unex-
pected time when we know that this coming cannot occur for many years? The sense of
urgent expectancy of Christ’s return is greatly diminished or denied altogether in this posi-
tion, and that result seems quite contrary to Jesus’ intention in giving these warnings.
10 The Greek word translated “full inclusion” here is plerdma,
“fullness.” This future full inclusion of Israel among God’s peo-
ple is sometimes also called the “fullness” of Israel.
11 Louis Berkhof also mentions Matt. 25:19, in which the
master returned “after a long time,” and Matt. 25:5, which
speaks of the delay of the bridegroom’s return ( Systematic
Theology \ p. 697). But both passages are vague as to the exact
length of time, and both would be consistent even with a delay
of ten or twenty years after Jesus returned to heaven.
12 I have not listed “wars and rumors of wars” and “famines
and earthquakes in various places” (Matt. 24:6-7) as signs
that must precede Christ’s return, because they have been
present throughout history, and because they are not given
by Jesus as signs that immediately precede his return, but as
events that come before those signs, as “the beginning of the
birth-pangs” (Matt. 24:8). Nevertheless, an intensification of
these things may well indicate the beginning of the last days,
with other signs soon to follow.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1100
Second, this position seems to use these signs in a way quite opposite from the way
Jesus intended them to be used. The signs are given so that, when we see them, they will
j intensify our expectation of Christ’s return. Jesus said, “Now when these things begin to
take place, look up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near” (Luke
21:28). And the warnings are also given to keep believers from going astray and following
false messiahs: “Take heed that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name,
saying, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray. . . . And then if any one says to you,
Took, here is the Christ!’ or ‘Look, there he is!’ do not believe it” (Mark 13:5-6, 21). So
the signs are given to keep Christians from being surprised by these remarkable events,
to assure them that God knows them all in advance, and to keep them from following
after alleged messiahs who do not come in the dramatic, visible, world-conquering way
in which Jesus himself will come. But the signs are never given to make us think, "Jesus
couldn't come for a few years” There is no indication that Jesus gave these signs in order
to provide Christians with a reason not to be ready for his return or in order to encour-
age them not to expect that he could come at any time! To use the signs that will precede
Christ’s return in this way (as Berkhof does, for example), is to use them in a way that
Jesus never intended. Therefore it does not seem convincing to say that Christ could not
come at any time.
The other major solution to this problem is to say that Christ indeed could come at any
time, and to reconcile the two sets of passages in various ways. (1) One way to reconcile
them is to say that the New Testament talks about two distinct returns of Christ, or two
second comings of Christ, 13 that is, a secret coming at which Christ takes Christians out
of the world (a coming “for his saints”), and then, after seven years of tribulation have
occurred on the earth, a visible, public, triumphant coming (a coming “with his saints”)
in which Christ comes to reign over the earth. During the seven-year interval all the
signs that have not yet been fulfilled (the great tribulation, the false prophets with signs
and wonders, the antichrist, the salvation of Israel, and the signs in the heavens) will be
fulfilled, so that there is no tension at all between waiting for a coming that could occur
“at any moment” and realizing that a later coming will be preceded by many signs. 14
The problem with this solution is that it is hard to derive two separate comings of
Christ from the passages that predict his return. However, we will not discuss this matter
here, but will treat it in the next chapter, when considering the pretribulational premi-
llennial view of Christ’s return. 15 It should also be noted that this solution is historically
quite recent, for it was unknown in the history of the church before it was proposed in
the last century by John Nelson Darby (1800-1882). This should alert us to the fact
that this solution is not the only possible one to the tension presented by the passages
quoted above.
13 Those who hold to this view object to the characterizing
of it as two second comings and prefer to speak of two aspects
of the same second coming, but since these two comings are
separated by an interval of at least seven years, it does not seem
inaccurate to characterize the view as holding to two second
comings.
14 This view is the pre-tribulational view, often referred to
as the pre-tribulational rapture view, since those who hold this
view often refer to Christ’s first, secret return to take Chris-
tians out of the world as the “ rapture ” (from Lat. rapio , “to
seize, snatch, carry away”). This view is discussed in chapter
55, pp. 1112-14 and 1132-35.
15 See chapter 55, pp. 1132-35, for an analysis of the
pretribulational premillennial view of Christ’s return.
CHAPTER 54 • THE RETURN OF CHRIST: WHEN AND HOW?
1101
(2) Another solution is to say that all the signs have been fulfilled, and therefore Christ
in fact could return at any moment. On this view, one could look for possible fulfillments
of these signs in the events of the early church, even in the first century. In some sense,
it might be said, the gospel was indeed preached to all nations, false prophets arose and
opposed the gospel, there was great tribulation in the persecution the church suffered at
the hands of some of the Roman emperors, the man of lawlessness was in fact the emperor
Nero, and the full number of the Jewish people who are to be saved has gradually come
about through the history of the church, since Paul even gives himself as one example
of the beginning of this ingathering of the Jewish people (Rom. 11:1). We will discuss
in more detail in the following section the view that the signs preceding Christ’s return
might have already been fulfilled, 16 but here we can simply note that many people have
not found convincing any view saying that they have happened, because these signs seem
to them to point to much larger events than those that occurred in the first century.
(3) There is another possible way of resolving these two sets of passages. It is to say
that it is unlikely but possible that the signs have already been fulfilled, and therefore we
simply cannot know with certainty at any point in history whether all the signs have been
fulfilled or not. This position is an attractive one because it takes seriously the primary
purpose for the signs, the primary purpose for the warnings, and the fact that we are not
to know when Christ will return. With regard to the signs, their primary purpose is to
intensify our expectation of Christ’s return. Therefore whenever we see indications of
things that resemble these signs, our expectation of Christ’s return will be aroused and
intensified. With regard to the warnings to be ready, advocates of this position would
say that Christ could return at any time (since we cannot be certain that the signs have
not been fulfilled), and so we must be ready, even though it is unlikely that Christ will
return at once (because it seems that there are several signs yet to be fulfilled). Finally,
this position agrees that we cannot know when Christ will return, and that he is coming
at an hour we do not expect.
But is it possible that these signs have been fulfilled? We can examine them one at a
time. In each case our conclusion will be that it is unlikely, but possible, that the sign has
been fulfilled already.
a * The Preaching of the Gospel to All Nations: Has the gospel been preached to all
nations? Probably not, since there are many language groups and tribes that have still
never heard the gospel. It is unlikely, therefore, that this sign has been fulfilled. However,
Paul does speak in Colossians about the worldwide spread of the gospel. He speaks of “the
gospel which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and grow-
ing (Col. 1:5—6). He also speaks of “the gospel which you heard, which has been preached
to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister” (Col. 1:23). In
these verses he certainly does not mean that every creature alive has heard the proclama-
tion of the gospel, but that the proclamation has gone forth to the whole world and that,
16 See pp. 1101-5 for a discussion of the view that it is
unlikely but possible that all the signs preceding Christ’s return
have already been fulfilled.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1102
in a representative sense at least, the gospel has been preached to the whole world or to all
nations. 17 Therefore, though, it is unlikely but possible that this sign was initially fulfilled
in the first century and has been fulfilled in a greater sense many times since then.
b. Great Tribulation: Once again, it seems likely that the language of Scripture indicates
a period of suffering coming to the earth that is far greater than anything that has yet
been experienced. But it must be realized that many people have understood Jesus’ warn-
ings about great tribulation to refer to the Roman siege of Jerusalem in the Jewish War
of A.D. 66-70. 18 The suffering during that war was indeed terrible, and could be what
was described by Jesus in predicting this tribulation. In fact, since the first century, there
have been many periods of violent and intense persecution of Christians, and even in our
century much of it has occurred over large portions of the globe, with Christians being
horribly persecuted in the former Soviet Union, in communist China, and in Muslim
countries. It would be difficult to convince some Christians in this century who have
undergone decades of persecution for their faith, and have known that persecution to
affect thousands of other Christians throughout large segments of the world, that such
a great tribulation has certainly not yet occurred. They have longed and prayed for years
for Christ to come and rescue them from the tribulation that they are enduring.
Once again, though we may think that Jesus’ words indicate the likelihood of a yet
greater persecution coming in the future, it is difficult to be certain of this. It seems
appropriate to conclude that it is unlikely but possible that the prediction of a great
tribulation has already been fulfilled.
c. False Christs and False Prophets: With regard to the false christs and false prophets
who will work signs and wonders, any missionary who has worked among people where
witchcraft and demonic activity are rampant will readily testify that seemingly miracu-
lous “signs and wonders” have been worked frequently by demonic power in opposition
to the spread of the gospel. Certainly demonic miracles and false signs have been done
for centuries, at least since the time that the magicians in Pharaoh’s court produced false
signs in opposition to Moses’ miracles (Ex. 7:11; 8:7; cf. the activity of Simon the Sorcerer
in Acts 8:9-11). Whatever the specific form it takes, such working of deceptive miracles
is almost always accompanied by false religions, leading many people astray (leaders of
such groups could be called false messiahs and false prophets). It seems likely that Jesus’
words predict a far greater manifestation of this kind of activity in the time just prior to
his return, but again, it is difficult to be certain that this will be so. It is best to conclude
that it is unlikely but still possible that this sign has been fulfilled already.
17 R. T. France, The Gospel According to Matthew y TNTC to be on earth, but rather an indication of the universal offer
(Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, of the gospel to all nations y i.e., outside the confines of the Jew-
1985), p. 339, says of Jesus' statement that “this gospel of the ish community. . . In one sense Paul could claim long before
kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, as a A.D. 70 to have ‘fully preached the gospel' in a large area of
testimony to all nations” (Matt. 24:12), the following: “The Asia and Europe (Rom. 15:19) and at many times since then
world is oikoumene y lit. ‘the inhabited area', a standard term similar claims could have been made with reference to an area
originally for the Greek world (as opposed to barbarians), far wider than the oikoumene known in Jesus' time.”
then for the Roman Empire, and subsequently for the whole 18 See description of these events in France, Matthew ,
of the then known world; it is thus not so much a geographical pp. 340-41, with reference to Josephus, Jewish War
term that must include every area and community now known 5.512 - 18.
CHAPTER 54 • THE RETURN OF CHRIST: WHEN AND HOW?
1103
d. Powerful Signs in the Heavens: The occurrence of powerful signs in the heavens is the
one sign that almost certainly has not yet occurred. Of course, there have been eclipses of
the sun and moon, and comets have appeared, since the world began. But Jesus speaks of
something far greater: “ The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and
the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken” (Matt. 24:29).
Although R. T. France attempts to explain this as symbolic language that refers to the
destruction of Jerusalem and God’s judgment on it, 19 he must base this claim on the asser-
tion that Isaiah 13:10 (from which Jesus’ words in Matt. 24:29 seem to be drawn) is also
merely symbolic language to refer to the fall of Babylon, whereas it is more likely that both
Isaiah 13: 10 and Matthew 24:29 speak of a yet future literal falling of the stars and blacken-
ing of the sun and moon, something that would be a suitable prelude to the shaking of the
earth and heaven and the cosmic destruction that will come after the return of Christ (see
Heb. 1:10—12; 12:27; 2 Peter 3:10—11). Moreover, it is significant that this description of
cosmic events in Matthew 24:29 is followed in the rest of the sentence with the description
of “the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory” (v. 30). 20
Given these facts, it seems unlikely that the descriptions of the falling of the stars from
heaven and the darkening of the sun and moon are merely symbolic language. It is better
to regard them as literal signs that will occur just before Christ’s return, and as such, they
fall in a different category from the other signs, since it seems certain that they have not yet
occurred. Nonetheless, they could occur very quickly — within the space of a few minutes
or at most an hour or two — to be followed immediately by Christ’s return. These particu-
lar signs are not the type that would lead us to deny that Christ could return at any time.
e. The Appearance of the Man of Lawlessness: Many attempts have been made through-
out history to identify the man of lawlessness (the “antichrist”) with historical figures
who had great authority and brought havoc and devastation among people on the earth.
The ancient Roman emperors Nero and Domitian, both of whom severely persecuted
Christians, were thought by many to be the antichrist. (Many Roman emperors, includ-
ing these two, claimed deity for themselves and demanded to be worshiped.) In more
recent times Adolf Hitler was commonly thought to be the antichrist, as was Joseph
Stalin. On the other hand, many Protestants since the Reformation, especially those who
were persecuted by the Catholic Church, have thought that one or another of the popes
was the antichrist.
But all of these identifications have proved false, 2 ^ and it is likely that a yet worse
“man of lawlessness” will arise on the world scene and bring unparalleled suffering and
persecution, only to be destroyed by Jesus when he comes again. But the evil perpetrated
by many of these other rulers has been so great that, at least while they were in power,
19 France, Matthew, pp. 343-44.
20 The difficulty in France’s position is seen in the fact that
he must take this seemingly very clear prediction of Christ’s
return to earth as a prediction of the destruction of the Jewish
temple in A.D. 70. He says that Matt. 24:30 speaks of “coming
to God to receive vindication and authority,” and therefore
indicates not Christ’s return in the flesh, but the vindication
of his authority “over the Jewish establishment which has
rejected him” when the temple is destroyed in A.D. 70 (ibid.,
p. 344).
21 However, John says, “as you have heard that antichrist is
coming, so now many antichrists have come” (1 John 2:18),
and he speaks of “the spirit of antichrist,” which, he says, “is in
the world already” (1 John 4:3). Therefore, even if these previ-
ous persecutors of the church were not the antichrist, many of
them may have been precursors of the final antichrist.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1104
it would have been difficult to be certain that the “man of lawlessness” mentioned in 2
Thessalonians 2 has not yet appeared. 22 Once again, it is unlikely but possible that this
sign has been fulfilled.
f. The Salvation of Israel: With regard to the salvation of the fullness of Israel, again it
must be said that Romans 9-11 seems to indicate that there will be a yet future mas-
sive ingathering of the Jewish people as they turn to accept Jesus as their Messiah. But
it is not certain that Romans 9-11 predicts this, and many have argued that no further
ingathering of the Jewish people will occur beyond the kind that we have already seen
through the history of the church, since Paul gives himself as a primary example of
this ingathering (Rom. 11:1-2). Once again, it is unlikely but possible that this sign has
already been fulfilled.
g. Conclusion: Except for the spectacular signs in the heavens, it is unlikely but possible
that these signs have already been fulfilled. Moreover, the only sign that seems certainly
not to have occurred, the darkening of the sun and moon and the falling of the stars,
could occur within the space of a few minutes, and therefore it seems appropriate to say
that Christ could now return at any hour of the day or night. It is therefore unlikely but
certainly possible that Christ could return at any time.
But does this position do justice to the warnings that we should be ready and that
Christ is coming at a time we do not expect? Is it possible to be ready for something that
we think unlikely to happen in the near future? Certainly it is. Everyone who wears a
seatbelt when driving, or purchases auto insurance, gets ready for an event he or she
thinks to be unlikely. 23 In a similar way it seems possible to take seriously the warnings
that Jesus could come when we are not expecting him, and nonetheless to say that the
signs preceding his coming will probably yet occur in the future.
22 It might be argued that Paul did not want the Thessalo-
nian church to expect that Christ could return at any time, since
he writes them “not to be quickly shaken in mind or excited,
either by spirit or by word, or by letter purporting to be from us,
to the effect that the day of the Lord has come” (2 Thess. 2:2).
He then goes on to say, “Let no one deceive you in any way; for
that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the
man of lawlessness is revealed” (2 Thess. 2:3). Someone might
ask whether Paul is not reasoning as follows: you know that the
man of lawlessness has not yet appeared; therefore, you know
that Christ has not yet come. And Christ will not come until this
man of lawlessness appears on the scene.
But it must be noted that Paul does not tell the Thessa-
lonians that Christ could not come at any time. He does not
tell them that they should fail to be ready or fail to expect
Christ’s return. He simply tells them that Christ’s return has
not already occurred , which is something far different. And the
reason he gives is not only the fact that the man of lawlessness
must first appear, but also that when Christ returns he will
defeat this man of lawlessness and destroy him: “And then the
lawless one will be revealed, and the Lord Jesus will slay him
with the breath of his mouth and destroy him by his appearing
and coming ” (2 Thess. 2:8). It is not just that they have not
seen the man of lawlessness — they have not seen him appear
and be destroyed by Jesus at his coming. The conclusion is that
Christ has not come, because he has not come destroying this
man of lawlessness. Yet he certainly could have come at any
time, even in the context of 2 Thessalonians, and immediately
destroyed the currently reigning Roman emperor (for Roman
emperors regularly claimed to be God and to be worthy of
worship, and John himself said that “many antichrists have
come,” 1 John 2:18).
23 I thank God that I have driven thirty years without a
major auto accident, and I pray and expect that I will not have
one, but I still buckle my seatbelt every time I get in the car. I
prepare for an event that I think to be unlikely, but nonethe-
less possible. Similarly, I think that many of the signs will have
yet greater fulfillment, and that it is unlikely that Jesus will
return within the next few days or weeks. In fact, I am writing
this book, which will not be published for many more months,
on the assumption that Jesus will not have returned by then.
Nonetheless, I frequently examine my heart and my life to see
if there is anything of which I would be ashamed when Jesus
returns, because I want to be ready for him to return at any
moment, even at a moment I do not expect.
CHAPTER 54 • THE RETURN OF CHRIST: WHEN AND HOW?
1105
This position has positive spiritual benefits as we seek to live the Christian life in the
midst of a rapidly changing world. In the ebb and flow of world history, we see from time
to time events that could be the final fulfillment of some of these signs. They happen, and
then they fade away. During the blackest days of World War II, it seemed very likely that
Hitler was the antichrist. During times of persecution against the church, it can seem
more likely that Christians are in the middle of the great tribulation. When we hear of
earthquakes and famines and wars, it makes us wonder if the coming of Christ might not
be near. Then these events fade into the background and world leaders pass off the scene,
and the tide of events leading to the end of the age seems to have receded for a time. Then
once again a new wave of events will break on the world scene, and once again our expecta-
tion of Christ’s return is increased. With each successive “wave” of events, we do not know
which one will be the last. And this is good, because God does not intend us to know. He
simply wants us to continue to long for Christ’s return and to expect that it could occur
at any time. It is spiritually unhealthy for us to say that we know that these signs have not
occurred, and it seems to stretch the bounds of credible interpretation to say that we know
that these signs have occurred. But it seems to fit exactly in the middle of the New Testa-
ment approach toward Christ’s return to say that we do not know with certainty if these
events have occurred. Responsible exegesis, an expectation of Christ’s sudden return, and
a measure of humility in our understanding, are all three preserved in this position.
Then if Christ does return suddenly, we will not be tempted to object, saying that one
or another sign has not yet occurred. We will simply be ready to welcome him when he
appears. And if there is great suffering yet to come, and if we begin to see intense opposi-
tion to the gospel, a large revival among the Jewish people, remarkable progress in the
preaching of the gospel through the world, and even spectacular signs in the heavens,
then we will not be dismayed or lose heart, because we will remember Jesus’ words,
“When these things begin to take place, look up and raise your heads, because your
redemption is drawing near” (Luke 21:28).
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. Before reading this chapter, did you think that Christ could return at any hour?
How did that affect your Christian life? Now what do you think? If your viewpoint
has changed, what effect do you think it will have on your own life?
2. Why do you think Jesus decided to leave the world for a time and then return, rather
than staying on earth after his resurrection and preaching the gospel throughout
the world himself?
3. Do you now eagerly long for Christ’s return? Have you had a greater longing for
it in the past? If you do not have a very strong yearning for Christ’s return, what
factors in your life do you think contribute to that lack of lon gin g?
4. Have you ever decided not to undertake a long-term project because you thought
Christ’s return was near? Do you have any hesitancy now about long-term proj-
ects because of that reason? If so, do you think that hesitancy has any negative
consequences on your life?
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1106
5. Are you ready for Christ to return today? If you knew he were going to return
within 24 hours, what situations or relationships would you want to straighten out
before he returned? Do you think that the command to “be ready” means that you
should attempt to straighten out those things now, even if you think it unlikely that
he would return today?
SPECIAL TERMS
eschatology parousia
general eschatology personal eschatology
imminent second coming of Christ
Maranatha
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter 1,
pp. 38-39. Complete bibliographical data may be found on pp. 1224-30.)
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1882-92 Litton, 579-81
1930 Thomas, 87-88, 525
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1875-76
Pope, 3:387-401
1892-94
Miley, 2:440-47
1940
Wiley, 3:243-81
1960
Purkiser, 537-50
1983
Carter, 2:113-16
3. Baptist
1767
Gill, 2:230-43
1887
Boyce, 451-61
1907
Strong, 1003-15
1917
Mullins, 462 - 66
1983-85
Erickson, 1185-94, 1203-4
4. Dispensational
1947
Chafer, 4:255 -63; 5:280-314
1949
Thiessen, 337-50
1986
Ryrie, 273-74, 463
5. Lutheran
1917-24
Pieper, 3:515-34
1934
Mueller, 619-25
CHAPTER 54 • THE RETURN OF CHRIST: WHEN AND HOW?
6. Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1871-73 Hodge, 3:790-836
1887-1921 Warfield, SSW, 1:348-64
1889 Shedd, 2b:641-46; 3:471-528
1937-66 Murray, CW, 1: 86-95; CW, 2:387-410
1938 Berkhof, 695-707
1962 Buswell, 2:341-423
7. Renewal (or charismatic/Pentecostal)
1988-92 Williams, 3:297-396
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
1. Roman Catholic: Traditional
1955 Ott, 485-88
2. Roman Catholic: Post-Vatican II
1980 McBrien, 2:1101-6
1107
Other Works
Archer, Gleason, Paul Feinberg, Douglas Moo, and Richard Reiter. The Rapture: Pre-, Mid-,
or Post-tribulational ? Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984.
Bauckham, Richard J. “Apocalyptic.” In NDT, pp. 33-35.
Beechick, Allen. The Pre-Tribulation Rapture. Denver: Accent, 1980.
Berkouwer, G.C. The Return of Christ. Trans, by James Van Oosterom. Ed. by Marlin J. Van
Elderen. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972.
Clouse, F. G. “Rapture of the Church.” In EDT, pp. 908-10.
Dumbrell, William J. The Search for Order: Biblical Eschatology in Focus. Grand Rapids:
Baker, 1992.
Erickson, Millard. Contemporary Options in Eschatology. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1977.
Gundry, R. H. The Church and the Tribulation. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1973.
Hoekema, Anthony A. The Bible and the Future. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979, pp.
109-238.
Ladd, George Eldon. The Blessed Hope. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956.
Lightner, Robert P. The Last Days Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide to Understanding the
Different Views of Prophecy. Who Believes What About Prophecy and Why. Nashville,
Tenn.: Thomas Nelson, 1990.
Rosenthal, Marvin. The Pre-Wrath Rapture of the Church. Nashville, Tenn.: Thomas
Nelson, 1990.
Travis, S. H. “Eschatology.” In NDT, pp. 228-31.
VanGemeren, Willem. The Progress of Redemption. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1988.
Van Kampen, Robert. The Sign. Wheaton, 111.: Crossway, 1992.
Vos, Geerhardus. The Pauline Eschatology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1961.
Walvoord, John F. The Blessed Hope and the Tribulation. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1976.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1108
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
1 Thessalonians 4:15-18: For this we declare to you hy the word of the Lord , that we who
are alive , who are left until the coming of the Lord, shall not precede those who have fallen
asleep . For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the
archangel's call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God . And the dead in Christ will rise
first; then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds
to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord . Therefore comfort one
another with these words.
HYMN
“Lo! He Comes, With Clouds Descending”
This song vividly pictures the event of Christ’s return, with millions of believers com-
ing with him and many more on earth welcoming him as he comes. The “clouds” with
which Christ comes, mentioned in the first line of the hymn, are the clouds of God’s
glory. The hymn does not hesitate (in v. 3) to portray brilliantly the shaking of the heav-
ens and the earth and the fact that unbelievers will be called to judgment. It ends with a
dramatic stanza directly addressing Jesus himself, asking him to come quickly and reign.
(Use tune known as “Sicilian Mariners.”)
Lo! He comes, with clouds descending, once for favored sinners slain;
Thousand thousand saints attending swell the triumph of his train:
Alleluia! Alleluia! God appears on earth to reign.
Ev’ry eye shall now behold him, robed in dreadful majesty;
Those who set at naught and sold him, pierced, and nailed him
to the tree,
Deeply wailing, deeply wailing, shall the true Messiah see.
Ev’ry island, sea, and mountain, heav’n and earth, shall flee away;
All who hate him must, confounded, hear the trump proclaim
the Day;
Come to judgment! Come to judgment! Come to judgment,
come away!
Now redemption, long expected, see in solemn pomp appear!
All his saints, by man rejected, now shall meet him in the air:
Alleluia! Alleluia! See the Day of God appear!
Yea, amen! Let all adore thee, high on thine eternal throne;
Savior, take the pow’r and glory, claim the kingdom for thine own:
O come quickly; O come quickly; alleluia! Come, Lord, come.
AUTHORS: CHARLES WESLEY, 1758 (STANZAS 1, 2, 5)
AND JOHN CENNICK, 1752 (STANZAS 3, 4)
Alternative hymn: “Rejoice, All Ye Believers 5
Chapter
THE MILLENNIUM
What is the millennium? When does it occur? Will Christians
go through the Great Tribulation?
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
The word millennium means “one thousand years” (from Lat. millennium, “thousand
years”). The term comes from Revelation 20:4—5, where it says that certain people “came
to life, and reigned with Christ a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life
until the thousand years were ended.” Just prior to this statement, we read that an angel
came down from heaven and seized the devil “and bound him for a thousand years, and
threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, that he should deceive the
nations no more, till the thousand years were ended” (Rev. 20:2-3).
Throughout the history of the church there have been three major views on the time
and nature of this “millennium.”
A. Explanation of the Three Major Views
1. Amillennialism. The first view to be explained here, amillennialism, is really the
simplest. It can be pictured as in figure 55.1:
AMILLENNIALISM
No Future Millennium
1
1 r
Church Age
hrj
Eternal State
Revelation 20:1-6 is now
< 2 >
Resurrection of believers
Resurrection of unbelievers
Judgment
New heaven, new earth
AMILLENNIALISM
Figure 55. 1
1109
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1110
According to this position the passage in Revelation 20:1-10 describes the present
church age. This is an age in which Satan’s influence over the nations has been greatly
reduced so that the gospel can be preached to the whole world. Those who are said to
be reigning with Christ for the thousand years are Christians who have died and are
already reigning with Christ in heaven. Christ’s reign in the millennium, according
to this view, is not a bodily reign here on earth but rather the heavenly reign he spoke
of when he said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matt.
28:18).
This view is called “amillennial” because it maintains that there is no future mil-
lennium yet to come. Since amillennialists believe that Revelation 20 is now being ful-
filled in the church age, they hold that the “millennium” described there is currently
happening. The exact duration of the church age cannot be known, and the expression
“thousand years” is simply a figure of speech for a long period of time in which God’s
perfect purposes will be accomplished.
According to this position, the present church age will continue until the time of
Christ’s return (see figure 55.1). When Christ returns, there will be a resurrection of
both believers and unbelievers. The bodies of believers will rise to be reunited with their
spirits and enter into full enjoyment of heaven forever. Unbelievers will be raised to face
the final judgment and eternal condemnation. Believers will also stand before the judg-
ment seat of Christ (2 Cor. 5:10), but this judgment will only determine degrees of reward
in heaven, for only unbelievers will be condemned eternally. At this time also the new
heavens and new earth will begin. Immediately after the final judgment, the eternal state
will commence and continue forever.
This scheme is quite simple because all of the end time events happen at once,
immediately after Christ’s return. Some amillennialists say that Christ could return
at any time, while others (such as Berkhof) argue that certain signs have yet to be
fulfilled.
2. Postmillennialism. The prefix post - means “after.” According to this view, Christ
will return after the millennium. The postmillennial view may be represented as in
figure 55.2.
POSTMILLENNIALISM
Christ comes after
the Millennium
Resurrection of believers
Resurrection of unbelievers
Judgment
New heaven, new earth
POSTMILLENNIALISM
Figure 55.2
CHAPTER 55 • THE MILLENNIUM
According to this view, the progress of the gospel and the growth of the church will
gradually increase, so that a larger and larger proportion of the world’s population will
be Christians. As a result, there will be significant Christian influences on society, society
will more and more function according to God’s standards, and gradually a “millennial
age” of peace and righteousness will occur on the earth. This “millennium” will last for
a long period of time (not necessarily a literal one thousand years) , and finally, at the end
of this period, Christ will return to earth, believers and unbelievers will be raised, the final
judgment will occur, and there will be a new heaven and new earth. We will then enter
into the eternal state.
The primary characteristic of postmillennialism is that it is very optimistic about
the power of the gospel to change lives and bring about much good in the world. Belief
in postmillennialism tends to increase in times when the church is experiencing great
revival, when there is an absence of war and international conflict, and when it appears
that great progress is being made in overcoming the evil and suffering in the world. But
postmillennialism in its most responsible form is not based simply on the observation of
events in the world around us, but on arguments from various Scripture passages, which
will be examined below.
3. Premillennialism.
a. Classic or Historic Premillennialism: The prefix “pre-” means “before,” and the
“premillennial” position says that Christ will come back before the millennium. 1 This
viewpoint has a long history from the earliest centuries onward. It may be represented
as in figure 55.3.
CLASSICAL
PREMILLENNIALISM
Christ comes before
the Millennium
"Catching up" of believers
to be with Christ
— IMMEDIATE —
* Classical Premillennialists differ over whether
the renewed earth will begin in the millennium
or the eternal state.
CLASSIC OR HISTORIC PREMILLENNIALISM
Figure 55.3
1111
'Another name sometimes used to refer to premillennialism
is chiliasm, from the Greek word chilioi, “a thousand.” This term
is more often found in older literature and is rarely used today.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1112
According to this viewpoint, the present church age will continue until, as it nears
the end, a time of great tribulation and suffering comes on the earth (T in the figure
above stands for tribulation). 2 After that time of tribulation at the end of the church age ,
Christ will return to earth to establish a millennial kingdom . When he comes back, believ-
ers who have died will be raised from the dead, their bodies will be reunited with their
spirits, and these believers will reign with Christ on earth for one thousand years. (Some
premillennialists take this to be a literal one thousand years, and others understand it
to be a symbolic expression for a long period of time.) During this time, Christ will be
physically present on the earth in his resurrected body, and will reign as King over the
entire earth. The believers who have been raised from the dead, and those who were on
earth when Christ returns, will receive glorified resurrection bodies that will never die,
and in these resurrection bodies they will live on the earth and reign with Christ. Of the
unbelievers who remain on earth, many (but not all) will turn to Christ and be saved.
Jesus will reign in perfect righteousness and there will be peace throughout the earth.
Many premillennialists hold that the earth will be renewed and we will in fact see the
new heavens and new earth at this time (but it is not essential to premillennialism to hold
to this, for one could be a premillennialist and hold that the new heavens and new earth
will not occur until after the final judgment). At the beginning of this time Satan will
be bound and cast into the bottomless pit so that he will have no influence on the earth
during the millennium (Rev. 20:1 -3).
According to the premillennial viewpoint, at the end of the thousand years Satan
will be loosed from the bottomless pit and will join forces with many unbelievers who
have submitted outwardly to Christ’s reign but have inwardly been seething in rebellion
against him. Satan will gather these rebellious people for battle against Christ, but they
will be decisively defeated. Christ will then raise from the dead all the unbelievers who
have died throughout history, and they will stand before him for final judgment. After
the final judgment has occurred, believers will enter into the eternal state.
It seems that premillennialism has tended to increase in popularity as the church has
experienced persecution, and as suffering and evil have increased in the earth. But, as in
the case of postmillennialism, the arguments for the premillennial position are not based
on an observation of current events, but on specific passages of Scripture, especially (but
not exclusively) Revelation 20: 1 - 10.
b. Pretribulational Premillennialism (or Dispensational Premillennialism): Another
variety of premillennialism has gained widespread popularity in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. Accord-
ing to this position, Christ will return not only before the millennium (Christ’s return is
premillennial), but also it will occur before the great tribulation (Christ’s return is pre-
tribulational). This position is similar to the classical premillennial position mentioned
above, but with one important difference: it will add another return of Christ before his
return to reign on earth in the millennium. This return is thought to be a secret return
2 An alternative type of premillennialism holds that Christ earth. We shall examine that alternative form of premillennial-
will come back before the period of great tribulation begins on ism below.
CHAPTER 55 * THE MILLENNIUM
1113
of Christ to take believers out of the world. 3 The pretribulational premillennial view may
be represented as in figure 55.4.
PRETRIBULATIONAL
PREMILLENNIALISM
Christ comes before
the Millennium and
"Catching up" of believers
to be with Christ
— 7 Years —
Judgment
New heaven, new earth
PRETRIBULATIONAL PREMILLENNIALISM
Figure 55.4
According to this view, the church age will continue until, suddenly, unexpectedly,
and secretly, Christ will return part way to earth, and then will call believers to himself:
“The dead in Christ will rise first; then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up
together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air” (1 Thess. 4:16- 17). Christ
will then return to heaven with the believers who have been removed from the earth. When
that happens, there will be a great tribulation on the earth for a period of seven years. 4
During this seven-year period of tribulation, many of the signs that were predicted to
precede Christ's return will be fulfilled. 5 The great ingathering of the fullness of the Jew-
ish people will occur, as they trust Christ as their Messiah. In the midst of great suffering
there will also be much effective evangelism, especially carried out by the new Jewish
Christians. At the end of the tribulation, Christ will then come back with his saints to reign
on the earth for one thousand years. After this millennial period there will be a rebellion,
resulting in the final defeat of Satan and his forces, and then will come the resurrection
of unbelievers, the last judgment, and the beginning of the eternal state.
One further characteristic of pretribulational premillennialism should be mentioned:
This view is found almost exclusively among dispensationalists who wish to maintain a
clear distinction between the church and Israel. This pretribulational viewpoint allows
3 Sometimes this secret coming of Christ for believers is
called the “rapture,” from the Latin word rapio, meaning “seize,
snatch, carry away ”
4 Some interpreters hold to a variation of this view, such
that Christ comes back in the middle of the tribulation and
rescues believers. After that, there will be three-and-one-half
additional years of tribulation on the earth. This is called the
“midtribulation rapture” view. For further discussion of this
view, see Gleason Archer, “The Case for the Mid-Seventieth-
Week Rapture Position” in Gleason Archer, Paul Feinberg,
Douglas Moo, and Richard Reiter, The Rapture: Pre- t Mid-,
or Post-Tribulational ? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984),
pp. 113-45.
5 See chapter 54, pp. 1097-99, for a discussion of the signs
that will precede Christ s return.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1114
the distinction to be maintained, since the church is taken out of the world before the
widespread conversion of the Jewish people. These Jewish people therefore remain a
distinct group from the church. Another characteristic of pretribulational premillen-
nialism is its insistence on interpreting biblical prophecies “literally where possible.”
This especially applies to prophecies in the Old Testament concerning Israel. Those who
hold this view argue that those prophecies of God’s future blessing to Israel will yet be
fulfilled among the Jewish people themselves; they are not to be “spiritualized” by find-
ing their fulfillment in the church. Finally, one attractive feature about pretribulational
premillennialism is that it allows people to insist that Christ’s return could occur “at any
moment and therefore does justice to the full force of the passages that encourage us to
be ready for Christ’s return, while it still allows for a very literal fulfillment of the signs
preceding Christ’s return, since it says these will come to pass in the tribulation.
Before examining the arguments for these three (or four) positions, it is important
to realize that the interpretation of the details of prophetic passages regarding future
events is often a complex and difficult task involving many variable factors. Therefore
the degree of certainty that attaches to our conclusions in this area will be less than with
many other doctrines. Even though I will argue for one position (classical premillen-
nialism), I also think it important for evangelicals to recognize that this area of study
is complex and to extend a large measure of grace to others who hold different views
regarding the millennium and the tribulation period.
B. A Consideration of the Arguments for Amillennialism
In favor of the amillennial view, the following arguments are advanced:
1. When we look through the whole of the Bible, amillennialists will say, only one
passage (Rev. 20:1-6) appears to teach a future earthly millennial rule of Christ, and
that passage is itself obscure. It is unwise to base such a major doctrine on one passage of
uncertain and widely disputed interpretation.
But how do amillennialists understand Revelation 20:1-6? The amillennial inter-
pretation sees this passage as referring to the present church age. The passage reads as
follows:
Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key
of the bottomless pit and a great chain. And he seized the dragon, that ancient
serpent, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years , and
threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, that he should deceive
the nations no more, till the thousand years were ended. After that he must be
loosed for a little while.
Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom judgment was
committed. Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testi-
mony to Jesus and for the word of God, and who had not worshiped the beast or
its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They
came to life , and reigned with Christa thousand years. The rest of the dead did not
come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection.
Blessed and holy is he who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second
CHAPTER 55 * THE MILLENNIUM
1115
death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and they shall
reign with him a thousand years.
According to the amillennial interpretation 6 the binding of Satan in verses 1 - 2 is the
binding that occurred during Jesus’ earthly ministry. He spoke of binding the strong
man in order that he may plunder his house (Matt. 12:29) and said that the Spirit of God
was at that time present in power to triumph over demonic forces: “If it is by the Spirit of
God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Matt. 12:28).
Similarly, with respect to the breaking of Satan’s power, Jesus said during his ministry, “I
saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven” (Luke 10:18).
The amillennialist argues that this binding of Satan in Revelation 20:1-3 is for a
specific purpose: “ that he should deceive the nations no more” (v. 3). This is exactly what
happened when Jesus came and the gospel began to be proclaimed not simply to Jews but,
after Pentecost, to all the nations of the world. In fact, the worldwide missionary activity
of the church, and the presence of the church in most or all of the nations of the world,
shows that the power that Satan had in the Old Testament, to “deceive the nations” and
keep them in darkness, has been broken.
On the amillennialist view the scene described in verse 4 occurs in heaven: John said,
“I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony to Jesus. . . . They
came to life, and reigned with Christ a thousand years” (v. 4). Since John sees “souls”
and not physical bodies, it is argued, this scene must be occurring in heaven. When the
text says that “They came to life” it does not mean that they received a bodily resurrec-
tion. It possibly means simply that “they lived,” since the aorist verb ezesan can readily
be interpreted to be a statement of an event that occurred over a long period of time.
(The verb for “they reigned” is also an aorist indicative and refers to an occurrence over
a thousand years, so the verb “they lived” should have a similar meaning.) On the other
hand, some amillennial interpreters will take the verb ezesan to mean “they came to life”
in the sense of coming into heavenly existence in the presence of Christ and beginning
to reign with him from heaven.
According to this view, the phrase “first resurrection” (v. 5) refers to going to heaven
to be with the Lord. This is not a bodily resurrection but a coming into the presence of
God in heaven. In a similar way, when verse 5 says, “The rest of the dead did not come to
life until the thousand years were ended, “this is understood to mean they did not come
into God’s presence for judgment until the end of the thousand years. So in both verses 4
and 5, the phrase “come to life” means “come into the presence of God.” (Another amil-
lennial view of “first resurrection” is that it refers to the resurrection of Christ, and to
believers’ participation in Christ’s resurrection through union with Christ.)
2. A second argument often proposed in favor of amillennialism is the fact that Scrip-
ture teaches only one resurrection , when both believers and unbelievers will be raised,
not two resurrections (a resurrection of believers before the millennium begins, and
a resurrection of unbelievers to judgment after the end of the millennium). This is an
6 Here I am largely following the excellent discussion of Millennium: Four Views, ed. Robert G. Clouse (Downers Grove,
Anthony A. Hoekema, “Amillennialism, ” in The Meaning of the 111.: InterVarsity Press, 1977), pp. 155-87.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1116
important argument, because the premillennial view requires two separate resurrections,
separated by a thousand years.
Evidence in favor of only one resurrection is found in at least three passages. Jesus
says, “ The hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come forth,
those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil,
to the resurrection of judgment” (John 5:28-29). Here Jesus speaks of a single “hour”
when both believing and unbelieving dead will come forth from the tombs. Similarly,
when Paul is on trial before Felix he explains that he has a hope in God that his Jewish
opponents also accept “that there will be a resurrection of both the just and the unjust ”
(Acts 24:15). Once again, he speaks of a single resurrection of both believers and unbe-
lievers. Finally, we read in Daniel: “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth
shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt”
(Dan. 12:2).
3. The idea of glorified believers and sinners living on earth together is too difficult to
accept Berkhof says, “It is impossible to understand how a part of the old earth and of
sinful humanity can exist alongside a part of the new earth and of a humanity that is
glorified. How can perfect saints in glorified bodies have communion with sinners in
the flesh? How can glorified sinners live in this sin-laden atmosphere and amid scenes
of death and decay?” 7
4. If Christ comes in glory to reign on the earth , then how could people still persist in sin?
Once Jesus is actually present in his resurrection body and reigning as King over the
earth, does it not seem highly unlikely that people would still reject him, and that evil
and rebellion would grow on the earth until eventually Satan could gather the nations
for battle against Christ? 8
5. There seems to be no convincing purpose for such a millennium. Once the church
age has ended and Christ has returned, then what is the reason for delaying the start of
the eternal state?
6. In conclusion, amillennialists say that Scripture seems to indicate that all the major
events yet to come before the eternal state will occur at once. Christ will return, there will
be one resurrection of believers and unbelievers, the final judgment will take place, and
a new heaven and new earth will be established. Then we will enter immediately into the
eternal state, with no future millennium. 9
At this point we can respond briefly to these amillennialist arguments, though on
some points a fuller answer will be developed in the arguments for premillennialism.
1. In response to the objection that only one passage teaches a future earthly
millennium, several comments can be made:
7 Berkhof, Systematic Theology ; p. 715.
8 This argument is especially developed in Arthur H.
Lewis, The Dark Side of the Millennium (Grand Rapids: Baker,
1980).
9 Since they believe that Rev. 20:1-6 applies to the pres-
ent age, amillennialists sometimes say, “Premillennialists are
waiting for the millennium, postmillennialists are working for
it, but we are enjoying it.”
It should be noted that some amillennialists dislike the
term amillennial because it implies they do not believe in any
millennium at all, where as it is more accurate to say that they
do not believe in a future millennium. They prefer a more
positive term such as “realized millennialism,” which allows
them more easily to point out that they do believe in the mil-
lennial reign of Christ taught in Rev. 20:1-6; however, they
believe the passage speaks of the present church age. (See Jay
Adams, The Time Is at Hand (Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian
and Reformed, 1970], pp. 7-11.)
CHAPTER 55 ■ THE MILLENNIUM
1117
a. The Bible only needs to say something once in order for it to be true and something
that we must believe. The story of the confusion of languages at the tower of Babel, for
example, is only taught in Genesis 11:1 - 9, yet we believe it to be true because Scripture
teaches it. Similarly, even if only one passage taught a future millennial reign of Christ,
we still should believe it.
Moreover, it is not surprising that this doctrine should be clearly taught in the book
of Revelation. There was somewhat of a similar situation at the end of the Old Testament
era. The entire Old Testament has no explicit teaching to the effect that the Messiah
would come twice, once as a suffering Messiah who would die and rise again, earning our
salvation, and then later as a conquering King to rule over the earth. The first and second
comings of Christ may be hinted at in the Old Testament prophets, but they are nowhere
explicitly taught, because God did not deem it necessary to reveal that amount of detail
about his plan of redemption before it happened. Similarly, in several of the Old and New
Testament books leading up to the time of the writing of Revelation, there are hints of
a future earthly millennium prior to the eternal state, but the explicit teaching about it
was left until John wrote Revelation. Since Revelation is the New Testament book that
most explicitly teaches about things yet future, it is appropriate that this more explicit
revelation of the future millennium would be put at this point in the Bible.
b. In response to the allegation that the passage that teaches a millennium is obscure,
premillennialists respond that they do not find it obscure at all. They argue that one
advantage of the premillennial position is that it understands Revelation 20:1-6 in a
straightforward sense: the text says that Satan will be bound and cast into the bottom-
less pit for a thousand years, and the premillennialist says a time is coming when Satan
will be bound and cast into a bottomless pit for a thousand years. The text speaks of a
thousand-year reign of Christ, and the premillennialist expects a future thousand-year
reign of Christ on earth. It speaks of those raised in the “first resurrection,” and the
premillennialist says that there will be a first resurrection of believers who are “blessed
and holy” (Rev. 20:6) and a second resurrection at the end of the thousand years “for the
rest of the dead” (v. 5). According to premillennialists, “obscurity” only enters the pas-
sage when an interpreter tries to find in it something other than such a straightforward
interpretation.
c. Finally, many premillennialists argue that several other passages, especially in the
Old Testament, require us to believe in a future period that is far greater than the present
age but that still falls short of the eternal state (see Ps. 72:8- 14; Isa. 11:2-9; 65:20; Zech.
14:6-21; 1 Cor. 15:24; Rev. 2:27; 12:5; 19:15). 10 These passages, they say, portray a period
that looks very much like the millennium as they understand it.
d. With respect to the interpretation of Revelation 20:1-6 as given by amillennial-
ists, several difficulties arise. Although Matthew 12:28-29 and Luke 10:18 do speak of
a “binding” of Satan during Jesus’ earthly ministry, the binding of Satan described in
Revelation 20 seems to be much more extensive than that. The passage does not simply
say that Satan is bound at this time, but speaks of “the bottomless pit” and says that the
10 See below, pp. 1127-30, for a discussion of these
passages.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1118
angel that came down from heaven “ threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over
him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years were ended”
(Rev. 20:2-3). More than a mere binding or restriction of activity is in view here. The
imagery of throwing Satan into a pit and shutting it and sealing it over him gives a picture
of total removal from influence on the earth. To say that Satan is now in a bottomless
pit that is shut and sealed over simply does not fit the present world situation during the
church age, in which Satan’s activity is still very strong, in which he “prowls around like
a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8), in which he can fill someone’s
heart “to lie to the Holy Spirit” (Acts 5:3), and in which “what pagans sacrifice they offer
to demons and not to God” (1 Cor. 10:20).
Moreover, even after the binding of Satan during Jesus’ ministry, it remains true that
“the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing
the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” (2 Cor. 4:4). This is why Christians still must
contend not “against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers,
against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness
in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12). This is because even during the church age, though
the gospel is able to come with triumph and break down the forces of demonic opposition
to the spread of the kingdom of God, nonetheless Satan’s influence has not fully been
removed from the world: “The spirit of antichrist ... is in the world already” (1 John
4:3), and, in fact, “We know that we are of God, and the whole world is in the power of the
evil one” (1 John 5:19). This repeated theme in the New Testament, the theme of Satan’s
continual activity on earth throughout the church age, makes it extremely difficult to
think that Satan has been thrown into the bottomless pit, and it has been shut and sealed
over for a thousand years. That imagery can only speak of the total removal of Satan’s
active influence from the earth.
But what can be said with respect to the fact that amillennialists say that the bind-
ing and imprisonment of Satan in Revelation 20 is said to be “that he should deceive the
nations no more” (v. 3)? Does that not simply mean that the gospel can now be preached
effectively among the nations? While the phrase might mean that, it seems more consis-
tent with the use of the word deceived (Gk. planao), especially in Revelation, to say that
this is a deception that is now going on during the entire church age and that ends only when
the millennium begins. Satan is called the one “who deceives the whole world” (Rev.
12:9 NASB), and the sorcery of Babylon is said to have “deceived” “all nations” before
its judgment comes (Rev. 18:23). 11 Therefore it seems more appropriate to say that Satan
is now still deceiving the nations, but at the beginning of the millennium this deceptive
influence will be removed. There was an even greater deception before Christ came, but
there is still significant deception that remains today.
The fact that John saw “souls” in his vision does not require that the scene be set in
heaven. Since these souls are persons who then “came to life” in “the first resurrection”
we should see these as people who obtained resurrection bodies and who began to reign
on the earth. Moreover, Revelation 20:1 indicates that the scene is focused on events on
“Both of these passages use the same term planao The same ings that many will be deceived or led astray by false Christs
verb is used in Matthew 24:4, 5, 1 1, 24 to speak of Jesus* warn- and false prophets.
CHAPTER 55 • THE MILLENNIUM
1119
the earth, for it says, “Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven.” But if the angel
came down from heaven, then he carries out his activity on the earth, and the entire
scene is set on the earth.
Some amillennialists argue that the phrase “came to life” refers to a coming to heav-
enly existence or coming into the presence of God. But it must be asked, Where does the
Greek term zao (“live”) ever take that meaning? No other examples of that word in the
New Testament take the sense, “come into the presence of God.”
Moreover, amillennialist interpretations of the phrase “first resurrection” are uncon-
vincing. The word resurrection (Gk. anastasis) never elsewhere means “going to heaven”
or “going into the presence of God,” but rather signifies a bodily resurrection. This is the
sense in which first-century readers would have understood the word. The other amil-
lennialist view, which understands “the first resurrection” to be Christ’s resurrection
(and our union with him) does not seem likely because those who “came to life” are the
ones who had been “beheaded for their testimony to Jesus” (v. 4), which suggests a bodily
resurrection after death. 12
2. Does Scripture teach only one resurrection, so that believers and unbelievers will
be raised at the same time? It is hard to accept this when we realize that Revelation 20
explicitly speaks about “the first resurrection,” thus implying that there will be a second
resurrection as well. Speaking of those who came to life and reigned with Christ a thou-
sand years, we read, “This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he who shares in
the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power” (w. 5-6). The passage
distinguishes those who share in this first resurrection and are blessed from others who
do not share in it. They are “the rest of the dead” and the implication is that “the second
death” (that is, facing final judgment and being condemned to eternal punishment away
from the presence of God) does have power over them, and they will experience it. But if
this passage clearly teaches a first resurrection, and the fact that the rest of the dead will
come to life at the end of a thousand years, then there is clear teaching on two separate
resurrections here in Revelation 20.
As for the other passages that amillennialists claim to support the view that there is
only one resurrection, it must be said that those passages do not exclude the idea of two
resurrections, but they simply do not specify whether or not the resurrection of believers
and unbelievers will be separated in time. In fact, Jesus’ statement in John 5 does hint at
the possibility of two resurrections. He says that those who are in the tombs will come
forth, “those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done
evil, to the resurrection of judgment” (John 5:28—29). In this way Jesus in fact speaks of
two different resurrections. 13
12 Other reasons to reject this interpretation are (1) “The rest
of the dead” are said to “come to life” after the thousand years
are ended (v. 5) — a reference to the bodily resurrection of unbe-
lievers — but this implies that the phrase “came to life” refers
to bodily resurrection in both cases, not just to spiritual union
with Christ in his resurrection; and (2) when the text says, “This
is the first resurrection” (v. 5), the most evident antecedent in
context is the coming to life of believers in v. 4, but no mention
of Christ’s resurrection occurs in the context.
13 The fact that Jesus says in this context, “ The hour is com-
ing when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice” does not
require that both resurrections happen at the same time, for
the word hour elsewhere in John’s gospel can refer to a long
period of time; just three verses previously, Jesus said, “Truly,
truly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the
dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who
hear will live” (John 5:25). Here the “hour” refers to the entire
church age when those who are spiritually dead hear Jesus’
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1120
As for Daniel 12:2, it simply says that those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall
awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt,” but
it does not specify whether this will happen simultaneously or at different times. It
simply says that both types of people will be raised. The same is true of Acts 24:15,
where Paul says there will be “a resurrection of both the just and the unjust.” This
affirms that both types of people will be raised from the dead, but it does not exclude
the possibility that this would happen at different times. All of these verses, in the
absence of Revelation 20:5—6, might or might not be speaking of a single future time
of resurrection. But with the explicit teaching of Revelation 20:5 — 6 about two resur-
rections, these verses must be understood to refer to the future certainty of a resur-
rection for each type of person, without specifying that those resurrections will be
separated in time.
3. The idea of glorified believers and sinners living on earth together
during the millennium does sound strange to us now, but it is certainly not impossible
for God to bring this about. We must realize that Jesus lived on the earth with a glorified
body for forty days after his resurrection, and apparently there were many other Old
Testament saints who lived with glorified bodies on earth during that time as well (Matt.
27: 53). 14 It will indeed be a kind of world situation that is far different and far more God-
glorifying than the world is now, but it does not seem that we are justified in asserting
that God could not or would not bring about such a state of affairs. Certainly he could
do it, and several passages seem to indicate that he has a good purpose and intention of
doing it as well.
4. It is certainly not impossible that evil and secret rebellion could persist on the earth
in spite of the bodily presence of Christ reigning as King. We must remember that Judas
lived with Jesus on the closest terms for three years, and still betrayed him. Moreover,
many of the Pharisees saw Jesus’ miracles, and even saw him raising people from the
dead, and still did not believe. In fact, even when the disciples were in the presence of the
glorified Lord Jesus, we read that “some doubted” (Matt. 28:17). Such persistent unbelief
in the very presence of Christ is hard to understand, but we must remember that Satan
himself fell from an exalted position in the presence of God in heaven.
When the amillennialists object that people could not persist in sin in the presence
of Christ’s bodily reign on the earth, their position simply fails to realize the deep-
seated and highly irrational nature of sin. It also fails fully to reckon with the fact that
even massive proof and “undeniable evidence” cannot compel genuine conversion.
Genuine repentance and faith is brought about by the enabling and persuasive work of
the Holy Spirit in people’s hearts. Such is the irrational nature of sin that those who are
voice and come to life. John can also use the word hour (Gk.
horn) to speak of the time when true worshipers worship the
Father in spirit and in truth (John 4:21, 23), or when intense
persecution will come on the disciples (John 16:2). These exam-
ples also speak of long periods of time, even entire ages.
A similar way of speaking is possible in English: I can tell
a class of sixty students, “Don’t be discouraged — graduation
day is coming for every one of you.” But I know that some will
graduate this year, some will graduate next year, and some will
graduate two or three years later. I can still speak of “gradua-
tion day” rather than “graduation days” because it is clear that
I am speaking about the kind of day it is, not about the time
it will occur or whether it will be one day or several that are
of the same type.
14 See chapter 42, p. 835, on Matt. 27:52-53.
CHAPTER 55 • THE MILLENNIUM
1121
“dead in trespasses and sins” will often persist in rebellion and unbelief even in the face
of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. 15
This is not to say that no one will be converted to Christ during the millennium. No
doubt millions of people will become Christians during that time, and the influence
of the reign of Christ will permeate into every aspect of every society in the world. Yet
at the same time it is not at all difficult to understand how evil and rebellion will grow
simultaneously.
5. God may have several purposes in mind for a future millennium, not all of which
may now be clear to us. But certainly such a millennium would show the outworking of
God's good purposes in the structures of society, especially the structures of the family and
civil government. During the church age, the good purposes of God are primarily seen
in individual lives and the blessings that come to those who believe in Christ. To some
extent now (and to a greater extent in times of revival) this affects civil government and
educational institutions and corporations, and to a larger extent it affects the family. But
in none of these structures are Gods good purposes manifested to the extent they could
be, showing God’s great wisdom and goodness not only in his plans for individuals but
also for societal structures. In the millennium the beauty of God’s wisdom will show
forth to his glory from all of these societal structures.
Moreover, the millennium will further vindicate God’s righteousness. The fact that
some continue in sin and unbelief will show that “sin — rebellion against God — is not
due to an evil society or to a bad environment. It is due to the sinfulness of the hearts
of men. Thus the justice of God will be fully vindicated in the day of final judgment.” 16
With Satan bound for a thousand years, the fact that sin can persist will also show that
the ultimate blame for sin is not demonic influence in people’s lives but deep-rooted
sinfulness in people’s hearts.
Third, the entire scope of the Bible reveals to us that it is God’s good pleasure to unfold
his purposes and reveal more and more of his glory gradually over time. From the calling
of Abraham to the birth of Isaac, the sojourn in Egypt and the exodus, the establishment
of the people in the promised land, the Davidic kingdom and the divided monarchy, the
exile and return with the rebuilding of the temple, the preservation of a faithful remnant,
and finally the coming of Jesus in the flesh, God’s purposes were increasingly seen to
be glorious and wonderful. Even in Jesus’ life the progressive revealing of his glory took
thirty-three years, culminating in the last three years of his life. Then in Jesus’ death,
resurrection, and ascension into heaven, the completion of our redemption was accom-
plished. Yet the spread of the church throughout all nations has now occupied over 1,900
years, and we do not know how long it is to continue. All this is to say that God’s way is
not to bring to realization all of his good purposes at once, but to unfold them gradually
over time. This is so even in the individual lives of Christians, who grow daily in grace
and in fellowship with God and in likeness to Christ. Therefore it would not be surprising
if, before the eternal state, God instituted one final step in the progressive unfolding of
15 A somewhat similar example is the fact that many people cal impossibility that the entire universe could have come about
today refuse to believe that there is a God who created the uni- by chance.
verse, in spite of the incredible complexity of every living being, 16 George Ladd, “Historic Premillennialism,” in The Mean-
and in spite of what is for all practical purposes the mathemati- ing of the Millennium: Four Views , p. 40.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1122
the history of redemption. It would serve to increase his glory as men and angels look on
in amazement at the wonder of Gods wisdom and plan.
6. Finally, a major objection to amillennialism must continue to be the fact that it can
propose no really satisfying explanation of Revelation 20. 17
C. A Consideration of Arguments for Postmillennialism
The arguments in favor of postmillennialism are as follows:
1. The Great Commission leads us to expect that the gospel will go forth in power
and eventually result in a largely Christian world: Jesus explicitly said, “All authority in
heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching
them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close
of the age ’ (Matt. 28:18-20). Since Christ has all authority in heaven and on earth, and
since he promises to be with us in the fulfillment of this commission, we would expect
that it would transpire without hindrance and eventually triumph in the whole world.
2. Parables of the gradual growth of the kingdom indicate that it eventually will fill
the earth with its influence. Here postmillennialists point to the following:
Another parable he put before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a
grain of mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his field; it is the small-
est of all seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes
a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” (Matt.
13:31-32)
We can also note the following verse: “He told them another parable. ‘The kingdom
of heaven is like leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it
was all leavened’ ” (Matt. 13:33). According to postmillennialists both of these parables
indicate that the kingdom will grow in influence until it permeates and in some measure
transforms the entire world.
3. Postmillennialists will also argue that the world is becoming more Christian. The
church is growing and spreading throughout the world, and even when it is persecuted
and oppressed it grows remarkably by the power of God. 18
At this point we must make a very significant distinction, however. The “millen-
nium that postmillennialists hold to is very different from the “millennium” the pre-
millennialists talk about. In a sense, they are not even discussing the same topic. While
17 Some other interpretations of Rev. 20 have been proposed
by amillennialists, but they all have the disadvantage of hav-
ing to labor under the burden of explaining away what seems
to be a straightforward understanding of the text because they
are convinced that the rest of Scripture does not teach a future
earthly millennium. But if the rest of Scripture does not deny it
(and in some places hints at it), and if this text does teach it, then
it would seem much more appropriate to accept it.
18 The postmillennialist A. H. Strong argues that Rev.
20:4-10 “does not describe the events commonly called the
second advent and resurrection, but rather describes the great
spiritual changes in the later history of the church, which are
typical of, and preliminary to, the second advent and resurrec-
tion.” He sees Rev. 20, therefore, simply as a prediction of “the
latter days of the church militant” and a time when “under
the special influence of the Holy Ghost” the church shall “to
an extent unknown before, triumph over the powers of evil,
both within and without” (A. H. Strong, Systematic Theology ,
p. 1013).
CHAPTER 55 • THE MILLENNIUM
1123
premillennialists talk about a renewed earth with Jesus Christ physically present and
reigning as King, together with glorified believers in resurrection bodies, postmillenni-
alists are simply talking about an earth with many, many Christians influencing society.
They do not envisage a millennium consisting of a renewed earth or glorified saints or
Christ present in bodily form to reign (for they think that these things will only occur
after Christ returns to inaugurate the eternal state). 19 Therefore the entire discussion of
the millennium is more than simply a discussion of the sequence of events surrounding
it. It also involves a significant difference over the nature of this period of time itself.
In fact, though I am not aware if anyone has done this, it would not be impossible
for someone to be a postmillennialist and a premillennialist at the same time, with two
different senses of the term millennium. Someone could conceivably be a postmillennial-
ist and think that the gospel will grow in influence until the world is largely Christian,
and that then Christ will return and set up a literal earthly reign, raising believers from
the dead to reign with him in glorified bodies. Or, on the other hand, a very optimistic
premillennialist could conceivably adopt many of the postmillennialist teachings about
the increasingly Christian nature of this present age. 20
In response to the postmillennialist arguments, the following points maybe made:
1. The Great Commission does indeed speak of the authority that is given into
Christ’s hand, but that does not necessarily imply that Christ will use that authority to
bring about the conversion of the majority of the population of the world. To say that
Christ’s authority is great is simply another way of saying that God’s power is infinite,
which no one will deny. But the question is the extent to which Christ will use his power
to bring about the numerical growth of the church. We may assume that he will use
it to a very full extent and will bring about worldwide Christianization, but such an
assumption is merely that — an assumption. It is not based on any specific evidence in
the Great Commission or in other texts that talk about Christ’s authority and power in
this present age. 21
2. The parables of the mustard seed and the leaven do tell us that the kingdom of God
will gradually grow from something very small to something very large, but they do not
tell us the extent to which the kingdom will grow. For example, the parable of the mus-
tard seed does not tell us that the tree grew so that it spread throughout the whole earth.
And the parable of the leaven simply talks about gradual growth that permeates society
(as the church has already done), but it says nothing about the degree or effect that that
influence has (it does not tell us, for example, whether in the end 5 percent of the loaf
was leaven and 95 percent bread dough, or 20 percent leaven and 80 percent bread, or
60 percent leaven and 40 percent bread, and so forth). It is simply pressing the parable
19 Similarly, when amillennialists talk about presently
“enjoying” the millennium, which they understand on the basis
of Rev. 20 to refer to the church age, they are also talking about
a very different kind of “millennium” than would be envisaged
by either postmillennialists or premillennialists.
20 This is not to say that such a position would be free of
internal tensions and difficulties (especially the difficulty of
explaining how evil could diminish when Christ was absent
from the earth but grow into widespread rebellion when he
is physically present and reigning), but it is to say that there
would be no absolute inconsistency within this position.
21 1 Cor. 15:25 says, “For he must reign until he has put
all his enemies under his feet,” but the immediate context
(vv. 24, 26) talks about destroying his enemies (including
death in v. 26), not about converting people and bringing
them into the church.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1124
beyond its intended purpose to attempt to make it say more than that the kingdom will
grow gradually and eventually have an influence on every society in which it is planted.
3. In response to the argument that the world is becoming more Christian, it must be
said that the world is also becoming more evil. No student of history or modern society
will argue that mankind has made much progress through the centuries in overcom-
ing the depth of perversity and the extent of immorality that remain in peoples hearts.
Indeed, modernization in western societies in the twentieth century has often been
accompanied not by moral improvement but by an unprecedented level of drug abuse,
marital infidelity, pornography, homosexuality, rebellion against authority, superstition
(in astrology and the New Age movement), materialism, greed, theft, and falsehood in
speech. Even among professing Christians there is repeated evidence of dismaying imper-
fection in the Christian life, especially in the realms of personal morality and depth of
intimacy with God. In places where Bible-believing Christians comprise large segments
of the population, still nothing like an earthly millennial kingdom occurs. 22 It is true
that the growth of the church as a percentage of world population has been remarkable in
recent decades, 23 and we should be greatly encouraged by this. It is possible that we will
someday see a far greater influence of genuine Christianity upon many societies, and if
that occurred, it would make the postmillennial position seem more plausible. But such
events could also be understood within a premillennial or amillennial framework, so the
final decision regarding these competing positions must still be made by interpreting the
relevant biblical texts.
4. Finally, we should note that there are several New Testament passages that seem to
give explicit denial to the postmillennial position. Jesus said, “Enter by the narrow gate;
for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by
it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who
find it are few” (Matt. 7:13-14). Rather than teaching that a majority of the world will
become Christians, Jesus seems here to be saying that those who are saved will be “few”
in contrast to the “many” who travel toward eternal destruction. Similarly, Jesus asks,
“When the Son of man comes , will he find faith on earth f” (Luke 18:8), a question that
suggests that the earth will not be filled with those who believe, but will be dominated
rather by those who do not have faith.
Contrary to the view that the world will get better and better as the influence of the
church grows, Paul predicts that before Christ returns “the rebellion” will come and “the
22 One interesting example in the United States is the state
of Texas. Statistics indicate that over 50 percent of the people
of Texas belong to Southern Baptist churches, a denomination
that preaches a genuine gospel of salvation by faith alone, and
the need for each individual personally to be born again. This
in itself is a wonderful fact for which we should be thankful to
God, but no one living in Texas today would seriously claim to
be living already in the millennium (at least in the way post-
millennialists understand it). If we add to the Southern Bap-
tists all the other Bible-believing Christians in the state, far
more than half of the state's population consists of born-again
Christians. But if a population of 50 percent Christians cannot
bring us anywhere near to an earthly millennium, then what
percentage of the world would have to become Christian before
the postmillennialist’s hope would be realized? And where is
there evidence throughout history that we are making signifi-
cant progress toward the realization of such a millennium?
23 “Between 1950 and 1992, Bible believing Christians went
from just 3% of the world population to 10% of the popula-
tion. This is a jump from 80 million to 540 million” (Rick
Wood, “Christianity: Waning or Growing?” in Mission Fron-
tiers Bulletin [Pasadena, Calif.; Jan.-Feb., 1993], p. 25). This
journal publishes similar statistics from different countries in
almost every issue, leading one to conclude that the growth
of the church since 1950 is so remarkable as to be without
precedent in the history of the world.
CHAPTER 55 • THE MILLENNIUM
1125
man of lawlessness” will be revealed, “the son of perdition” who “takes his seat in the
temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God” (2 Thess. 2:3 -4). 24
When writing to Timothy about the last days, Paul says,
In the last days there will come times of stress. For men will be lovers of self,
lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrate-
ful, unholy, inhuman, implacable, slanderers, profligates, fierce, haters of good,
treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lov-
ers of God, holding the form of religion but denying the power of it. (2 Tim.
3:1-5)
He says further:
All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil men
and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceivers and deceived . . . the time is
coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears
they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, and will
turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths. (2 Tim. 3:12-13;
4:3-4)
Finally, and perhaps most conclusively, Matthew 24:15-31 speaks of a great
tribulation that will precede the time of Christ's return:
For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of
the world until now, no, and never will be. And if those days had not been short-
ened, no human being would be saved; but for the sake of the elect those days will
be shortened Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be
darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven,
and the powers of the heavens will be shaken; then will appear the sign of the Son
of man in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see
the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. (Matt.
24:21-30)
This passage pictures not a Christianized world but a world of great suffering and evil,
a great tribulation that exceeds all previous periods of suffering on the earth. It does not
say that the great majority of the world will welcome Christ when he comes, but rather
that when the sign of the Son of man appears in heaven, “then all the tribes of the earth
will mourn” (Matt. 24:30).
Since Matthew 24 is such a difficult passage from the postmillennialist perspective,
there have been several attempts to explain it not as a prediction of events that will occur
just prior to Christ s second coming, but rather as something that was mainly fulfilled in
the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70.
24 Some postmillennialists believe that there will be a final prior to Christ’s return would still weigh against such a postmil-
rebellion before Christ’s return. These verses would not consti- lennial view, because they picture a world decisively different
tute an objection to their position, but the following verses indi- from the millennium of peace and righteousness brought about
eating the dominant non- Christian pattern of world affairs just by the spread of the gospel in a postmillennial system.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1126
To sustain this interpretation, postmillennialists make most of the elements of Mat-
thew 24:29-31 symbolic: 25 the sun and moon being darkened, the stars falling from
heaven, and the powers of the heavens being shaken are not to be understood as literal
events, but as imagery for Gods coming in judgment. Similar imagery for judgment is
said to be found in Ezekiel 32:7; Joel 2:10; and Amos 8:9— but these passages simply
speak of judgments of darkness, and do not mention the stars falling from heaven or the
powers of the heavens being shaken. R. T. France also mentions Isaiah 13:10 and 34:4,
which do talk about the sun and moon being darkened and the host of heaven falling,
but it is far from certain that France is correct in claiming that those passages are merely
symbolic — they are set in contexts in which they could easily be understood as literal
predictions of the cosmic changes preceding the final judgment. So it is far from obvious
that these passages are merely apocalyptic imagery for judgment on Jerusalem. 26
Moreover, the interpretation that sees these as merely symbolic statements grows more
difficult as the statement of Jesus continues, for he does not only talk about signs in the
sun, moon, and stars, but he says immediately after that, “ then will appear the sign of the
Son of man in heaven . . . and they will see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven
with power and great glory” (Matt. 24:30). Consistent with his previous symbolic inter-
pretation of this passage, France says that “all the tribes of the earth” refers merely to the
Jews, that is, “all the tribes (families) of the land,” 27 that is, the land of Israel. And he says
that the reference to the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great
glory does not refer to Christ s return but to his coming to the Father in heaven “to receive
vindication and authority.” 28 France quotes with approval the statement of G. £. Caird,
who says that “the coming of the Son of Man in the clouds of heaven was never conceived
as a primitive form of space travel, but as a symbol for a mighty reversal of fortunes
within history and at the national level.” 29 Then the sending out of Christs angels with
a loud trumpet call to gather his elect from one end of heaven to the other is understood
to refer to messengers who preach the gospel throughout the earth. The gathering of the
elect then is gathering them into the church by the preaching of the gospel.
However, on this interpretation France cannot satisfactorily account for the fact that
Jesus says that all the tribes of the earth “ will see the Son of man coming on the clouds
of heaven with power and great glory” (Matt. 24:30). This is not an invisible heavenly
transaction in which Christ receives authority from God the Father, but it is his return
with power and great glory which is here predicted. Those who preach the gospel are never
25 Here I am following the interpretation of R. T. France, The may be. (The “fig tree” in v. 32 should not be understood as
Gospel According to Matthew, pp. 343-46. a prophetic symbol for a particular time in history — such as
26 Another argument in favor of the postmillennial view the rebirth of Israel as a nation— because Jesus uses it simply
may be taken from the statement “this generation will not pass as an illustration from nature: when the fig tree puts forth
away till all these things take place in Matt. 24:34. A post- leaves, you know that summer will come soon; similarly, when
millennialist can take “this generation” in a perfectly natu- these signs [vv. 5-31] occur, you know that the Son of man
ral sense to refer to the people who heard Jesus as he spoke, will return soon.)
and thus support is given to the view that all the events of vv. 27 France, Matthew, p. 345.
29-31 (or even vv. 5-31) occurred by A.D. 70. But such an 28 Ibid., p. 344.
interpretation is not necessary to Matt. 24:34, because “this 29 Ibid., p. 344, quoting G. B. Caird, Jesus and the Jewish
generation” could be understood to refer to the generation Nation (London: Athlone Press, 1965), p. 20.
that sees “all these things” (v. 33) take place, whenever that
CHAPTER 55 * THE MILLENNIUM
1127
elsewhere called angels who give a loud trumpet call, and the preaching of the gospel is
not elsewhere called the gathering of “his elect from the four winds, from one end of
heaven to the other” (Matt. 24:31). Moreover, when Jesus elsewhere speaks of his coming
on the clouds, he speaks not of a coming to God the Father in heaven, but a coming to
people on earth: “Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, every
one who pierced him; and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him” (Rev. 1:7).
And when Christ returns, Paul says that we who are alive “shall be caught up together
with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air” (1 Thess. 4:17). When Christ comes on
the clouds of glory with great power and authority, he comes to reign over the earth, and
this is the sense of Matthew 24:30-31. (France does not comment on the fact that Jesus
says the tribes of the earth who mourn “will see the Son of man coming on the clouds of
heaven” [v. 30] . The fact that these tribes will see Jesus coming makes it difficult to under-
stand any symbolic or invisible heavenly interpretation here.) Moreover, the piling up of
factors that we know from other texts to be connected with Christ’s return (cosmic signs,
Christ’s coming with power, the loud trumpet call, the angels gathering the elect) provides
a cumulative case for believing that Christ’s second coming, not just a symbolic represen-
tation of his receiving authority, is in view here. And if Matthew 24 talks about Christ’s
second coming, then it talks about his coming just after a period of great tribulation, not
after a millennium of peace and righteousness has been established on the earth. 30
Finally, all of the passages indicating that Christ could return soon and that we must
be ready for him to return at any time 31 must be considered a significant argument against
postmillennialism as well. For if Christ could return at any time, and we are to be ready
for his return, then the long period required for the establishment of the millennium on
earth before Christ returns simply cannot be thought a persuasive theory.
D. A Consideration of the Arguments for Premillennialism
The position advocated in this book is historic premillennialism. The arguments
against the premillennial position have essentially been presented in the arguments for
amillennialism and postmillennialism, and will therefore not be repeated again here in
a separate section, but incidental objections to these arguments will be considered along
the way.
1. Several Old Testament passages seem to fit neither in the present age nor in the eter-
nal state. These passages indicate some future stage in the history of redemption which is
far greater than the present church age but which still does not see the removal of all sin
and rebellion and death from the earth.
Speaking of Jerusalem at some time in the future, Isaiah says:
No more shall there be in it
an infant that lives but a few days,
30 It is true that some postmillennialists hold that there will as a tribulation period in which evil is dominant and Christians
be a time of rebellion at the end of the millennium, just before experience great persecution.
Christ returns. But a period of rebellion against a dominant 31 See chapter 54, pp. 1095-97, on the passages teaching
millennial kingdom of righteousness and peace is not the same Christ s imminent return.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1128
or an old man who does not fill out his days,
for the child shall die a hundred years old,
and the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed. (Isa. 65:20)
Here we read that there will be no more infants who die in infancy, and no more old
men who die prematurely, something far different from this present age. But death and
sin will still be present, for the child who is one hundred years old shall die, and the sin-
ner who is one hundred years old “shall be accursed.” The larger context of this passage
may mingle elements of the millennium and the eternal state (cf. w. 17, 25), but it is in
the nature of Old Testament prophecy not to distinguish among events in the future, just
as these prophecies do not distinguish between the first and second comings of Christ.
Therefore in the larger context there may be mixed elements, but the point remains that
this single element (the infants and old men who live long, the child dying one hundred
years old, and the sinner being accursed) indicates a specific time in the future that is
different from the present age.
Isaiah seems to predict a millennial kingdom in another place when he says:
The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
and the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
and the calf and the lion and the fading together,
and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall feed;
their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The sucking child shall play over the hole of the asp,
and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adders den.
They shall not hurt or destroy
in all my holy mountain;
for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea. (Isa. 11:6-9)
This passage clearly speaks of a momentous renewal of nature that takes us far beyond
the present age, a time in which “the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as
the waters cover the sea” (v. 9). Yet in the very next verse Isaiah says:
In that day the root of Jesse shall stand as an ensign to the peoples; him shall
the nations seek , and his dwellings shall be glorious.
In that day the Lord will extend his hand yet a second time to recover the
remnant which is left of his people, from Assyria, from Egypt, from Pathros,
from Ethiopia. (Isa. 11:10-11)
Here some are still seeking the Messiah and apparently coming to salvation, and here also
the Lord is still gathering the remnant of his people from various nations of the earth.
It does not seem, therefore, that the eternal state has begun, yet the reversal of nature
far exceeds anything that will happen in this present age. Does this not indicate a future
millennial kingdom?
CHAPTER 55 • THE MILLENNIUM
1129
Psalm 72 seems to go beyond a description of Solomon’s reign and to predict the
glories of the reign of the Messiah:
He will rule from sea to sea
and from the River to the ends of the earth.
The desert tribes will bow before him
and his enemies will lick the dust.
The kings of Tarshish and of distant shores
will bring tribute to him;
the kings of Sheba and Seba
will present him gifts.
All kings will bow down to him
and all nations will serve him.
For he will deliver the needy who cry out,
the afflicted who have no-one to help.
He will take pity on the weak and the needy
and save the needy from death.
He will rescue them from oppression and violence,
for precious is their blood in his sight. (Ps. 72:8-14 NIV) 32
This passage certainly speaks of a messianic rule far more extensive than that experi-
enced by David or Solomon, because this Messiah’s kingdom extends “to the ends of the
earth” and “all nations will serve him” (vv. 8, 11 NIV; note that the psalm also says: “He
will endure as long as the sun, as long as the moon, through all generations” in v. 5 NIV).
This will be a reign in righteousness, in justice — but it certainly will not be the eternal
state. There are still “the needy who cry out” and “the afflicted who have no one to help”;
there are still people who need to be rescued “from oppression and violence” (vv. 12-14).
There will still be enemies who “will lick the dust” under the reign of this righteous King
(v. 9) . All of this speaks of an age far different from the present age but short of the eternal
state in which there is no more sin or suffering.
Zechariah also prophesies a coming age in which there is great transformation in the
earth, in which the Lord is King over all the earth, and in which there is still rebellion
and sin, suffering, and death:
Then the Lord your God will come, and all the holy ones with him. On that
day there shall be neither cold nor frost. And there shall be continuous day (it
is known to the Lord), not day and not night, for at evening time there shall
be light.
On that day living waters shall flow out from Jerusalem, half of them to the
eastern sea and half of them to the western sea; it shall continue in summer as
in winter.
And the Lord will become king over all the earth; on that day the Lord will
be one and his name one.
32 The NASB and RSV take these statements not as predic- the expectation of a messianic ruler who would someday have
tions but as prayers (“May he have dominion May his foes dominion “to the ends of the earth.”
bow down before him ” etc.). But in either case this psalm shows
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1130
And this shall be the plague with which the Lord will smite all the peoples
that wage war against Jerusalem: their flesh shall rot while they are still on their
feet, their eyes shall rot in their sockets, and their tongues shall rot in their
mouths. And the wealth of all the nations round about shall be collected, gold,
silver, and garments in great abundance
Then every one that survives of all the nations that have come against Jeru-
salem shall go up year after year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to
keep the feast of booths. And if any of the families of the earth do not go up to
Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, there will be no rain upon
them. (Zech. 14:5-17)
Here again the description does not fit the present age, for the Lord is King over all the
earth in this situation. But it does not fit the eternal state either, because of the disobedi-
ence and rebellion against the Lord that is clearly present. One might object that this is
a typical Old Testament prophecy in which distinct future events are conflated and not
distinguished in the prophets vision, though they may be separated by long ages when
they actually occur. However, it is difficult to make such a distinction in this passage
because it is specifically rebellion against the Lord who is King over all the earth that is
punished by these plagues and lack of rain. 33
2. There are also New Testament passages other than Revelation 20 that suggest a future
millennium. When the risen Lord Jesus speaks to the church at Thyatira, he says, “He who
conquers and who keeps my works until the end y I will give him power over the nations , and
he shall rule them with a rod of iron , as when earthen pots are broken in pieces, even as I
myself have received power from my Father” (Rev. 2:26-27). The imagery used (ruling
with a rod of iron; shattering earthen pots) implies a rule of force over rebellious people.
But when will believers who conquer over evil participate in this rule? The idea fits well
into a future millennial kingdom when glorified saints rule with Christ on the earth, but
does not fit well at any time in the present age or in the eternal state. (The idea of ruling
the nations “with a rod of iron” is also found in Rev. 12:5-6 and 19:15.)
When Paul talks about the resurrection, he says that each person will receive a resur-
rection body in his own order: “Christ the first fruits, then ( epeita ) at his coming those
who belong to Christ. Then ( eita ) comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God
the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign
until he has put all his enemies under his feet” (1 Cor. 15:23-25). The two words trans-
lated “then” in this passage ( epeita and eita) both take the sense “after that,” not the sense
“at that same time.” Therefore the passage gives some support to the idea that, just as
there is an interval of time between Christs resurrection and his second coming when we
receive a resurrection body (v. 23), so there is an interval of time between Christ's second
coming and “the end” (v. 24), when Christ delivers the kingdom to God after having
reigned for a time and put all his enemies under his feet. 34
3. With the background of a number of other passages that hint at or clearly suggest a
33 The passage still describes blessings in terms of old cove- greater (spiritual) fulfillment of a number of these items,
nant sacrifices and mentions the feast of booths, an old covenant 34 The Greek word eita does mean “after that” (see Mark
festival. This was the terminology and description available to 4:17, 28; 1 Cor. 15:5, 7; 1 Tim. 2:13). It does not always
the people of that day, but the New Testament can allow for indicate temporal sequence, because it can also introduce the
CHAPTER 55 • THE MILLENNIUM
1131
future time far greater than the present age but short of the eternal state, it is appropriate
then to look at Revelation 20 once again. Several statements here are best understood as
referring to a future earthly reign of Christ prior to the future judgment.
a. The binding and imprisonment of Satan in the bottomless pit (vv. 2-3) imply a
far greater restriction of his activity than anything we know in this present age (see
discussion above, under amillennialism).
b. The statement that those who were faithful “came to life” (v. 4) is best taken as
referring to a bodily resurrection, for the next verse says, “This is the first resurrection.”
The verb ezesan, “came to life,” is the same verb and the same form of the verb used in
Revelation 2:8, where Jesus identifies himself as the one “who died and came to life,” here
obviously referring to his resurrection. 35
c. On a premillennial interpretation, the reigning with Christ (in Rev. 20:4) is something
that is still future, not something that is occurring now (as amillennialists claim). This is
consistent with the rest of the New Testament, where we are frequently told that believers
will reign with Christ and be given authority by him to reign over the earth (see Luke 19:17,
19; 1 Cor. 6:3; Rev. 2:26-27; 3:21). But nowhere does Scripture say that believers in the
intermediate state (between their death and Christ’s return) are reigning with Christ or
sharing in rule with him. In fact. Revelation earlier pictures saints in heaven before Christ’s
return waiting under the altar and crying out to the Lord to begin to judge evildoers on the
earth (Rev. 6:9-10). Nowhere is it said that Christians are already reigning with Christ.
Those who come to life and reign with Christ in Revelation 20 include people “who
had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or
their hands” (Rev. 20:4). This is a reference to those who did not yield to the persecution
by the beast spoken of in Revelation 13:1 - 18. But if the severity of persecution described
in Revelation 13 leads us to conclude that the beast has not yet come on the world scene,
but is yet future, then the persecution by this beast is still future as well. And if this perse-
cution is still future, then the scene in Revelation 20 where those “who had not worshiped
the beast . . . and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands” (Rev. 20:4)
is still future as well. This means that Revelation 20:1-6 does not describe the present
church age but is best understood to refer to a future millennial reign of Christ.
These considerations combine to make a case in favor of premillennialism. If we are
convinced of this position, it really is an incidental question whether the thousand-year
period is thought to be a literal thousand years or simply a long period of time of inde-
terminate duration. And though we may not have much clarity on all the details of the
nature of the millennium, we can be reasonably certain that there will be a future earthly
reign of Christ that will be markedly different from this present age.
E. The Time of the Great Tribulation
For those who are persuaded by the arguments in favor of premillennialism, one further
question must be decided: Will Christ return before or after the “great tribulation”?
next item or argument in a logical progression, but in nar- another . . . then , next”).
rating historical occurrences it indicates something that hap- 35 I understand the aorist indicative ezesan in both cases as
pens after something else (see BAGD, pp. 233—34; also LSJ, an inceptive aorist, marking the beginning of an action,
p. 498: “used to denote the sequence of one act or state upon
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1132
The expression “great tribulation” itself conies from Matthew 24:21 (and parallels),
where Jesus says, “For then there will be great tribulation , such as has not been from
the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be.” Historic premillennial-
ism believes that Christ will return after that tribulation, for the passage continues,
“Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened . . . then will
appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will
mourn, and they will see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and
great glory” (Matt. 24:29-30). But, as explained above, in the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries a variety of premillennialism that holds to a pretribulational coming of Christ
became popular. This is often called a “pretribulation rapture” view, because it holds
that when Christ first returns the church will be “raptured” or snatched up into heaven
to be with him.
The arguments for such a pretribulation rapture are as follows: 36
1. The entire period of the tribulation will be a time of the outpouring of God’s wrath
on all the earth. Therefore it would not be appropriate for Christians to be on the earth
at that time.
2. Jesus promises in Revelation 3:10, “J will keep you from the hour of trial which is com-
ing on the whole world, to try those who dwell upon the earth.” This passage indicates that
the church will be taken out of the world before that hour of trial comes.
3. If Christ returns after the tribulation and defeats all his enemies, then where will
the unbelievers come from who are necessary to populate the millennial kingdom? The
pretribulation position, however, envisages thousands of Jewish believers who have
become Christians during the tribulation and who will go into the millennial kingdom
in nonglorified bodies.
4. This view makes it possible to believe that Christ could come at any moment (his
coming before the tribulation) and yet that many signs must be fulfilled before he comes
(his coming after the tribulation, when the signs will be fulfilled).
Although it is not specifically an argument in favor of a pretribulation position, it
must also be noted that pretribulationists then view the teaching about the tribulation in
Matthew 24 and the warnings and encouragements given to believers in that situation as
applying to Jewish believers during the tribulation, and not to the church generally. 37
In response to these arguments, the following points maybe made:
1. It is inconsistent with the New Testament descriptions of the tribulation to say that
all the suffering that occurs during that time is specifically the result of the wrath of God.
Much of the suffering is due to the fact that “wickedness is multiplied” (Matt. 24:12) and
the fact that persecution of the church and opposition from Satan greatly increases dur-
ing this period. Of course all Christians (whether Gentile or Jewish believers) will avoid
the wrath of God at all times, but this does not mean they will avoid all suffering, even
in times of intense hardship.
36 Much of the argumentation for the pretribulation rap-
ture position is taken from the very thorough essay by Paul D.
Feinberg, “The Case for Pretribulation Rapture Position” in The
Rapture: Pre-, Mid-, or Post-Tribulational? pp. 45-86.
37 Feinberg gives an additional argument on the differences
between the passages he sees as describing the rapture (before
the tribulation) and the passages he sees as describing the sec-
ond coming (after the tribulation). However, most of these
differences are not insurmountable contradictions, but only
cases where an event is mentioned in one passage and not in
another (a point well made by Douglas Moo in his “Response,”
pp. 99-101).
CHAPTER 55 * THE MILLENNIUM
1133
2. The fact that Jesus tells faithful believers in the church in Philadelphia (Rev. 3:10)
that he will keep them from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world is not
strong enough evidence to say that the entire church will be taken out of the world before
the tribulation. First, this statement is made to one specific church (Philadelphia) and
should not be applied to the whole church at some future point in history. Moreover, “the
hour of trial which is coming on the whole world” need not refer to the time of the great
tribulation, but more likely refers to a time of great suffering and persecution that would
come upon the entire Roman Empire or the entire inhabited world. Finally, the promise
that the church in Philadelphia will be guarded does not imply that they will be taken out
of the world, but simply that they will be kept faithful and will be guarded from being
harmed by that period of suffering and testing.
3. It is no argument for the pretribulation view to say that there must be some people
in nonglorified bodies who will enter the millennium, because (on a posttribulational
view) when Christ comes at the end of the tribulation he will defeat all the forces arrayed
against him, but that does not mean he will kill or annihilate all of them. Many will sim-
ply surrender without trusting Christ, and will thus enter the millennium as unbelievers.
And during the entire period of the millennium no doubt many will be converted to
Christ and become believers as well.
4. The pretribulational view is not the only one consistent with the ideas that Christ
could come back at any time that there are signs that precede his return. The position
presented in the previous chapter — that it is unlikely but possible that the signs have
been fulfilled — is also consistent with these ideas. 38
But it must be said that behind this argument of pretribulationists is probably a more
fundamental concern: the desire to preserve a distinction between the church (which
they think will be taken up into heaven to be with Christ) and Israel (which they think
will constitute the people of God on earth during the tribulation and then during the
millennial kingdom). But, as we noted in an earlier chapter, 39 the New Testament does
not support a distinction of this kind between Israel and the church. Hence it does not
imply a need to see a distinction between these groups at the time of the tribulation and
the millennium.
There is a variation of the pretribulation rapture position that is known as the mid-
tribulation rapture view. It is defended by Gleason Archer in his essay, “The Case for the
Mid- Seventieth-Week Rapture Position/* 40 He sees the tribulation as separated into two
halves. The first three and a half years are characterized by the wrath of man, and the
church is present at that time. The second three and a half years are characterized by the
wrath of God, and during that time the church is absent from the earth. The primary
argument from Scripture to support a midtribulational rapture is the fact that in Daniel
7:25; 9:27; and 12:7 and 11, as well as in Revelation 12:14, the seven days or times indi-
cated are cut in half, mentioning the interval of three and a half times or three and a half
days in a symbolic week, thus indicating a period of three and a half years, after which
God’s people will be rescued from tribulation. Another argument in favor of this position
38 See chapter 54, pp. 1101-05. 40 In The Rapture , pp. 113-45.
39 See chapter 44, pp. 859-63, on the question of a distinc-
tion between Israel and the church.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1134
is that it gives a heightened sense of expectancy of Christ’s return, since three and a half
years is a shorter period of time than seven years.
However, though the passages in Daniel do speak of an interruption of the seventieth
week which Daniel predicts for the future, they do not give any clear indication that mid-
way through the week believers will be removed from the earth. 41 It is also hard to see
that the expectation of a three-and-a-half-year tribulation provides a much greater sense
of imminence than does the expectation of a seven-year tribulation.
Finally, some objections to the pre tribulational rapture position can be stated in the
form of arguments in favor of theposrtribulational rapture view (the historic premillen-
nial view that Christ will return after a period of tribulation on the earth):
1. The New Testament nowhere clearly says that the church will be taken out of the
world before the tribulation. If this significant event were to happen, we might at least
expect that explicit teaching to that effect would be found in the New Testament. Cer-
tainly Jesus tells us that he will come again and take us to be with himself (John 14:3),
and Paul tells us that we shall be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air
(1 Thess. 4:17), and that we shall be changed in the twinkling of an eye and receive res-
urrection bodies (1 Cor. 15:51-52), but each of these passages has been understood by
believers throughout history as speaking not of a secret rapture of the church before the
tribulation, but of a very visible public rapture (or “taking up”) of the church to be with
Christ just a few moments prior to his coming to earth with them to reign during the
millennial kingdom (or, on the amillennial view, during the eternal state). 42
Moreover, it is very difficult to understand 1 Thessalonians 4:17, the only passage
that explicitly speaks of the fact that the church will be “caught up” (or “raptured”), to
speak of the idea of a secret coming. It says, “The Lord himself will descend from heaven
with a cry of command, with the archangeVs call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God”
(1 Thess. 4:16). Of these words Leon Morris rightly says, “It may be that from this he
intends us to understand that the rapture will take place secretly, and that no one except
the saints themselves will know what is going on. But one would hardly gather this from
his words. It is difficult to see how he could more plainly describe something that is open
and public.” 43
The doctrine of a pretribulation rapture is an inference from several passages, all of
which are disputed. Moreover, even if one believes this doctrine to be in Scripture, it is
taught with such little clarity that it was not discovered until the nineteenth century. This
does not make it seem likely.
2. The tribulation is quite clearly linked with the Lords return in some passages.
First, the loud trumpet call to gather the elect in Matthew 24:31, the sound of the
41 See Paul D. Feinberg, “Response,” in The Rapture ,
pp. 147-50.
42 When Paul says that “we who are alive, who are left, shall
be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the
Lord in the air” (1 Thess. 4:17), he uses the Greek word apan-
tesis , for “meet,” which is used in Greek literature outside the
Bible to speak of citizens going out of a city to meet an arriv-
ing magistrate, then to return to the city with him. “The word
apantesis is to be understood as a technical term for a civic
custom of antiquity whereby a public welcome was accorded
by a city to important visitors” (Erik Peterson, “ apantesis
TDNT, 1:380). Moulton and Milligan say, “The word seems to
have been a kind of technical term for the official welcome of
a newly arrived dignitary — a usage which accords excellently
with its New Testament usage” (MM, p. 53).
43 Leon Morris, The First and Second Epistles to the
Thessalonians , p. 145.
CHAPTER 55 • THE MILLENNIUM
1135
trumpet of God in 1 Thessalonians 4:16, and the last trumpet at which our bodies are
changed in 1 Corinthians 15:51-52, all seem to be the same trumpet — the last trum-
pet that is blown just before the millennium. If it is indeed the “last trumpet” (1 Cor.
15:52), then it is hard to see how another loud trumpet call (Matt. 24:31) could follow
it seven years later.
In addition, Matthew 24 is very difficult to understand as referring not to the church
but to Jewish people who would be saved during the tribulation. Jesus is addressing his
disciples (Matt. 24:1—4) and warning them of persecution and suffering to come. He
tells them of the great tribulation to come, and then says that “immediately after the
tribulation of those days” cosmic signs will appear and “then all the tribes of the earth
will mourn, and they will see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power
and great glory” (Matt. 24:30). But is it likely that Jesus, in saying all these things to his
disciples, intended his words to apply not to the church but only to a future earthly king-
dom of Jewish people who would be converted during the tribulation? How could the
disciples have known that he had such a meaning in mind? Nor does it seem likely that
the disciples are here as representatives of a future Jewish kingdom and not as represen-
tatives of the church, with whose founding they were so integrally connected as to be its
foundation (Eph. 2:20).
3. Finally, the New Testament does not seem to justify the idea of two separate returns
of Christ (once for his church before the tribulation and then seven years later with his
church to bring judgment on unbelievers). Once again, no such view is explicitly taught
in any passage, but it is simply an inference drawn from differences between various pas-
sages that describe Christ’s return from different perspectives. But it is not at all difficult
to see these passages as referring to a single event occurring at one time. 44
It seems best to conclude, with the great majority of the church throughout history,
that the church will go through the time of tribulation predicted by Jesus. We would prob-
ably not have chosen this path for ourselves, but the decision was not ours to make. And if
God wills that any of us now alive remain on earth until the time of this great tribulation,
then we should heed Peter’s words, “If you are reproached for the name of Christ, you are
blessed, because the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you” ( 1 Peter 4:14), and, “Christ
also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps” (1 Peter
2:21). This idea that Christians should be prepared to endure suffering is also seen in
Paul’s words that we are fellow heirs with Christ, “provided we suffer with him in order
that we may also be glorified with him” (Rom. 8:17). And we may remember that from
the time of Noah to the time of the martyrdom of the early apostles, it has frequently been
God’s way to bring his people through suffering to glory, for thus he did even with his
own Son. “For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing
many sons to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through suffering”
(Heb. 2:10). It is from the Savior who himself has suffered more than any of his children
will ever suffer that we have the admonition, “Do not fear what you are about to suffer. . . .
Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life” (Rev. 2:10).
44 See footnote 37 above; the primary passages are given on
p. 1092.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1136
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. Before reading this chapter, did you have any conviction about whether Christ’s
return would be amillennial, postmillennial, or premillennial? And whether it
would be posttribulational or pretribulational? If so, how has your view now
changed, if at all?
2. Explain how your present view of the millennium affects your Christian life
today. Similarly, explain how your view of the tribulation affects your present
Christian life.
3. What do you think it will feel like to be living on earth with a glorified body, and
with Jesus Christ as King over the whole world? Can you describe in any detail
some of the attitudes and emotional responses you will have toward various situ-
ations in such a kingdom? Do you really look forward to such a kingdom? (Your
answers will differ somewhat depending on whether you expect a glorified body
during the millennium or not until the eternal state.)
4. What might be both the positive and the negative results of a pretribulation rapture
position in the everyday lives and attitudes of Christians? Similarly, what might be
the positive and negative results of a posttribulation rapture position?
SPECIAL TERMS
amillennialism
dispensational premillennialism
great tribulation
historic premillennialism
midtribulation rapture
millennium
postmillennialism
BIBLIOGRAPHY
posttribulational premillennialism
posttribulation rapture
premillennialism
pretribulational premillennialism
pretribulation rapture
rapture
(For an explanation of this bibliography see the note on the bibliography to chapter 1,
pp. 38-39. Complete bibliographical data maybe found on pp. 1224-30.)
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1882-92 Litton, 581-85
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1940 Wiley, 3:280-319
1983 Carter, 2:1118-27
CHAPTER 55 • THE MILLENNIUM
3. Baptist
1767
1907
1917
1983-85
4. Dispensational
1947
1949
1986
5. Lutheran
1934
Gill, 2:268-302
Strong, 1010-15
Mullins, 466-72
Erickson, 1205-24
Chafer, 4:264- 78; 5:315-58
Thiessen, 351-75, 391-95
Ryrie, 439 - 52, 461-511
Mueller, 621-25
6. Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1724-58 Edwards, 2:278-313
1871-73 Hodge, 3:861-68
1887- 1921 Warfield, BD, 643-64
1938 Berkhof, 695 - 707
1962 Buswell, 2:346- 538
7. Renewal (or charismatic/Pentecostal)
1988-92 Williams, 3:421-44
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
(no explicit treatment)
Other Works
Adams, Jay. The Time Is at Hand. Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1970.
(Amillennial.)
Allis, O. T. Prophecy and the Church. Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1945.
(Amillennial.)
Archer, Gleason, Paul Feinberg, Douglas Moo, and Richard Reiter. The Rapture: Pre-, Mid-,
or Post- tribulational? Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984. (Contains well-argued essays
representing the three different positions.)
Bauckham, R. J. “Millennium.” In NDT, pp. 428-30.
Beechick, Allen. The Pre-Tribulation Rapture. Denver: Accent, 1980.
Berkouwer, G. C. The Return of Christ. Trans, by James Van Oosterom. Ed. by Marlin J. Van
Elderen. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972.
Boettner, Lorraine. The Millennium. Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1957.
(Postmillennial.)
Clouse, F. G. “Rapture of the Church.” In EDT, pp. 908-10.
Clouse, Robert G., ed. The Meaning of the Millennium: Four Views. Downers Grove, 111.:
InterVarsity Press, 1977. (The chapters by Ladd and Hoekema are excellent state-
ments of the classical premillennial and amillennial positions.)
1137
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1138
Davis, John Jefferson. Christ's Victorious Kingdom . Grand Rapids: Baker, 1986. (This is an
excellent argument for the postmillennial position.)
Erickson, Millard. Contemporary Options in Eschatology : Grand Rapids: Baker, 1977.
Feinberg, Charles L. Millennialism: The Two Major Views. Chicago: Moody Press, 1980.
(Pretribulational premillennial.)
Grier, W. J. The Momentous Event. London: Banner of Truth, 1970.
Gundry, R. H. The Church and the Tribulation. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1973. (Post-
tribulational premillennial.)
Hendriksen, William. More Than Conquerors: An Interpretation of the Book of Revelation.
London: Tyndale Press, 1962. (Amillennial.)
Hoekema, Anthony A. The Bible and the Future. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979,
pp. 109-238. (Amillennial.)
Kik, J. Marcellus. An Eschatology of Victory. Nutley, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1974.
(Postmillennial.)
Ladd, George Eldon. The Blessed Hope. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956. (Classic or post-
tribulational premillennial.)
Lightner, Robert P. The Last Days Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide to Understanding the
Different Views of Prophecy. Who Believes What About Prophecy and Why. Nashville,
Tenn.: Thomas Nelson, 1990.
McClain, Alva J. The Greatness of the Kingdom. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1959. (Pretribu-
lational premillennial.)
Murray, Iain. The Puritan Hope. London: Banner of Truth, 1971. (Postmillennial.)
Pentecost, J. Dwight. Things to Come. Findlay, Ohio: Dunham, 1958. (Pretribulational
premillennial.)
Poythress, Vern. Understanding Dispensationalists. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1987.
(Amillennial.)
Travis, S. H. “Eschatology” In NDT y pp. 228-31.
Vos, Geerhardus. The Pauline Eschatology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1961. (Amillennial.)
Walvoord, John F. The Blessed Hope and the Tribulation. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1976.
(Pretribulational premillennial.)
. The Millennial Kingdom. Findlay, Ohio: Dunham, 1959. (Pretribulational
premillennial.)
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
Revelation 20:4-6: Then I saw thrones , and seated on them were those to whom judgment
was committed. Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony to
Jesus and for the word of God } and who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had
not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life , and reigned with
Christ a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years
were ended. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he who shares in the first resur-
rection! Over such the second death has no power ; but they shall be priests of God and of
Christ, and they shall reign with him a thousand years.
CHAPTER 55 • THE MILLENNIUM
1139
HYMN
“Jesus Shall Reign Where’er the Sun”
This hymn by Isaac Watts beautifully describes the reign of Christ over the whole
earth. Whether our personal convictions on the millennium lead us to understand this
hymn as referring to the millennium or to the eternal state, in either case it gives an excel-
lent picture of the kingdom for which our hearts long and the blessings that will come
when lesus is King over the earth.
Jesus shall reign where’er the sun
Does his successive journeys run;
His kingdom stretch from shore to shore,
Til moons shall wax and wane no more.
To him shall endless prayer be made,
And praises throng to crown his head;
His name, like sweet perfume, shall rise
With every morning sacrifice.
People and realms of every tongue
Dwell on his love with sweetest song;
And infant voices shall proclaim
Their early blessings on his name.
Blessings abound where’er he reigns;
The pris’ner leaps to loose his chains,
The weary find eternal rest,
And all the sons of want are blest.
Let every creature rise and bring
Peculiar honors to our King,
Angels descend with songs again,
And earth repeat the loud amen.
AUTHOR: ISAAC WATTS, 1719
Chapter
THE FINAL JUDGMENT
AND ETERNAL PUNISHMENT
Who will be judged? What is hell?
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
A. The Fact of Final Judgment
1. Scriptural Evidence for a Final Judgment. Scripture frequently affirms the fact that
there will be a great final judgment of believers and unbelievers. They will stand before
the judgment seat of Christ in resurrected bodies and hear his proclamation of their
eternal destiny.
The final judgment is vividly portrayed in John’s vision in Revelation:
Then I saw a great white throne and him who sat upon it; from his presence earth
and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead , great
and small, standing before the throne , and books were opened . Also another book
was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was
written in the books, by what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead in it,
death and hades gave up the dead in them, and all were judged by what they had
done. Then death and hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second
death, the lake of fire; and if anyone’s name was not found written in the book
of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. (Rev. 20:11 - 15)
Many other passages teach this final judgment. Paul tells the Greek philosophers in
Athens that God “Now . . . commands all men everywhere to repent, because he has
fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has
appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all men by raising him from the dead”
(Acts 17:30— 31). 1 Similarly, Paul talks about “the day of wrath when God’s righteous
l lt is interesting that Paul proclaimed eternal judgment teachings of the Old Testament. Paul also argued about “future
to unbelieving Gentiles who had little if any knowledge of the judgment” (Acts 24:25) before another unbeliever, the Roman
1140
CHAPTER 56 • THE FINAL JUDGMENT AND ETERNAL PUNISHMENT
1141
judgment will be revealed” (Rom. 2:5). Other passages speak clearly of a coming day of
judgment (see Matt. 10:15; 11:22, 24; 12:36; 25:31-46; 1 Cor. 4:5; Heb. 6:2; 2 Peter 2:4;
Jude6,etal.).
This final judgment is the culmination of many precursors in which God rewarded
righteousness or punished unrighteousness throughout history. While he brought bless-
ing and deliverance from danger to those who were faithful to him, including Abel,
Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, and the faithful among the people of Israel,
he also from time to time brought judgment on those who persisted in disobedience and
unbelief: his judgments included the flood, the dispersion of the people from the tower
of Babel, the judgments on Sodom and Gomorrah, and continuing judgments through-
out history, both on individuals (Rom. 1:18-32) and on nations (Isa. 13-23, et al.) who
persisted in sin. Moreover, in the unseen spiritual realm he brought judgment on angels
who sinned (2 Peter 2:4). Peter reminds us that God’s judgments have been carried out
periodically and with certainty, and this reminds us that a final judgment is yet coming,
for “the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trial, and to keep the unrighteousness
under punishment until the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge in the
lust of defiling passion and despise authority” (2 Peter 2:9-10).
2. Will There Be More Than One Judgment? According to a dispensational view, there
is more than one judgment to come. For example, dispensationalists would not see the
final judgment in Matthew 25:31 -46:
When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he
will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and
he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from
the goats, and he will place the sheep at his right hand, but the goats at his left.
Then the King will say to those at his right hand, “Come, O blessed of my Father,
inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I
was hungry and you gave me food As you did it to one of the least of these
my brothers, you did it to me.” Then he will say to those at his left hand, “Depart
from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels;
for I was hungry and you gave me no food As you did it not to one of the
least of these, you did it not to me.” And they will go away into eternal punish-
ment, but the righteous into eternal life.
From a dispensational perspective, this passage does not refer to final judgment (the
“great white throne judgment” spoken of in Rev. 20:11 - 15), but rather to a judgment that
comes after the tribulation and before the beginning of the millennium. They say that
this will be a “judgment of the nations ” in which the nations are judged according to how
they have treated the Jewish people during the tribulation. Those who have treated the
Jews well and are willing to submit to Christ will enter into the millennium, and those
who have not will be refused entrance.
governor Felix. In both cases Paul apparently realized that the their eternal destiny was at stake as they listened to him preach
brute fact that a day of accountability before God was coming about Jesus,
to all men would give to his hearers a sobering realization that
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1142
Thus, in a dispensationalist view there are different judgments: (a) a “judgment of the
nations” (Matt. 25:31 -46) to determine who enters the millennium; (b) a “judgment of
believers’ works” (sometimes called the bema judgment after the Greek word for “judg-
ment seat” in 2 Cor. 5:10) in which Christians will receive degrees of reward; and (c) a
“great white throne judgment” at the end of the millennium (Rev. 20:11-15) to declare
eternal punishments for unbelievers. 2
The view taken in this book is that these three passages all speak of the same final
judgment, not of three separate judgments. With regard to Matthew 25:31 -46 in par-
ticular, it is unlikely that the dispensational view is correct: There is no mention of
entering into the millennium in this passage. Moreover, the judgments pronounced
speak not of entrance into the millennial kingdom on earth or exclusion from that
kingdom but of eternal destinies of people: “Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from
the foundation of the world. . . . Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire pre-
pared for the devil and his angels. . . . And they will go away into eternal punishment ,
but the righteous into eternal life ” (vv. 34, 41, 46). Finally, it would be inconsistent with
God’s ways throughout Scripture to deal with people’s eternal destiny on the basis of
what nation they belong to, for unbelieving nations have believers within them, and
nations that exhibit more conformity to God’s revealed will still have many wicked
within them. And “God shows no partiality” (Rom. 2:11). Though indeed “all the
nations” are gathered before Christ’s throne in this scene (Matt. 25:32), the picture of
judgment is one of judgment on individuals (sheep are separated from goats, and those
individuals who treated Christ’s brothers kindly are welcomed into the kingdom while
those who rejected them are rejected, vv. 35-40, 42-45).
B. The Time of Final Judgment
The final judgment will occur after the millennium and the rebellion that occurs
at the end of it. John pictures the millennial kingdom and the removal of Satan from
influence on the earth in Revelation 20:1-6 (see the discussion in the previous two
chapters) and then says that “when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be loosed
from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations ... to gather them for battle”
(Rev. 20:7-8). After God decisively defeats this final rebellion (Rev. 20:9- 10), John tells
us that judgment will follow: “Then I saw a great white throne and him who sat upon
it” (v. 11).
C. The Nature of the Final Judgment
1. Jesus Christ Will Be the Judge. Paul speaks of “Jesus Christ who is to judge the living
and the dead” (2 Tim. 4:1). Peter says that Jesus Christ “is the one ordained by God to be
the judge of the living and the dead” (Acts 10:42; compare 17:31; Matt. 25:31-33). This
right to act as judge over the whole universe is something that the Father has given to the
2 See Lewis Sperry Chafer, Systematic Theology, 7:213-17,
who includes other judgments as well.
CHAPTER 56 • THE FINAL JUDGMENT AND ETERNAL PUNISHMENT
1143
Son: “The Father . . . has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son
of Man” (John 5:26-27).
2. Unbelievers Will Be Judged. It is clear that all unbelievers will stand before Christ for
judgment, for this judgment includes “the dead, great and small” (Rev. 20:12), and Paul
says that “on the day of wrath when Gods righteous judgment will be revealed,” “he will
render to every man according to his works ... for those who are factious and do not obey
the truth, but obey wickedness, there will be wrath and fury” (Rom. 2:5-7).
This judgment of unbelievers will include degrees of punishment, for we read that the
dead were judged “by what they had done” (Rev. 20:12, 13), and this judgment according
to what people had done must therefore involve an evaluation of the works that people
have done. 3 Similarly, Jesus says:
And that servant who knew his master’s will, but did not make ready or act
according to his will, shall receive a severe beating. But he who did not know, and
did what deserved a beating, shall receive a light beating” (Luke 12:47-48).
When Jesus says to the cities of Chorazin and Bethsaida, “It shall be more tolerable on the
day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you” (Matt. 11:22; compare v. 24), or when
he says that the scribes “will receive the greater condemnation” (Luke 20:47), he implies
that there will be degrees of punishment on the last day.
In fact, every wrong deed done will be remembered and taken account of in the pun-
ishment that is meted out on that day, because “on the day of judgment men will render
account for every careless word they utter” (Matt. 12:36). Every word spoken, every deed
done will be brought to light and receive judgment: “For God will bring every deed into
judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil” (Eccl. 12:14).
As these verses indicate, on the day of judgment the secrets of people’s hearts will be
revealed and made public. Paul speaks of the day when “God judges the secrets of men
by Christ Jesus” (Rom. 2:16; compare Luke 8:17). “Nothing is covered up that will not be
revealed, or hidden that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have said in the dark
shall be heard in the light , and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed
upon the housetops ” (Luke 12:2-3).
3. Believers Will Be Judged. In writing to Christians Paul says, “We shall all stand before
the judgment seat of God. . . . Each of us shall give account of himself to God” (Rom.
14:10, 12). He also tells the Corinthians, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat
of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body,
whether good or bad” (2 Cor. 5:10; cf. Rom. 2:6-11; Rev. 20:12, 15). In addition, the
picture of the final judgment in Matthew 25:31-46 includes Christ separating the sheep
from the goats, and rewarding those who receive his blessing.
3 The fact that there will be degrees of punishment for unbe- not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in
lievers according to their works does not mean that unbelievers the name of the only Son of God” (John 3:18).
can ever do enough good to merit Gods approval or earn salva- For a discussion of the fact that there will be no “second
tion, for salvation only comes as a free gift to those who trust in chance” for people to accept Christ after they die, see chapter
Christ: “He who believes in him is not condemned; he who does 41, pp. 822 - 24.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1144
It is important to realize that this judgment of believers will be a judgment to
evaluate and bestow various degrees of reward (see below), but the fact that they will
face such a judgment should never cause believers to fear that they will be eternally
condemned. Jesus says, “He who hears my word and believes him who sent me, has
eternal life; he does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life” (John
5:24). Here “judgment” must be understood in the sense of eternal condemnation and
death, since it is contrasted with passing from death into life. At the day of final judg-
ment more than at any other time, it is of utmost importance that “there is therefore
now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus ” (Rom. 8:1). Thus the day of
judgment can be portrayed as one in which believers are rewarded and unbelievers
are punished:
The nations raged, but your wrath came, and the time for the dead to be judged,
for rewarding your servants, the prophets and saints, and those who fear your
name, both small and great, and for destroying the destroyers of the earth.
(Rev. 11:18)
Will all the secret words and deeds of believers, and all their sins, also be revealed
on that last day? We might at first think so, because Paul says that when the Lord
comes he will “bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the
purposes of the heart. Then every man will receive his commendation from God”
(1 Cor. 4:5; compare Col. 3:25). However, this is a context that talks about “com-
mendation,” or praise ( epainos ), that comes from God, so it may not refer to sins.
And other verses suggest that God will never again call our sins to remembrance:
“You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea” (Mic. 7:19); “as far as the east is
from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us” (Ps. 103:12); “I will
not remember your sins ” (Isa. 43:25); “I will remember their sins no more ” (Heb. 8:12;
compare 10:17).
Scripture also teaches that there will be degrees of reward for believers . Paul encour-
ages the Corinthians to be careful how they build the church on the foundation that has
already been laid — Jesus Christ himself.
Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood,
hay, straw — each man's work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it,
because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each
one has done. If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he
will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though
he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. (1 Cor. 3:12- 15)
Paul similarly says of Christians that “we must all appear before the judgment seat
of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body,
whether good or bad” (2 Cor. 5:10), again implying degrees of reward for what we have
done in this life. Likewise, in the parable of the pounds, the one who made ten pounds
more was told, “You shall have authority over ten cities,” and the one whose pound had
made five pounds more was told, “And you are to be over five cities” (Luke 19:17, 19).
CHAPTER 56 * THE FINAL JUDGMENT AND ETERNAL PUNISHMENT
1145
Many other passages likewise teach or imply degrees of reward for believers at the final
judgment. 4
But we must guard against misunderstanding here: Even though there will be degrees
of reward in heaven, the joy of each person will be full and complete for eternity. If we
ask how this can be when there are different degrees of reward, it simply shows that our
perception of happiness is based on the assumption that happiness depends on what we
possess or the status or power that we have. In actuality, however, our true happiness
consists in delighting in God and rejoicing in the status and recognition that he has
given us. The foolishness of thinking that only those who have been highly rewarded and
given great status will be fully happy in heaven is seen when we realize that no matter
how great a reward we are given, there will always be those with greater rewards, or who
have higher status and authority, including the apostles, the heavenly creatures, and Jesus
Christ and God himself. Therefore if highest status were essential for people to be fully
happy, no one but God would be fully happy in heaven, which is certainly an incorrect
idea. Moreover, those with greater reward and honor in heaven, those nearest the throne
of God, delight not in their status but only in the privilege of falling down before God’s
throne to worship him (see Rev. 4:10-11).
It would be morally and spiritually beneficial for us to have a greater consciousness of
this clear New Testament teaching on degrees of heavenly reward. Rather than making
us competitive with one another, it would cause us to help and encourage one another
that we all may increase our heavenly reward, for God has an infinite capacity to bring
blessing to us all, and we are all members of one another (cf. 1 Cor. 12:26-27). We
would more eagerly heed the admonition of the author of Hebrews, “Let us consider how
to stir up one another to love and good works , not neglecting to meet together, as is the
habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing
near” (Heb. 10:24-25). Moreover, in our own lives a heartfelt seeking of future heavenly
reward would motivate us to work wholeheartedly for the Lord at whatever task he calls
us to, whether great or small, paid or unpaid. It would also make us long for his approval
rather than for wealth or success. It would motivate us to work at building up the church
on the one foundation, Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 3:10-15).
4. Angels Will Be Judged. Peter says that the rebellious angels have been committed to
pits of nether gloom “to be kept until the judgment” (2 Peter 2:4), and Jude says that
rebellious angels have been kept by God “until the judgment of the great day” (Jude 6).
This means that at least the rebellious angels or demons will be subject to judgment on
that last day as well.
Scripture does not clearly indicate whether righteous angels will undergo some kind
of evaluation of their service as well, but it is possible that they are included in Pauls
statement “Do you not know that we are to judge angels ?” (1 Cor. 6:3). It is probable that
this includes righteous angels because there is no indication in the context that Paul is
4 See also Dan. 12:2; Matt. 6:10, 20-21; 19:21; Luke Phil. 4:17; Col. 3:23-24; 1 Tim. 6:18; Heb. 10:34, 35; 11:10,
6:22-23; 12:18-21, 32, 42-48; 14:13-14; 1 Cor. 3:8; 14-16, 26, 35; 1 Peter 1:4; 2 John 8; Rev. 11:18; 22:12; cf. also
9:18; 13:3; 15:19, 29-32, 58; Gal. 6:9-10; Eph. 6:7-8; Matt. 5:46; 6:2-6, 16-18, 24; Luke 6:35.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1146
speaking of demons or fallen angels, and the word “angel” without further qualification
in the New Testament would normally be understood to refer to righteous angels. But
the text is not explicit enough to give us certainty.
5. We Will Help in the Work of Judgment. It is a rather amazing aspect of New Testament
teaching that we (believers) will take part in the process of judgment. Paul says:
Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be
judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? Do you not know that
we are to judge angels? How much more, matters pertaining to this life? (1 Cor.
6:2-3)
It might be argued that this simply means we will be watching the declaration of judg-
ment by Christ and approving it, but this does not seem to fit the context well, for here
Paul is encouraging the Corinthians to settle legal disputes among themselves rather than
taking them to court before unbelievers. In this very context he says, “Can it be that there
is no man among you wise enough to decide between members of the brotherhood, but
brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers?” (1 Cor. 6:5-6). This
kind of judgment certainly involves careful evaluation and wise discernment. And this
implies that such careful evaluation and discernment will be exercised by us in judging
angels and in judging the world on the day of final judgment.
This is similar to the teaching of Revelation 20, where John says that he saw thrones,
and “seated on them were those to whom judgment was committed” (Rev. 20:4). Although
the text does not explain the identity of those seated on the thrones, the fact that they are
mentioned in the plural indicates that Christ does not reserve every aspect of the process
of judging for himself alone. Indeed, he tells his twelve disciples that they will “sit on
twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Matt. 19:28; compare Luke 22:30).
This accords with the fact that throughout the history of redemption God has from time
to time given the right to exercise judgment into the hands of human authorities, whether
Moses and the elders who assisted him, the judges of Israel whom God raised up during
the period of the judges, the wise kings such as David and Solomon, the civil government
of many nations (see Rom. 13:1-7; 1 Peter 2:13— 14), or those who have authority to rule
and govern within the church and to oversee the exercise of church discipline.
D. Necessity of Final Judgment
Since when believers die they pass immediately into the presence of God, and when
unbelievers die they pass into a state of separation from God and the endurance of
punishment, 5 we may wonder why God has a time of final judgment established at all.
Berkhof wisely points out that the final judgment is not for the purpose of letting God
find out the condition of our hearts or the pattern of conduct of our lives, for he already
knows that in every detail. Berkhof rather says of the final judgment:
5 See chapter 41, pp. 816-24, for evidence supporting the idea die, and unbelievers go immediately to a place of punishment
that believers go immediately into God’s presence when they separated from God. (See also Luke 16:24-26; Heb. 9:27.)
CHAPTER 56 * THE FINAL JUDGMENT AND ETERNAL PUNISHMENT
1147
It will serve the purpose rather of displaying before all rational creatures the
declarative glory of God in a formal, forensic act, which magnifies on the one
hand His holiness and righteousness, and on the other hand, His grace and
mercy. Moreover, it should be borne in mind that the judgment at the last day
will differ from that of the death of each individual in more than one respect. It
will not be secret, but public; it will not pertain to the soul only, but also to the
body; it will not have reference to a single individual, but to all men. 6
E. Justice of God in the Final Judgment
Scripture clearly affirms that God will be entirely just in his judgment and no one will
be able to complain against him on that day. God is the one who “judges each one impar-
tially according to his deeds” (1 Peter 1:17), and “God shows no partiality” (Rom. 2:11;
compare Col. 3:25). For this reason, on the last day “every mouth” will be “stopped,” and
the whole world will be “held accountable to God” (Rom. 3:19), with no one being able
to complain that God has treated him or her unfairly. In fact, one of the great blessings
of the final judgment will be that saints and angels will see demonstrated in millions
of lives the absolutely pure justice of God, and this will be a source of praise to him for
all eternity. At the time of the judgment on wicked Babylon, there will be great praise
in heaven, for John says, “I heard what seemed to be the loud voice of a great multitude
in heaven, crying, ‘ Hallelujah ! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for his
judgments are true and just’ ” (Rev. 19:1-2).
F. Moral Application of the Final Judgment
The doctrine of final judgment has several positive moral influences in our lives.
1. The Doctrine of Final Judgment Satisfies Our Inward Sense of a Need for Justice in
the World. The fact that there will be a final judgment assures us that ultimately God’s
universe is fair, for God is in control, and he keeps accurate records and renders just judg-
ment. When Paul tells slaves to be submissive to their masters, he reassures them, “For
the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality”
(Col. 3:25). When the picture of a final judgment mentions the fact that “books were
opened” (Rev. 20:12; compare Mai. 3:16), it reminds us (whether the books are literal or
symbolic) that a permanent and accurate record of all our deeds has been kept by God,
and ultimately all accounts will be settled and all will be made right.
2. The Doctrine of Final Judgment Enables Us to Forgive Others Freely. We realize that
it is not up to us to take revenge on others who have wronged us, or even to want to do
so, because God has reserved that right for himself. “Beloved, never avenge yourselves,
but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, c Vengeance is mine , I will repay, says the
Lord ’ ” (Rom. 12:19). In this way whenever we have been wronged, we can give into God’s
6 Berkhof, Systematic Theology ; p. 731.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1148
hands any desire to harm or pay back the person who has wronged us, knowing that every
wrong in the universe will ultimately be paid for — either it will turn out to have been
paid for by Christ when he died on the cross (if the wrongdoer becomes a Christian), or
it will be paid for at the final judgment (for those who do not trust in Christ for salva-
tion). But in either case we can give the situation into God's hands, and then pray that
the wrongdoer will trust Christ for salvation and thereby receive forgiveness of his or her
sins. This thought should keep us from harboring bitterness or resentment in our hearts
for injustices we have suffered that have not been made right: God is just, and we can
leave these situations in his hands, knowing that he will someday right all wrongs and
give absolutely fair rewards and punishments. In this way we are following in the example
of Christ, who “when he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did
not threaten; but he trusted to him who judges justly” (1 Peter 2:22-23). He also prayed,
“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34; compare Acts 7:60,
where Stephen followed Jesus' example in praying for those who put him to death).
3. The Doctrine of the Final Judgment Provides a Motive for Righteous Living. For
believers, the final judgment is an incentive to faithfulness and good works, not as a
means of earning forgiveness of sins, but as a means of gaining greater eternal reward. 7
This is a healthy and good motive for us — Jesus tells us, “Lay up for yourselves treasures
in heaven” (Matt. 6:20) — though it runs counter to the popular views of our secular
culture, a culture that does not really believe in heaven or eternal rewards at all.
For unbelievers, the doctrine of final judgment still provides some moral restraint
on their lives. If in a society there is a widespread general acknowledgment that all will
someday give account to the Creator of the universe for their lives, some “fear of God”
will characterize many people's lives. By contrast, those who have no deep conscious-
ness of final judgment give themselves up to greater and greater evil, demonstrating that
“there is no fear of God before their eyes” (Rom. 3:18). Those who deny the final judg-
ment, Peter says, will be “scoffers” who “will come in the last days with scoffing, following
their own passions and saying, ‘Where is the promise of his coming?' ” (2 Peter 3:3-4). He
also declares that evildoers who “are surprised that you do not now join them in the same
wild profligacy,” and “who abuse you” will nonetheless “give account to him who is ready
to judge the living and the dead” (1 Peter 4:4-5). An awareness of final judgment is both
a comfort to believers and a warning to unbelievers not to continue in their evil ways.
4. The Doctrine of Final Judgment Provides a Great Motive for Evangelism. The deci-
sions made by people in this life will affect their destiny for all eternity, and it is right that
our hearts feel and our mouths echo the sentiment of the appeal of God through Ezekiel,
“Turn back , turn back from your evil ways; for why will you die, O house of Israel? ” (Ezek.
33:11). In fact, Peter indicates that the delay of the Lord's return is due to the fact that
God “is forbearing toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should
reach repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).
7 The idea of working for greater heavenly reward is a fre-
quent theme in the New Testament: see the verses listed at
footnote 4 above.
CHAPTER 56 ■ THE FINAL JUDGMENT AND ETERNAL PUNISHMENT
1149
G. Hell
It is appropriate to discuss the doctrine of hell in connection with the doctrine of final
judgment. We may define hell as follows: Hell is a place of eternal conscious punishment
for the wicked . Scripture teaches in several passages that there is such a place. At the end
of the parable of the talents, the master says, “Cast the worthless servant into the outer
darkness; there men will weep and gnash their teeth” (Matt. 25:30). This is one among
several indications that there will be consciousness of punishment after the final judg-
ment. Similarly, at the judgment the king will say to some, “Depart from me, you cursed,
into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt. 25:41), and Jesus says
that those thus condemned “will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into
eternal life” (Matt. 25:46). 8 In this text, the parallel between “eternal life” and “eternal
punishment” indicates that both states will be without end. 9
Jesus refers to hell as “the unquenchable fire” (Mark 9:43), and says that hell is a place
“where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:48). 10 The story
of the rich man and Lazarus also indicates a horrible consciousness of punishment:
The rich man also died and was buried; and in Hades, being in torment, he
lifted up his eyes, and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus in his bosom, and he
called out, “Father Abraham, have mercy upon me, and send Lazarus to dip
the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in anguish in this
flame.” (Luke 16:22-24)
He then begs Abraham to send Lazarus to his father’s house, “for I have five brothers, so
that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment” (Luke 16:28).
When we turn to Revelation, the descriptions of this eternal punishment are also very
explicit:
If anyone worships the beast and its image, and receives a mark on his forehead
or on his hand, he also shall drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured unmixed
into the cup of his anger, and he shall be tormented with fire and sulphur in the
presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of
their torment goes up forever and ever; and they have no rest, day or night, these
worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name.
(Rev. 14:9-11)
This passage very clearly affirms the idea of eternal conscious punishment of
unbelievers.
With respect to the judgment on the wicked city of Babylon, a large multitude in
heaven cries, “Hallelujah! The smoke from her goes up for ever and ever ” (Rev. 19:3). After
8 The word translated “punishment” here is kolasis, which paragraphs clearly indicate that the Bible does not teach
is used elsewhere of great physical suffering or torture that was universalism (the doctrine that all people will ultimately be
endured by persecuted Christians ( Martyrdom of Polycarp 2.4; saved).
compare Ignatius, To the Romans 5.3). At other times it simply 10 Compare Isa. 66:24, speaking of those who have rebelled
refers to divine punishment in general, without specification of against God: “For their worm shall not die, and their fire shall
the nature of that punishment (cf. BAGD, pp. 440-41). not be quenched.”
9 These texts and others which are quoted in the following
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1150
the final rebellion of Satan is crushed, we read, “The devil who had deceived them was
thrown into the lake of fire and sulphur where the beast and the false prophet were, and
they will he tormented day and night for ever and ever ” (Rev. 20:10). This passage is also
significant in connection with Matthew 25:41, in which unbelievers are sent “into the
eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” These verses should make us realize the
immensity of the evil that is found in sin and rebellion against God, and the magnitude
of the holiness and the justice of God that calls forth this kind of punishment.
The idea that there will be eternal conscious punishment of unbelievers has been
denied recently even by some evangelical theologians. 11 It has previously been denied by
the Seventh Day Adventist Church and by various individuals throughout church his-
tory. Those who deny eternal conscious punishment often advocate “annihilationism,” a
teaching that, after the wicked have suffered the penalty of God’s wrath for a time, God
will “annihilate” them so that they no longer exist. 12 Many who believe in annihilation-
ism also hold to the reality of final judgment and punishment for sin, but they argue that
after sinners have suffered for a certain period of time, bearing the wrath of God against
their sin, they will finally cease to exist. The punishment will therefore be “conscious”
. but it will not be “eternal.”
Arguments advanced in favor of annihilationism are: (1) the biblical references to the
destruction of the wicked, which, some say, implies that they will no longer exist after
they are destroyed (Phil. 3:19; 1 Thess. 5:3; 2 Thess. 1:9; 2 Peter 3:7, et al.); (2) the appar-
ent inconsistency of eternal conscious punishment with the love of God; (3) the apparent
injustice involved in the disproportion between sins committed in time and punishment
that is eternal; and (4) the fact that the continuing presence of evil creatures in God's uni-
verse will eternally mar the perfection of a universe that God created to reflect his glory.
In response, it must be said that the passages which speak of destruction (such as Phil.
3:19; 1 Thess. 5:3; 2 Thess. 1:9; and 2 Peter 3:7) do not necessarily imply the cessation of
existence, for in these passages the terms used for “destruction” do not necessarily imply
a ceasing to exist or some kind of annihilation, but can simply be ways of referring to the
harmful and destructive effects of final judgment on unbelievers. 13
n See Philip E. Hughes, The True Image: The Origin and
Destiny of Man in Christ (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), pp.
405-407; David L. Edwards and John R. W. Stott, Essentials: A
Liberal-Evangelical Dialogue (London: Hodder and Stoughton,
1988), pp. 275-76; Clark Pinnock, “The Destruction of the
Finally Impenitent,” CThRevA (Spring 1990), pp. 243-59.
I2 A variation of the view that God will eventually anni-
hilate unbelievers (annihilationism proper) is the view called
“conditional immortality,” the idea that God has created people
so that they only have immortality (the power to live forever)
if they accept Christ as Savior. Those who do not become
Christians, then, do not have the gift of immortal life and at
death or at the time of final judgment they simply cease to
exist. This view is very close to that of annihilationism, and
I have not discussed it separately in this chapter. (Some ver-
sions of conditional immortality deny conscious punishment
altogether, even for a brief time.)
13 In Phil. 3:19 and 2 Peter 3:7, the term for “destruction”
is apoleia, which is the same word used by the disciples in
Matt. 26:8 to speak of the “waste” (in their view) of the oint-
ment that had just been poured on Jesus’ head. Now the oint-
ment did not cease to exist; it was very evident on Jesus’ head.
But it had been “destroyed” in the sense that it was no longer
able to be used on someone else, or sold. In 1 Thess. 5:3 and
2 Thess. 1:9 another word, olethros, is used of the destruc-
tion of the wicked, but again this word does not imply that
something will cease to exist, for it is used in 1 Cor. 5:5 of
delivering a man to Satan (putting him out of the church)
for the destruction of the flesh — but certainly his flesh did
not cease to exist when he was put out of the church, even
though he may have suffered in his body (this would be true
whether we take “flesh” to mean his physical body or his sin-
ful nature).
CHAPTER 56 - THE FINAL JUDGMENT AND ETERNAL PUNISHMENT
1151
With respect to the argument from the love of God, the same difficulty in reconciling
God’s love with eternal punishment would seem to be present in reconciling God’s love
with the idea of divine punishment at all, and, conversely, if (as Scripture abundantly
testifies) it is consistent for God to punish the wicked for a certain length of time after the
last judgment, then there seems to be no necessary reason why it would be inconsistent
of God to inflict the same punishment for an unending period of time.
This kind of reasoning may lead some people to adopt another kind of annihilation-
ism, one in which there is no conscious suffering at all, not even for a brief time, and the
only punishment is that unbelievers cease to exist after they die. But, in response, it may
be wondered whether this kind of immediate annihilation can really be called a punish-
ment, since there would be no consciousness of pain. In fact, the guarantee that there
would be a cessation of existence would seem to many people, especially those who are
suffering and in difficulty in this life, to be in some ways a desirable alternative. And if
there was no punishment of unbelievers at all, even people like Hitler and Stalin would
have nothing coming to them, and there would be no ultimate justice in the universe.
Then people would have great incentive to be as wicked as possible in this life.
The argument that eternal punishment is unfair (because there is a disproportion
between temporary sin and eternal punishment) wrongly assumes that we know the
extent of the evil done when sinners rebel against God. David Kingdon observes that
“sin against the Creator is heinous to a degree utterly beyond our sin-warped imagina-
tions’ [ability] to conceive of. . . . Who would have the temerity to suggest to God what
the punishment . . . should be?” 14 He also responds to this objection by suggesting that
unbelievers in hell may go on sinning and receiving punishment for their sin, but never
repenting, and notes that Revelation 22:11 points in this direction: “Let the evildoer still
do evil, and the filthy still be filthy.” 15
At this point, moreover, an argument based on God’s justice may be brought against
annihilationism. Does the short time of punishment envisaged by the annihilationist
actually pay for all of the unbeliever’s sin and satisfy God’s justice? If it does not, then
God’s justice has not been satisfied and the unbeliever should not be annihilated. But if
it does, then the unbeliever should be allowed to go to heaven, and he or she should not
be annihilated. In either case, annihilationism is not necessary or right.
Regarding the fourth argument, while evil that remains unpunished does detract
from God’s glory in the universe, we also must realize that when God punishes evil
and triumphs over it, the glory of his justice, righteousness, and power to triumph over
all opposition will be seen (see Rom. 9:17, 22-24). The depth of the riches of God’s
mercy will also then be revealed, for all redeemed sinners will recognize that they too
deserve such punishment from God and have avoided it only by God’s grace through
Jesus Christ (cf. Rom. 9:23-24).
Yet after all this has been said, we have to admit that the ultimate resolution of the
depths of this question lies far beyond our ability to understand, and remains hidden in
the counsels of God. Were it not for the scriptural passages cited above which so clearly
14 David Kingdon, “Annihilationism: Gain or Loss?” (March,
1992; unpublished paper obtained from the author), p. 9.
15 Ibid., pp. 9-10.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1152
affirm eternal conscious punishment, annihilationism might seem to us to be an attrac-
tive option. Though annihilationism can be countered by theological arguments, it is
ultimately the clarity and forcefulness of the passages themselves that convince us that
annihilationism is incorrect and that Scripture does indeed teach the eternal conscious
punishment of the wicked. 16
What are we to think of this doctrine? It is hard — and it should be hard — for us to
think of this doctrine today. If our hearts are never moved with deep sorrow when we
contemplate this doctrine, then there is a serious deficiency in our spiritual and emotional
sensibilities. When Paul thinks of the lostness of his kinsmen the Jews, he says, “I have
great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart” (Rom. 9:2). This is consistent with what
God tells us of his own sorrow at the death of the wicked: “As I live, says the Lord God, I
have no pleasure in the death of the wicked , but that the wicked turn from his way and live;
turn back, turn back from your evil ways; for why will you die, O house of Israel?” (Ezek.
33:11). And Jesus’ agony is evident as he cries out, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the
prophets and stoning those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your
children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not! Behold,
your house is forsaken and desolate” (Matt. 23:37-38; cf. Luke 19:41 -42).
The reason it is hard for us to think of the doctrine of hell is because God has put in our
hearts a portion of his own love for people created in his image, even his love for sinners
who rebel against him. As long as we are in this life, and as long as we see and think about
others who need to hear the gospel and trust in Christ for salvation, it should cause us
great distress and agony of spirit to think about eternal punishment. Yet we must also real-
ize that whatever God in his wisdom has ordained and taught in Scripture is right There-
fore we must be careful that we do not hate this doctrine or rebel against it, but rather we
should seek, insofar as we are able, to come to the point where we acknowledge that eternal
punishment is good and right, because in God there is no unrighteousness at all.
It may help us to realize that if God were not to execute eternal punishment, then,
apparently, his justice would not be satisfied and his glory would not be furthered in the
way he deems wise. And it will perhaps also help us to realize that from the perspective
of the world to come there is a much greater recognition of the necessity and rightness of
eternal punishment. Martyred believers in heaven are heard by John to cry out, “O sov-
ereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those
who dwell upon the earth?” (Rev. 6:10). Moreover, at the final destruction of Babylon,
the loud voice of a great multitude in heaven cries out with praise to God for the rightness
of his judgment as they finally see the heinous nature of evil for what it really is:
Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for his judg-
ments are true and just; he has judged the great harlot who corrupted the
16 Because the doctrine of eternal conscious punishment
is so foreign to the thought patterns of our culture, and, on
a deeper level, to our instinctive and God-given sense of love
and desire for redemption for every human being created in
God’s image, this doctrine is emotionally one of the most dif-
ficult doctrines for Christians to affirm today. It also tends
to be one of the first doctrines given up by people who are
moving away from a commitment to the Bible as absolutely
truthful in all that it affirms. Among liberal theologians who
do not accept the absolute truthfulness of the Bible, there is
probably no one today who believes in the doctrine of eternal
conscious punishment.
CHAPTER 56 * THE FINAL JUDGMENT AND ETERNAL PUNISHMENT
1153
earth with her fornication, and he has avenged on her the blood of his
servants. . . . Hallelujah! The smoke from her goes up forever and ever.”
(Rev. 19:1-3)
As soon as this happened, “the 24 elders and the four living creatures fell down and
worshiped God who is seated on the throne, saying, Amen. Hallelujah!’ ” (Rev. 19:4). We
cannot say that this great multitude of the redeemed and the living creatures in heaven
have wrong moral judgment when they praise God for executing justice on evil, for they
are all free from sin and their moral judgments are pleasing to God.
In this present age, however, we should only approach such a celebration of the justice
of God in the punishment of evil when we meditate on the eternal punishment given to
Satan and his demons. When we think of them we do not instinctively love them, though
they too were created by God. But now they are fully devoted to evil and beyond the
potential of redemption. So we cannot long for their salvation as we long for the redemp-
tion of all humanity. We must believe that eternal punishment is true and just, yet we
should also long that even those people who most severely persecute the church should
come to faith in Christ and thus escape eternal condemnation.
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. Have you thought before that there will be a final judgment for believers? How
do you think of it now? How does the awareness of the fact that we will all stand
before the judgment seat of Christ affect your life today? What do you think it
will feel like to have all your words and deeds made public on that last day? Is
there an element of fear as you contemplate that day? If so, meditate on 1 John
4:16-18:
So we know and believe the love God has for us. God is love, and he who
abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. In this is love per-
fected with us, that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because
as he is so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love
casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and he who fears is not
perfected in love.
2. Have you previously thought very much about laying up treasures in heaven, or
about earning greater heavenly reward? If you really believe this doctrine, what
kind of effect do you think it should have on your life?
3. How do you think it will feel to participate with Christ in the judging of angels,
and indeed in the judging of the whole world (see 1 Cor. 6:2-3)? What does the
fact that God allows us to participate in this final judgment say about our creation
in the image of God and his purposes for us in the universe? How does that make
you feel about yourself and your eternal relationship to God?
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1154
4. Think of some of your Christian friends in your church. How do you think you
will feel when you watch them stand before Christ at the final judgment? How will
they feel about you at that time? Does the contemplation of this future judgment
affect the way you think of your fellowship with each other as brothers and sisters
in Christ today?
5. Are you glad that there will be a final judgment of both believers and unbelievers?
Does it make you feel a sense of God’s justice, or do you sense some unfairness and
injustice in the whole idea?
6. Are you convinced that Scripture teaches that there will be eternal conscious pun-
ishment of the wicked? When you think of that idea in relationship to Satan and
demons, do you feel that it is right?
7. Is there anyone who has wronged you in the past, and whom you have had dif-
ficulty forgiving? Does the doctrine of final judgment help you to be more able to
forgive that person?
SPECIAL TERMS
annihilationism
conditional immortality
eternal conscious punishment
final judgment
great white throne judgment
hell
judgment of the nations
universalism
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For explanation of this bibliography see note at bibliography to chapter 1, pp. 38-39.
Complete bibliographical data may be found on pp. 1224-30.)
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1882-92 Litton, 591-600
1930 Thomas, 525-26
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1875 - 76 Pope, 3:401-47
1892-94 Miley, 2:458-71
1940 Wiley, 3:338 - 75
1960 Purkiser, 567-74
1983 Carter, 2:1105 -9, 1127 - 30, 1133 - 36
3. Baptist
1767 Gill, 2:302-29
1887 Boyce, 461-71, 477-93
CHAPTER 56 • THE FINAL JUDGMENT AND ETERNAL PUNISHMENT
1155
1907
1917
1976-83
1983-85
4. Dispensational
1947
1949
1986
5. Lutheran
1917-24
1934
Strong, 1023-29, 1033-56
Mullins, 478 - 83, 488 - 503
Henry, 4:593 - 614; 6:492-513
Erickson, 1005-22, 1234-41, 1200-1204
Chafer, 4:402-12, 427 -33
Thiessen, 383-90, 396-97
Ryrie, 512-16,520 -22
Pieper, 3:539-50
Mueller, 630-39
6. Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1724-58 Edwards, 2:122-30, 190-213, 515-25
1861 Heppe, 703-6
1871 - 73 Hodge, 3:837- 54, 868 - 80
1878 Dabney, 842-62
1889 Shedd,2b:659-63, 667-754
1937-66 Murray, CW, 2:413-17
1938 Berkhof, 728-38
1962 Buswell, 2:306-8, 508-11
7. Renewal (or charismatic/Pentecostal)
1988-92 Williams, 3:413-20, 445-77
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
1. Roman Catholic: Traditional
1955 Ott, 479- 82, 492 -96
2. Roman Catholic: Post-Vatican II
1980 McBrien, 2:1150-55
Other Works
Beckwith, R. T. “Purgatory.” In NDT, pp. 549-50.
Blamires, Harry. Knowing the Truth About Heaven and Hell. Knowing the Truth Series, eds.
J. I. Packer and Peter Kreeft. Ann Arbor: Servant, 1988.
Buis, Harry. The Doctrine of Eternal Punishment. Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed,
1957.
Cameron, Nigel M. de S., ed. Universalism and the Doctrine of Hell. Carlisle, U.K.: Pater-
noster, and Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992.
Crockett, William V., Z. J. Hayes, Clark H. Pinnock, and John F. Walvoord. Four Views on
Hell. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992.
Gerstner, John H. Repent or Perish. Ligonier, Pa.: Soli Deo Gloria, 1990.
Helm, Paul. “Universalism and the Threat of Hell.” TrinJ vol. 4 N.S., No. 1 (Spring 1983):
35-43.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1156
Hoekema, Anthony A. The Bible and the Future. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979,
pp. 253-73.
Hubbard, D. A. “Last Judgment, The” In EDT, pp. 620-21.
Martin, James P. The Last Judgment. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983.
Morris, L. “Eternal Punishment.” In EDT y pp. 369-70.
O’Donovan, O. M. T., and R. J. Song. “Punishment.” In NDT, pp. 547-49.
Packer, J. I. “Evangelicals and the Way of Salvation: New Challenges to the Gospel —
Universalism and Justification by Faith.” In Evangelical Affirmations. Ed. Kenneth S.
Kantzer and Carl F. H. Henry. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990, pp. 107-36.
Travis, S. H. “Judgment of God.” In NDT, p. 358.
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
Revelation 20:11 - 13: Then I saw a great white throne and him who sat upon it; from his
presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead,
great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Also another book was
opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books,
by what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead in it. Death and Hades gave up the dead
in them, and all were judged by what they had done.
HYMN
“O Quickly Come, Dread Judge of All”
(The tune is the familiar tune for “Eternal Father, Strong to Save”)
O quickly come, dread judge of all; for, awful though thine
advent be,
All shadows from the truth will fall, and falsehood die, in sight
of thee:
O quickly come; for doubt and fear like clouds dissolve when
thou art near.
O quickly come, great king of all; reign all around us, and within;
Let sin no more our souls enthrall, let pain and sorrow die with sin:
O quickly come; for thou alone canst make thy scattered people one.
O quickly come, true life of all; for death is mighty all around;
On ev’ry home his shadows fall, on ev’ry heart his mark is found:
O quickly come; for grief and pain can never cloud thy glorious reign.
O quickly come, sure light of all; for gloomy night broods o’er
our way;
And weakly souls begin to fall with weary watching for the day:
O quickly come; for round thy throne no eye is blind, no night
is known.
AUTHOR: LAWRENCE TUTTIETT, 1854
CHAPTER 56 • THE FINAL JUDGMENT AND ETERNAL PUNISHMENT
1157
ALTERNATE HYMN
“Great God, What Do I See and Hear!”
A tone of gloom and judgment pervades both these hymns, yet this alternate also
contains a strong focus on the soul’s preparing to meet Christ and a sense of joyful antici-
pation.
Great God, what do I see and hear! The end of things created!
The Judge of mankind doth appear, on clouds of glory seated!
The trumpet sounds; the graves restore the dead which
they contained before:
Prepare, my soul, to meet him.
The dead in Christ shall first arise, at the last trumpet’s sounding,
Caught up to meet him in the skies, with joy their Lord surrounding;
No gloomy fears their souls dismay; his presence sheds eternal day
On those prepared to meet him.
But sinners, filled with guilty fears, behold his wrath prevailing;
For they shall rise, and find their tears and sighs are unavailing:
The day of grace is past and gone; trembling they stand before
the throne,
All unprepared to meet him.
Great God, what do I see and hear! The end of things created!
The Judge of mankind doth appear, on clouds of glory seated!
Beneath his cross I view the day when heav’n and earth shall
pass away,
And thus prepare to meet him.
AUTHOR: FIRST STANZA, ANONYMOUS, 1802;
STANZAS 2-4, WILLIAM B. COLLYER, 1812;
ALTERNATE RENDERING, THOMAS COTTERILL, 1820
Chapter
THE NEW HEAVENS
AND NEW EARTH
What is heaven ? Is it a place? How will the earth be
renewed? What will it be like to live in the
new heavens and new earth?
EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
A. We Will Live Eternally With God in New Heavens
and a New Earth
After the final judgment, believers will enter into the full enjoyment of life in the
presence of God forever. Jesus will say to us, “Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the
kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matt. 25:34). We will enter
a kingdom where “there shall no more be anything accursed, but the throne of God and
of the Lamb shall be in it, and his servants shall worship him” (Rev. 22:3).
When referring to this place, Christians often talk about living with God “in heaven”
forever. But in fact the biblical teaching is richer than that: it tells us that there will be
new heavens and a new earth — an entirely renewed creation — and we will live with
God there.
The Lord promises through Isaiah, “For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth;
and the former things shall not be remembered” (Isa. 65:17), and speaks of “the new
heavens and the new earth which I will make” (Isa. 66:22). Peter says, “according to his
promise we wait for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (2 Peter
3:13). In John s vision of events to follow the final judgment, he says, “Then I saw a new
heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away” (Rev.
21:1). He goes on to tell us that there will also be a new kind of unification of heaven
and earth, for he sees the holy city, the “new Jerusalem,” coming “down out of heaven
from God” (Rev. 21:2), and hears a voice proclaiming that “the dwelling of God is with
men. He will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself will be with
1158
CHAPTER 57 • THE NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTH
1159
them” (v. 3). So there will be a joining of heaven and earth in this new creation, and there
we will live in the presence of God.
1. What Is Heaven? During this present age, the place where God dwells is frequently
called “heaven” in Scripture. The Lord says, “Heaven is my throne” (Isa. 66:1), and Jesus
teaches us to pray, “Our Father who art in heaven ” (Matt. 6:9). Jesus now “ has gone into
heaven , and is at the right hand of God” (1 Peter 3:22). In fact, heaven may be defined as
follows: Heaven is the place where God most fully makes known his presence to bless.
We discussed earlier how God is present everywhere 1 but how he especially manifests
his presence to bless in certain places. The greatest manifestation of God’s presence to
bless is seen in heaven, where he makes his glory known, and where angels, other heav-
enly creatures, and redeemed saints all worship him.
2. Heaven Is a Place, Not Just a State of Mind. But someone may wonder how heaven
can be joined together with earth. Clearly the earth is a place that exists at a certain loca-
tion in our space-time universe, but can heaven also be thought of as a place that can be
joined to the earth?
Outside of the evangelical world the idea of heaven as a place is often denied, chiefly
because its existence can only be known from the testimony of Scripture. Recently even
some evangelical scholars have been hesitant to affirm the fact that heaven is a place. 2
Should the fact that we only know about heaven from the Bible, and cannot give any
empirical evidence for it, be a reason not to believe that heaven is a real place?
The New Testament teaches the idea of a location for heaven in several different ways,
and quite clearly. When Jesus ascended into heaven, the fact that he went to a place seems
to be the entire point of the narrative, and the point that Jesus intended his disciples to
understand by the way in which he gradually ascended even while speaking to them: “As
they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight” (Acts 1:9;
cf. Luke 24:51: “While he blessed them, he parted from them”). The angels exclaimed,
“This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you
saw him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11). It is hard to imagine how the fact of Jesus’ ascension
to a place could be taught more clearly.
A similar conclusion can be drawn from the story of Stephen’s death. Just before he
was stoned, he, “full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and
Jesus standing at the right hand of God; and he said, ‘Behold, I see the heavens opened,
and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God’ ” (Acts 7:55-56). He did not see
mere symbols of a state of existence. It seems rather that his eyes were opened to see a
spiritual dimension of reality which God has hidden from us in this present age, a dimen-
sion which nonetheless really does exist in our space/time universe, and within which
l See chapter 11, pp. 173-77, on the omnipresence of God.
2 Millard Erickson, Christian Theology, says, “While heaven
is both a place and a state, it is primarily a state” (p. 1232), a
statement that is difficult to understand. Something either is
a place or it is not a place; it is not somewhat a place but “pri-
marily a state.” Even stronger is Donald Guthrie, who says of
the New Testament, “We shall not expect, however, to find a
description of a place, so much as the presence of a person,”
(New Testament Theology, p. 875) and “Paul does not think
of heaven as a place, but thinks of it in terms of the presence
of God” (New Testament Theology, p. 880). But does such a
distinction make any sense? If a person is present, then by
definition there is a place, because to be “present” means to be
“located in this place.”
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1160
Jesus now lives in his physical resurrection body, waiting even now for the time when he
will return to earth. 3 Moreover, the fact that we will have resurrection bodies like Christ’s
resurrection body indicates that heaven will be a place, for in such physical bodies (made
perfect, never to become weak or die again), 4 we will inhabit a specific place at a specific
time, just as Jesus now does in his resurrection body.
The idea of heaven as a place is also the easiest sense in which to understand Jesus’
promise, “I go to prepare a place for you” (John 14:2). He speaks quite clearly of going
from his existence in this world back to the Father, and then returning again: “And when
I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where
I am you may be also” (John 14:3).
These texts lead us to conclude that heaven is even now a place — though one whose
location is now unknown to us and whose existence is now unable to be perceived by our
natural senses. It is this place of God’s dwelling that will be somehow made new at the
time of the final judgment and will be joined to a renewed earth.
3. The Physical Creation Will Be Renewed and We Will Continue to Exist and Act in It.
In addition to a renewed heaven, God will make a “new earth” (2 Peter 3:13; Rev. 21:1).
Several passages indicate that the physical creation will be renewed in a significant way.
“The creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God; for the cre-
ation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of him who subjected it
in hope; because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the
glorious liberty of the children of God” (Rom. 8:19-21).
But will earth simply be renewed, or will it be completely destroyed and replaced by
another earth, newly created by God? Some passages appear to speak of an entire new
creation: The author of Hebrews (quoting Ps. 102) tells us of the heavens and earth,
“They will perish, but you remain; they will all grow old like a garment, like a mantle
you will roll them up, and they will be changed” (Heb. 1:11-12). Later he tells us that
God has promised, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heaven,” a
shaking so severe as to involve “the removal of what is shaken ... in order that what can-
not be shaken may remain” (Heb. 12:26-27). Peter says, “The day of the Lord will come
like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise , and the elements will
be dissolved with fire, and the earth and all the works that are upon it will be burned up” (2
Peter 3:10). A similar picture is found in Revelation, where John says, “From his presence
earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them” (Rev. 20:11). Moreover, John
says, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth
had passed away, and the sea was no more” (Rev. 21:1).
Within the Protestant world, there has been disagreement as to whether the earth is
to be destroyed completely and replaced, or just changed and renewed. Berkhof says that
Lutheran scholars have emphasized the fact that it will be an entirely new creation, while
Reformed scholars have tended to emphasize those verses that say simply that this present
3 See the discussion of Christ s resurrection body and his resurrection bodies,
ascension in chapter 28, pp. 608-20. 5 Berkhof, Systematic Theology , p. 737.
4 See chapter 42, pp. 831-36, on the nature of our
CHAPTER 57 • THE NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTH
1161
creation will be renewed. 5 The Reformed position seems preferable here, for it is difficult to
think that God would entirely annihilate his original creation, thereby seeming to give the
devil the last word and scrapping the creation that was originally “very good” (Gen. 1:31).
The passages above that speak of shaking and removing the earth and of the first earth
passing away may simply refer to its existence in its present form, not its very existence
itself, and even 2 Peter 3:10, which speaks of the elements dissolving and the earth and the
works on it being burned up, may not be speaking of the earth as a planet but rather the
surface things on the earth (that is, much of the ground and the things on the ground).
4. Our Resurrection Bodies Will Be Part of the Renewed Creation. In the new heavens
and new earth, there will be a place and activities for our resurrection bodies, which will
never grow old or become weak or ill. A strong consideration in favor of this viewpoint
is the fact that God made the original physical creation “very good” (Gen. 1:31). There is
therefore nothing inherently sinful or evil or “unspiritual” about the physical world that
God made or the creatures that he put in it, or about the physical bodies that he gave us
at creation. Though all these things have been marred and distorted by sin, God will not
completely destroy the physical world (which would be an acknowledgement that sin had
frustrated and defeated God’s purposes), but rather he will perfect the entire creation and
bring it into harmony with the purposes for which he originally created it. Therefore we
can expect that in the new heavens and new earth there will be a fully perfect earth that
is once again “very good.” And we can expect that we will have physical bodies that will
once again be “very good” in God’s sight, and that will function to fulfill the purposes
for which he originally placed man on the earth.
When the author of Hebrews says that we do “not yet” see everything in subjection
to man (Heb. 2:8), he implies that eventually all things will eventually be subject to us,
under the kingship of the man Christ Jesus (note v. 9: “But we see Jesus . . . crowned with
glory and honor”). This will fulfill God’s original plan to have everything in the world
subject to the human beings that he had made. 6 In this sense, then, we will “inherit the
earth” (Matt. 5:5) and reign over it as God originally intended.
For that reason, it should not strike us as surprising to find that some of the descrip- k
tions of life in heaven include features that are very much part of the physical or material
creation that God has made. We shall eat and drink at “the marriage supper of the Lamb”
(Rev. 19:9). Jesus will once again drink wine with his disciples in the heavenly kingdom
(Luke 22:18). The “river of the water of life” will flow “from the throne of God and of
the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city” (Rev. 22:1). The tree of life will
bear “twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month” (Rev. 22:2). There is no strong
reason to say these expressions are merely symbolic, without any literal reference. Are
symbolic banquets and symbolic wine and symbolic rivers and trees somehow superior
to real banquets and real wine and real rivers and trees in God’s eternal plan? These
things are just some of the excellent features of the perfection and final goodness of the
physical creation that God has made.
6 See pp. 272-73, 276, and 448-49 on God’s original pur-
pose to have man rule over all creation.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1162
Of course, there are symbolic descriptions in the book of Revelation, and it is inevi-
table that at some points we will be unable to decide whether something is to be taken
symbolically or literally. But it does not seem difficult to think that the description of
the heavenly city with gates and a wall and foundations is a description of something
that is literal and real, “the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God,
having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel” (Rev. 21:10-11). “And the
street of the city is pure gold, transparent as glass And the kings of the earth shall
bring their glory into it, and its gates shall never be shut by day — and there shall be
no night there; they shall bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations” (Rev.
21:21-26).
While we may have some uncertainty about the understanding of certain details, it
does not seem inconsistent with this picture to say that we will eat and drink in the new
heavens and new earth, and carry on other physical activities as well. Music certainly is
prominent in the descriptions of heaven in Revelation, and we might imagine that both
musical and artistic activities would be done to the glory of God. Perhaps people will
work at the whole range of investigation and development of the creation by techno-
logical, creative, and inventive means, thus exhibiting the full extent of their excellent
creation in the image of God.
Moreover, since God is infinite and we can never exhaust his greatness (Ps. 145:3), and
since we are finite creatures who will never equal Gods knowledge or be omniscient, 7
we may expect that for all eternity we will be able to go on learning more about God and
about his relationship to his creation. In this way we will continue the process of learn-
ing that was begun in this life, in which a life “fully pleasing to him” is one that includes
continually “increasing in the knowledge of God” (Col. 1:10).
5, The New Creation Will Not Be “Timeless” but Will Include an Unending Succession
of Moments. Although a popular hymn speaks of the time “when the trumpet of the
Lord shall sound and time shall be no more,” Scripture does not give support to that idea.
Certainly the heavenly city that receives its light from the glory of God (Rev. 21:23) will
never experience darkness or night: “There shall be no night there” (Rev. 21:25). But this
does not mean that heaven will be a place where time is unknown, or where things can-
not be done one after another. Indeed, all the pictures of heavenly worship in the book
of Revelation include words that are spoken one after another in coherent sentences, and
actions (such as falling down before God's throne and casting crowns before his throne)
that involve a sequence of events. When we read that “the kings of the earth . . . shall
bring into it the glory and honor of the nations” (Rev. 21:24-26), we see another activity
that involves a sequence of events, one happening after another. And certainly that is the
clear implication of the fact that the tree of life has twelve kinds of fruit, “yielding its fruit
each month ” (Rev. 22:2). (On Rev. 10:6 see chapter 11, p. 173, n. 18.)
Since we are finite creatures, we might also expect that we will always live in a succes-
sion of moments. Just as we will never attain to God’s omniscience or omnipresence, so
7 1 Cor. 13:12 does not say that we will be omniscient or simply says that we will know in a fuller or more intensive way,
know everything (Paul could have said we will know all things, “even as we have been known,” that is, without any error or
ta panta, if he had wished to do so), but, rightly translated, misconceptions in our knowledge.
CHAPTER 57 • THE NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTH
1163
we shall never attain to God’s eternity in the sense of seeing all time equally vividly and
not living in a succession of moments or being limited by time. As finite creatures, we
will rather live in a succession of moments that will never end.
B. The Doctrine of the New Creation Provides a Great Motivation for Storing
Up Treasures in Heaven Rather Than on Earth
When we consider the fact that this present creation is a temporary one and that our
life in the new creation will last for eternity, we have a strong motivation for godly living
and for living in such a way as to store up treasures in heaven. In reflecting on the fact
that heaven and earth will be destroyed, Peter says the following:
Since all these things are thus to be dissolved , what sort of persons ought you to be
in lives of holiness and godliness , waiting for and hastening the coming of the day
of God, because of which the heavens will be kindled and dissolved, and the ele-
ments will melt with fire! But according to his promise we wait for new heavens
and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. (2 Peter 3:11-13)
And Jesus very explicitly tells us:
Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust con-
sume and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures
in heaven , where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not
break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
(Matt. 6:19— 21) 8
C. The New Creation Will Be a Place of Great Beauty
and Abundance and Joy in the Presence of God
Amid all the questions that we naturally have concerning the new heavens and new
earth, we must not lose sight of the fact that Scripture consistently portrays this new
creation as a place of great beauty and joy. In the description of heaven in Revelation 21
and 22, this theme is repeatedly affirmed. It is a “holy city” (21:2), a place “prepared as
a bride adorned for her husband” (21:2). In that place “death shall be no more, neither
shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more” (21:4). There we can drink
“from the fountain of the water of life without payment” (21:6). It is a city that has “the
glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal” (21:11). It is
a city of immense size, whether the measurements be understood as literal or symbolic.
Its length measures “12,000 stadia” (21:16), or about 1,400 miles (2,250 kilometers), and
“its length and breadth and height are equal” (21:6). Parts of the city are constructed of
immense precious jewels of various colors (21:18-21). It will be free from all evil, for
“nothing unclean shall enter it, nor anyone who practices abomination or falsehood,
but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life” (21:27). In that city we shall
8 See the discussion of degrees of heavenly reward in chapter
56, pp. 1143-45.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1164
also have positions of rule over God’s entire creation, for “they shall reign for ever and
ever” (22:5).
But more important than all the physical beauty of the heavenly city, more important
than the fellowship we will enjoy eternally with all God’s people from all nations and all
periods in history, more important than our freedom from pain and sorrow and physical
suffering, and more important than reigning over God’s kingdom — more important by
far than any of these will be the fact that we will be in the presence of God and enjoying
unhindered fellowship with him. “Behold, the dwelling of God is with men. He will dwell
with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe
away every tear from their eyes” (21:3-4).
In the Old Testament, when the glory of God filled the temple, the priests were
unable to stand and minister (2 Chron. 5:14). In the New Testament, when the glory
of God surrounded the shepherds in the field outside Bethlehem “they were filled with
fear” (Luke 2:9). But here in the heavenly city we will be able to endure the power and
holiness of the presence of God’s glory, for we will live continually in the atmosphere
of the glory of God. “And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine upon it, for the
glory of God is its light , and its lamp is the Lamb ” (21:23). This will be the fulfillment
of God’s purpose to call us “to his own glory and excellence” (2 Peter 1:3): then we
shall dwell continually in “the presence of his glory with rejoicing ” (Jude 1:24; cf. Rom.
3:23; 8:18; 9:23; 1 Cor. 15:43; 2 Cor. 3:18; 4:17; Col. 3:4; 1 Thess. 2:12; Heb. 2:10;
1 Peter 5:1, 4, 10).
In that city we shall live in the presence of God, for “the throne of God and of the
Lamb shall be in it, and his servants shall worship him” (22:3). From time to time here
on earth we experience the joy of genuine worship of God, and we realize that it is our
highest joy to be giving him glory. But in that city this joy will be multiplied many times
over and we will know the fulfillment of that for which we were created. Our greatest joy
will be in seeing the Lord himself and in being with him forever. When John speaks of
the blessings of the heavenly city, the culmination of those blessings comes in the short
statement, “They shall see hisface n (22:4). When we look into the face of our Lord and he
looks back at us with infinite love, we will see in him the fulfillment of everything that
we know to be good and right and desirable in the universe. In the face of God we will see
the fulfillment of all the longing we have ever had to know perfect love, peace, and joy,
and to know truth and justice, holiness and wisdom, goodness and power, and glory and
beauty. As we gaze into the face of our Lord, we will know more fully than ever before
that “in your presence there is fullness of joy, at your right hand are pleasures for evermore ”
(Ps. 16:11). Then will be fulfilled the longing of our hearts with which we have cried out
in the past, “One thing I have asked of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell
in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to
inquire in his temple” (Ps. 27:4).
When we finally see the Lord face to face, our hearts will want nothing else. “Whom
have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing upon earth that I desire besides you
God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” (Ps. 73:25-26). Then with joy
our hearts and voices will join with the redeemed from all ages and with the mighty
armies of heaven singing, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is
and is to come!” (Rev. 4:8).
CHAPTER 57 • THE NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTH
1165
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. In your Christian life to this point, have you spent much time thinking about life in
the new heavens and new earth? Do you think there is a very strong longing for this
in your heart? If it has not been strong, why do you think this has been the case?
2. In what ways has this chapter made you more excited about entering the heavenly
city? What positive effects on your Christian life do you think would come about
because of a stronger longing for the life to come?
3. Are you convinced that the new creation is a place where we will exist with physical
bodies that are made perfect? If so, are you encouraged or discouraged by this idea?
Why? Why do you think it is necessary to insist that heaven is an actual place even
today?
4. What are some ways in which you already have stored up treasure in heaven rather
than on earth? Are there more ways you could do that in your own life now? Do
you think you will?
5. Sometimes people have thought that they would be bored in the life to come. Do
you feel that way yourself? What is a good answer to the objection that the eternal
state will be boring?
6. Can you describe at all what you think you will feel like when you finally stand in
the presence of God and see him face-to-face?
SPECIAL TERMS
heaven
new heavens and new earth
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(For explanation of this bibliography see note at bibliography to chapter 1, pp. 38 - 39.
Complete bibliographical data maybe found on pp. 1224-30.)
Sections in Evangelical Systematic Theologies
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1882-92 Litton, 600-605
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1875-76 Pope, 3:447-54
1892-94 Miley, 2:472-75
1940 Wiley, 3:375-93
1960 Purkiser, 574 - 77
1983 Carter, 2:1130-33, 1136-40
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1166
3. Baptist
1767 Gill, 2:258-68, 329-40
1887 Boyce, 471-77
1907 Strong, 1029-33
1917 Mullins, 483-88
1976 -83 Henry, 4:593 -614
1983-85 Erickson, 1225-34
4. Dispensational
1947 Chafer, 4:433 - 39; 5:365-76
1949 Thiessen, 397-99
5. Lutheran
1917-24 Pieper, 3:550-55
1934 Mueller, 639-44
6. Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1724-58 Edwards, 2:617-41
1861 Heppe, 706-12
1871-73 Hodge, 3:855-61
1878 Dabney, 849-52
1889 Shedd, 2b:664-66
1938 Berkhof, 736-38
1962 Buswell, 2:511-38
7. Renewal (or charismatic/Pentecostal)
1988-92 Williams, 3:479 - 508
Sections in Representative Roman Catholic Systematic Theologies
1. Roman Catholic: Traditional
1955 Ott, 476- 79
2. Roman Catholic: Post-Vatican II
1980 McBrien, 2:1141 -42, 1155-56
Other Works
Blamires, Harry. Knowing the Truth About Heaven and Hell. Knowing the Truth series, eds.
J. I. Packer and Peter Kreeft. Ann Arbor: Servant, 1988.
Gilmore, John. Probing Heaven: Key Questions on the Hereafter. Grand Rapids: Baker,
1989.
Grider, J.K. “Heaven.” In EDT, pp. 499-500.
Hoekema, Anthony A. “The New Earth.” In The Bible and the Future. Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1979, pp. 274-87.
Lincoln, Andrew T. Paradise Now and Not Yet: Studies in the Role of the Heavenly Dimension
in Paul’s Thought With Special Reference to His Eschatology. Society for New Testa-
ment Studies Monograph Series. London; New York: Cambridge, 1981.
CHAPTER 57 * THE NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTH
1167
Murray, John. “Glorification In Redemption Accomplished and Applied. Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1955, pp. 174-81.
Smith, Wilbur M. The Biblical Doctrine of Heaven. Chicago: Moody, 1968.
SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
Revelation 21:3-4: And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying , “Behold, the dwelling
of God is with men. He will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself
will be with them; he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more,
neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have
passed away.”
HYMN
“The Sands of Time Are Sinking”
This is one of the most beautiful hymns ever written in any language. It expresses so
clearly the fact that the beauty of heaven is the glory of God, and the great beauty of God’s
glory is the Lamb who died for us and now reigns.
The sands of time are sinking, the dawn of heaven breaks,
The summer morn IVe sighed for, the fair sweet morn awakes;
Dark, dark hath been the midnight, but dayspring is at hand,
And glory, glory dwelleth in Emmanuel’s land.
The king there in his beauty without a veil is seen;
It were a well-spent journey though sev’n deaths lay between:
The Lamb with his fair army doth on Mount Zion stand,
And glory, glory dwelleth in Emmanuel’s land.
O Christ, he is the fountain, the deep sweet well of love!
The streams on earth I’ve tasted, more deep I’ll drink above:
There to an ocean fullness his mercy doth expand,
And glory, glory dwelleth in Emmanuel’s land.
The bride eyes not her garment, but her dear bridegroom’s face;
I will not gaze at glory, but on my King of grace;
Not at the crown he giveth, but on his pierced hand:
The lamb is all the glory of Emmanuel’s land.
AUTHOR: ANNE R. COUSIN, 1857
Appendix
HISTORIC CONFESSIONS
OF FAITH
This appendix reprints several of the most significant confessions of faith from various periods in the
history of the church. From the ancient church I have included the four great ecumenical confessions:
the Apostles* Creed (third-fourth centuries A.D.), the Nicene Creed (A.D. 325/381), the Athanasian
Creed (late fourth-early fifth century A.D.), and the Chalcedonian Creed (A.D. 451). From the Prot-
estant churches since the Reformation I have included four other confessions: the Thirty-nine Articles
(1571) [Church of England; also Methodist] ; the Westminster Confession of Faith (1643-1646) [British
Reformed and Presbyterian]; the New Hampshire Baptist Confession (1833); and the Baptist Faith and
Message (1925/1963) [Southern Baptist] . Finally, I have also included the Chicago Statement on Biblical
Inerrancy (1978), because it was the product of a conference representing a broad variety of evangelical
traditions, and because it has gained widespread acceptance as a valuable doctrinal standard concerning
an issue of recent and current controversy in the church.
Because of space limitations, I was able to include only one of the very long confessions of faith
that came out of the Reformation, and I chose the Westminster Confession of Faith, which repre-
sents a doctrinal position very close to the position of this book. This meant that I did not have
space to include either of the two great Lutheran confessions, the Augsburg Confession (1530) or
the Formula of Concord (1576). 1
Students who take the time to read these creeds thoughtfully will find that they provide excel-
lent summaries of the doctrinal teachings of Scripture.
Following is a list of creed found in this appendix:
Apostles* Creed 1169
Nicene Creed 1169
Chalcedonian Creed 1169
Athanasian Creed 1170
Thirty-nine Articles 1171
Westminster Confession 1179
New Hampshire Baptist Confession 1196
Baptist Faith and Message 1199
Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy 1203
^hese Lutheran confessions may conveniently be found in Baker, 1983, reprint of 1931 edition), 3:3-73, 93-180.
Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom , 3 vols. (Grand Rapids:
1168
APPENDIX 1 • HISTORIC CONFESSIONS OF FAITH
1169
THE APOSTLES' CREED
(THIRD-FOURTH CENTURIES A.D.)
I believe in God the Father Almighty; Maker of heaven and earth.
And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Spirit , 2 born of the
virgin Mary; suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried ; 3 the third day he rose
from the dead; he ascended into heaven; and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty;
from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit; the holy catholic Church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness
of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. Amen.
THE NICENE CREED
(A.D. 325; REVISED AT CONSTANTINOPLE A.D. 381)
I believe in one God the Father Almighty; Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible
and invisible.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all
worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance
with the Father; by whom all things were made; who, for us men and for our salvation, came down
from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and was made man; and was
crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; he suffered and was buried; and the third day he rose again,
according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father;
and he shall come again, with glory, to judge both the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have
no end.
And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceedeth from the Father and the Son ; 4
who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified; who spake by the Prophets. And
one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins; and
I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.
THE C H ALC E DON IAN CREED (AD. 451)
We, then, following the holy Fathers, all with one consent, teach men to confess one and the
same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood; truly
God and truly man, of a reasonable soul and body; consubstantial with the Father according to the
Godhead, and consubstantial with us according to the Manhood; in all things like unto us, without
2 I have used the modern translation “Holy Spirit” instead of the
archaic name “Holy Ghost” throughout the ancient creeds. (But I
have not made such a change in the Westminster Confession, which
is still used today in its original wording and which sometimes uses
“Holy Ghost.”)
3 I have not included the phrase, “he descended into hell,”
because it is not attested in the earliest versions of the Apostles’
Creed, and because of the doctrinal difficulties associated with it
(see further discussion in chapter 27, pp. 586-94).
4 The phrase “and the Son” was added after the Council of
Constantinople in 381 but is commonly included in the text
of the Nicene Creed as used by Protestant and Roman Catho-
lic churches today. The phrase is not included in the text
used by Orthodox churches. (See discussion in chapter 14,
pp. 246-47.) The phrase “God of God” was not in the version
of 381 but was in the version of 325 and is commonly included
today.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1170
sin; begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhead, and in these latter days, for us
and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, according to the Manhood; one
and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly,
unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by
the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person
and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only
begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, as the prophets from the beginning have declared
concerning him, and the Lord Jesus Christ himself has taught us, and the Creed of the holy Fathers
has handed down to us.
THE AT HAN AS IAN CREED
(FOURTH-FIFTH CENTURIES A.D.)
1. Whosoever will be saved: before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic Faith:
2. Which Faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled: without doubt he shall perish
everlastingly.
3. And the Catholic Faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity;
4. Neither confounding the Persons: nor dividing the Substance.
5. For there is one Person of the Father: another of the Son: and another of the Holy Spirit.
6. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, is all one: the Glory
equal, the Majesty coeternal.
7. Such as the Father is: such is the Son: and such is the Holy Spirit.
8. The Father uncreated: the Son uncreated: and the Holy Spirit uncreated.
9. The Father incomprehensible: the Son incomprehensible: and the Holy Spirit
incomprehensible.
10. The Father eternal: the Son eternal: and the Holy Spirit eternal.
11. And yet they are not three eternals: but one eternal.
12. And also there are not three uncreated: nor three incomprehensibles, but one uncreated:
and one incomprehensible.
13. So likewise the Father is Almighty: the Son Almighty: and the Holy Spirit Almighty.
14. And yet they are not three Almighties: but one Almighty.
15. So the Father is God: the Son is God: and the Holy Spirit is God.
16. And yet they are not three Gods: but one God.
17. So likewise the Father is Lord: the Son Lord: and the Holy Spirit Lord.
18. And yet not three Lords: but one Lord.
19. For like as we are compelled by the Christian verity: to acknowledge every Person by
himself to be God and Lord:
20. So are we forbidden by the Catholic Religion: to say, There be three Gods, or three Lords.
21. The Father is made of none: neither created, nor begotten.
22. The Son is of the Father alone: not made, nor created: but begotten.
23. The Holy Spirit is of the Father and of the Son: neither made, nor created, nor begotten:
but proceeding.
24. So there is one Father, not three Fathers: one Son, not three Sons: one Holy Spirit, not
three Holy Spirits.
25. And in this Trinity none is afore, or after another: none is greater, or less than another.
26. But the whole three Persons are coeternal, and coequal.
APPENDIX 1 • HISTORIC CONFESSIONS OF FAITH
1171
27. So that in all things, as aforesaid: the Unity in Trinity, and the Trinity in Unity, is to be
worshipped.
28. He therefore that will be saved, must thus think of the Trinity.
29. Furthermore it is necessary to everlasting salvation: that he also believe rightly the
Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
30. For the right Faith is, that we believe and confess: that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of
God, is God and Man;
31. God, of the Substance of the Father; begotten before the worlds: and Man, of the
Substance of his Mother, born in the world.
32. Perfect God: and perfect Man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting.
33. Equal to the Father, as touching his Godhead: and inferior to the Father as touching his
Manhood.
34. Who although he be God and Man; yet he is not two, but one Christ.
35. One; not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh: but by taking of the Manhood into
God.
36. One altogether; not by confusion of Substance: but by unity of Person.
37. For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man; so God and Man is one Christ;
38. Who suffered for our salvation: descended into hell: rose again the third day from the
dead.
39. He ascended into heaven, he sitteth on the right hand of the Father God Almighty.
40. From whence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
41. At whose coming all men shall rise again with their bodies;
42. And shall give account for their own works.
43. And they that have done good shall go into life everlasting: and they that have done evil,
into everlasting fire.
44. This is the Catholic Faith: which except a man believe faithfully, he can not be saved.
ARTICLES OF RELIGION (THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES)
(1571: CHURCH OF ENGLAND)
I. Of Faith in the Holy Trinity.
There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts, or passions; of infinite
power, wisdom, and goodness; the Maker, and Preserver of all things both visible and invisible. And
in unity of this Godhead there be three Persons, of one substance, power, and eternity: the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
II. Of the Word or Son of God, Which Was Made Very Man.
The Son, which is the Word of the Father, begotten from everlasting of the Father, the very and
eternal God, and of one substance with the Father, took Man’s nature in the womb of the blessed
Virgin, of her substance: so that two whole and perfect Natures, that is to say, the Godhead and
Manhood, were joined together in one Person, never to be divided, whereof is one Christ, very God,
and very Man; who truly suffered, was crucified, dead and buried, to reconcile his Father to us, and
to be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for actual sins of men.
III. Of the Going Down of Christ Into Hell.
As Christ died for us, and was buried, so also is it to be believed, that he went down into Hell.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1172
IV. Of the Resurrection of Christ.
Christ did truly rise again from death, and took again his body, with flesh, bones, and all things
appertaining to the perfection of Man’s nature; wherewith he ascended into Heaven, and there
sitteth, until he return to judge all Men at the last day.
V. Of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit, proceeding from the Father and the Son, is of one substance, majesty, and glory,
with the Father and the Son, very and eternal God.
VI. Of the Sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for Salvation.
Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read
therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as
an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation. In the name of the Holy
Scripture we do understand those canonical Books of the Old and New Testament, of whose author-
ity was never any doubt in the Church.
Of the Names and Number of the Canonical Books.
Genesis,
Exodus,
Leviticus,
Numbers,
Deuteronomy,
Joshua,
Judges,
Ruth,
The First Book of Samuel,
The Second Book of Samuel,
The First Book of Kings,
The Second Book of Kings,
The First Book of Chronicles,
The Second Book of Chronicles,
The First Book of Esdras,
The Second Book of Esdras,
The Book of Esther,
The Book of Job,
The Psalms,
The Proverbs,
Ecclesiastes or Preacher,
Cantica, or Song of Solomon,
Four Prophets the greater,
Twelve Prophets the less.
And the other Books the Church doth read for example of life and instruction of manners; but
yet doth it not apply to them to establish any doctrine: such are these following:
The Third Book of Esdras,
The Fourth Book of Esdras,
The Book of Tobias,
The Book of Judith,
The rest of the Book of Esther,
The Book of Wisdom,
Jesus the Son of Sirach,
Baruch the Prophet,
The Song of the Three Children,
The Story of Susanna,
Of Bel and the Dragon,
The Prayer of Manasses,
The First Book of Maccabees,
The Second Book of Maccabees.
All the Books of the New Testament, as they are commonly received, we do receive, and account
them Canonical.
VII. Of the Old Testament.
The Old Testament is not contrary to the New: for both in the Old and New Testament everlast-
ing life is offered to mankind by Christ, who is the only Mediator between God and Man, being
both God and Man. Wherefore they are not to be heard, which feign that the old Fathers did look
only for transitory promises. Although the Law given from God by Moses, as touching Ceremo-
nies and Rites, do not bind Christian men, nor the Civil precepts thereof ought of necessity to be
received in any commonwealth; yet notwithstanding, no Christian man whatsoever is free from
the obedience of the Commandments which are called Moral.
APPENDIX 1 • HISTORIC CONFESSIONS OF FAITH
VIII. Of the Creeds.
The Nicene Creed, and that which is commonly called the Apostles’ Creed, ought thoroughly to
be received and believed: for they may be proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture.
IX. Of Original or Birth-Sin.
Original Sin standeth not in the following of Adam, (as the Pelagians do vainly talk;) but it is
the fault and corruption to the Nature of every man, that naturally is ingendered of the offspring of
Adam; whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined
to evil, so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the spirit; and therefore in every person born
into this world, it deserveth Gods wrath and damnation. And this infection of nature doth remain,
yea in them that are regenerated; whereby the lust of the flesh, called in the Greek phronema sarkos
(which some do expound the wisdom, some sensuality, some of the affection, some of the desire, of
the flesh), is not subject to the Law of God. And although there is no condemnation for them that
believe and are baptized; yet the Apostle doth confess, that concupiscence and lust hath of itself the
nature of sin.
X. Of Free-Will.
The condition of Man after the fall of Adam is such, that he cannot turn and prepare himself,
by his own natural strength and good works, to faith, and calling upon God. Wherefore we have no
power to do good works pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God by Christ prevent-
ing us, that we may have a good will, and working with us, when we have that good will.
XI. Of the Justification of Man.
We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ
by Faith, and not for our own works or deservings. Wherefore, that we are justified by Faith only,
is a most wholesome Doctrine, and very full of comfort, as more largely is expressed in the Homily
of Justification.
XII. Of Good Works.
Albeit that Good Works, which are the fruits of Faith, and follow after Justification, cannot put
away our sins, and endure the severity of God’s judgment; yet are they pleasing and acceptable to
God in Christ, and do spring out necessarily of a true and lively faith; insomuch that by them a lively
Faith may be as evidently known as a tree discerned by the fruit.
XIII. Of Works Before Justification.
Works done before the grace of Christ, and the Inspiration of his Spirit, are not pleasant to God,
forasmuch as they spring not of faith in Jesus Christ; neither do they make men meet to receive grace,
or (as the School-authors say) deserve grace of congruity: yea rather, for that they are not done as God
hath willed and commanded them to be done, we doubt not but they have the nature of sin.
XIV. Of Works of Supererogation.
Voluntary Works besides, over and above, God’s Commandments, which they call Works of
Supererogation, cannot be taught without arrogancy and impiety: for by them men do declare, that
they do not only render unto God as much as they are bound to do, but that they do more for his
sake, than of bounden duty is required: whereas Christ saith plainly, When ye have done all that
are commanded to you, say, We are unprofitable servants.
XV. Of Christ Alone Without Sin.
Christ in the truth of our nature was made like unto us in all things, sin only except, from which
he was clearly void, both in his flesh, and in his spirit. He came to be the Lamb without spot, who, by
sacrifice of himself once made, should take away the sins of the world; and sin, (as Saint John saith)
1173
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1174
was not in him. But all we the rest, although baptized, and born again in Christ, yet offend in many
things; and if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
XVI. Of Sin After Baptism.
Not every deadly sin willingly committed after Baptism is sin against the Holy Spirit, and unpar-
donable. Wherefore the grant of repentance is not to be denied to such as fall into sin after Baptism.
After we have received the Holy Spirit, we may depart from grace given, and fall into sin, and by the
grace of God we may arise again, and amend our lives. And therefore they are to be condemned,
which say, they can no more sin as long as they live here, or deny the place of forgiveness to such as
truly repent.
XVII. Of Predestination and Election.
Predestination to Life is the everlasting purpose of God, whereby (before the foundations of the
world were laid) he hath constantly decreed by his counsel secret to us, to deliver from curse and
damnation those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ to
everlasting salvation, as vessels made to honour. Wherefore, they which be endued with so excellent
a benefit of God, be called according to God’s purpose by his Spirit working in due season: they
through Grace obey the calling: they be justified freely: they be made sons of God by adoption: they
be made like the image of his only-begotten Son Jesus Christ: they walk religiously in good works,
and at length, by God’s mercy, they attain to everlasting felicity.
As the godly consideration of Predestination, and our Election in Christ, is full of sweet, pleas-
ant, and unspeakable comfort to godly persons, and such as feel in themselves the working of the
Spirit of Christ, mortifying the works of the flesh, and their earthly members, and drawing up
their mind to high and heavenly things, as well because it doth greatly establish and confirm their
faith of eternal Salvation to be enjoyed through Christ, as because it doth fervently kindle their love
towards God: So, for curious and carnal persons, lacking the Spirit of Christ, to have continually
before their eyes the sentence of God’s Predestination, is a most dangerous downfall, whereby the
Devil doth thrust them either into desperation, or into wretchlessness of most unclean living, no
less perilous than desperation.
Furthermore, we must receive God’s promises in such wise, as they be generally set forth to us
in Holy Scripture: and, in our doings, that Will of God is to be followed, which we have expressly
declared unto us in the Word of God.
XVIII. Of Obtaining Eternal Salvation Only by the Name of Christ.
They also are to be had accursed that presume to say, That every man shall be saved by the Law
or Sect which he professeth, so that he be diligent to frame his life according to that Law, and the
light of Nature. For Holy Scripture doth set out unto us only the Name of Jesus Christ, whereby
men must be saved.
XIX. Of the Church.
The visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men, in the which the pure Word of
God is preached, and the Sacraments be duly ministered according to Christ’s ordinance, in all
those things that of necessity are requisite to the same.
As the Church of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch, have erred; so also the Church of Rome
hath erred, not only their living and manner of Ceremonies, but also in matters of Faith.
XX. Of the Authority of the Church.
The Church hath power to decree Rites or Ceremonies, and authority in Controversies of Faith:
and yet it is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to God’s Word writ-
ten, neither may it so expound one place of Scripture, that it be repugnant to another. Wherefore,
APPENDIX 1 * HISTORIC CONFESSIONS OF FAITH
1175
although the Church be a witness and a keeper of Holy Writ, yet, as it ought not to decree any thing
against the same, so besides the same ought it not to enforce any thing to be believed for necessity
of Salvation.
XXI. Of the Authority of General Councils.
General Councils may not be gathered together without the commandment and will of Princes.
And when they be gathered together (foreasmuch as they be an assembly of men, whereof all be not
governed with the Spirit and Word of God) they may err, and sometimes have erred, even in things
pertaining unto God. Wherefore, things ordained by them as necessary to salvation have neither
strength nor authority, unless it may be declared that they be taken out of holy Scripture.
XXII. Of Purgatory.
The Romish Doctrine concerning Purgatory, Pardons, Worshipping and Adoration, as well of
Images as of Relics, and also Invocation of Saints, is a fond thing, vainly invented, and grounded
upon no warranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the Word of God.
XXIII. Of Ministering in the Congregation
It is not lawful for any man to take upon him the office of public preaching, or ministering the
Sacraments in the Congregation, before he be lawfully called, and sent to execute the same. And
those we ought to judge lawfully called and sent, which be chosen and called to this work by men
who have public authority given unto them in the Congregation, to call and send Ministers into
the Lord's vineyard.
XXIV. Of Speaking in the Congregation in Such a Tongue
As the People Understandeth.
It is a thing plainly repugnant to the Word of God, and the custom of the Primitive Church, to
have public Prayer in the Church, or to minister the Sacraments in a tongue not understanded of
the people.
XXV. Of the Sacraments.
Sacraments ordained of Christ be not only badges or tokens of Christian men's profession, but
rather they be certain sure witnesses, and effectual signs of grace, and God's good will toward us, by
the which he doth work invisibly in us, and doth not only quicken, but also strengthen and confirm
our Faith in him.
There are two Sacraments ordained of Christ our Lord in the Gospel, that is to say, Baptism,
and the Supper of the Lord.
Those five commonly called Sacraments, that is to say, Confirmation, Penance, Orders, Mat-
rimony, and Extreme Unction, are not to be counted for Sacraments of the Gospel, being such as
have grown partly of the corrupt following of the Apostles, partly are states of life allowed in the
Scriptures; but yet have not like nature of Sacraments with Baptism, and the Lord's Supper, for that
they have not any visible sign or ceremony ordained of God.
The Sacraments were not ordained of Christ to be gazed upon, or to be carried about, but that
we should duly use them. And in such only as worthily receive the same, they have a wholesome
effect or operation: but they that receive them unworthily, purchase to themselves damnation, as
Saint Paul saith.
XXVI. Of the Unworthiness of the Ministers,
Which Hinders Not the Effect of the Sacrament.
Although in the visible Church the evil be ever mingled with the good, and sometimes the evil
have chief authority in the Ministration of the Word and Sacraments, yet forasmuch as they do not
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1176
the same in their own name, but in Christ's, and do minister by his commission and authority, we
may use their Ministry, both in hearing the Word of God, and in receiving the Sacraments. Neither
is the effect of Christ's ordinance taken away by their wickedness, nor the grace of God's gifts dimin-
ished from such as by faith, and rightly, do receive the Sacraments ministered unto them; which be
effectual, because of Christ's institution and promise, although they be ministered by evil men.
Nevertheless, it appertaineth to the discipline of the Church, that inquiry be made of evil Min-
isters, and that they be accused by those that have knowledge of their offences; and finally, being
found guilty, by just judgment be deposed.
XXVII. Of Baptism.
Baptism is not only a sign of profession, and mark of difference, whereby Christian men are
discerned from others that be not christened, but it is also a sign of Regeneration or New-Birth,
whereby, as by an instrument, they that receive Baptism rightly are grafted into the Church; the
promises of forgiveness of sin, and of our adoption to be the sons of God by the Holy Spirit, are vis-
ibly signed and sealed; Faith is confirmed, and Grace increased by virtue of prayer unto God. The
Baptism of young Children is in any wise to be retained in the Church, as most agreeable with the
institution of Christ.
XXVIII. Of the Lord’s Supper.
The Supper of the Lord is not only a sign of the love that Christians ought to have among them-
selves one to another; but rather it is a Sacrament of our Redemption by Christ's death: insomuch that
to such as rightly, worthily, and with faith, receive the same, the Bread which we break is a partaking
of the Body of Christ; and likewise the Cup of Blessing is a partaking of the Blood of Christ.
Transubstantiation (or the change of the substance of Bread and Wine) in the Supper of the
Lord, cannot be proved by Holy Writ; but is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, overthroweth
the nature of a Sacrament, and hath given occasion to many superstitions.
The Body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten, in the Supper, only after an heavenly and spiritual
manner. And the mean whereby the Body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper, is Faith.
The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was not by Christ's ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted
up, or worshipped.
XXIX. Of the Wicked, Which Eat Not the Body of Christ
in the Use of the Lord’s Supper.
The Wicked, and such as be void of a lively faith, although they do carnally and visibly press
with their teeth (as Saint Augustine saith) the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ; yet in
no wise are they partakers of Christ: but rather, to their condemnation, do eat and drink the sign
or Sacrament of so great a thing.
XXX. Of Both Kinds.
The Cup of the Lord is not to be denied to the Lay-people: for both the parts of the Lord’s Sac-
rament, by Christ's ordinance and commandment, ought to be ministered to all Christian men
alike.
XXXI. Of the One Oblation of Christ Finished Upon the Cross.
The Offering of Christ once made is that perfect redemption, propitiation, and satisfaction, for
all the sins of the whole world, both original and actual; and there is none other satisfaction for sin,
but that alone. Wherefore the sacrifices of Masses, in the which it was commonly said that the Priest
did offer Christ for the quick and the dead, to have remission of pain or guilt, were blasphemous
fables, and dangerous deceits.
APPENDIX 1 • HISTORIC CONFESSIONS OF FAITH
1177
XXXII. Of the Marriage of Priests.
Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, are not commanded by God’s Law, either to vow the estate of
single life, or to abstain from marriage: therefore it is lawful for them, as for all other Christian men,
to marry at their own discretion, as they shall judge the same to serve better to godliness.
XXXIII. Of Excommunicate Persons, How They Are
to be Avoided.
That person which by open denunciation of the Church is rightly cut off from the unity of the
Church, and excommunicated, ought to be taken of the whole multitude of the faithful, as a Hea-
then and Publican, until he be openly reconciled by penance, and received into the Church by a
judge that hath authority thereunto.
XXXIV. Of the Traditions of the Church.
It is not necessary that Traditions and Ceremonies be in all places one, or utterly like; for at all
times they have been divers, and may be changed according to the diversities of countries, times,
and men’s manners, so that nothing be ordained against God’s Word. Whosoever through his pri-
vate judgment, willingly and purposely, doth openly break the Traditions and Ceremonies of the
Church, which be not repugnant to the Word of God, and be ordained and approved by common
authority, ought to be rebuked openly, (that others may fear to do the like) as he that offendeth
against the common order of the Church, and hurteth the authority of the Magistrate, and woun-
deth the consciences of the weak brethren.
Every particular or national Church hath authority to ordain, change, and abolish, Ceremonies
or Rites of the Church ordained only by man’s authority, so that all things be done to edifying.
XXXV. Of the Homilies.
The Second Book of Homilies, the several titles whereof we have joined under this Article, doth
contain a godly and wholesome Doctrine, and necessary for these times, as doth the former Book
of Homilies, which were set forth in the time of Edward the Sixth; and therefore we judge them to
be read in Churches by the Ministers, diligently and distinctly, that they may be understanded of
the people.
Of The Names of the Homilies
1. Of the right Use of the Church.
2 . Against Peril of Idolatry.
3. Of the repairing and keeping clean of Churches.
4. Of good Works : first of Fasting.
5. Against Gluttony and Drunkenness.
6. Against Excess of Apparel.
7. Of Prayer.
8. Of the Place and Time of Prayer.
9. That Common Prayers and Sacraments ought to be ministered in a known tongue.
10. Of the reverend Estimation of God’s Word.
11. Of Alms-doing.
12. Of the Nativity of Christ.
13. Of the Passion of Christ.
14. Of the Resurrection of Christ.
15. Of the worthy receiving of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ.
16. Of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit.
17. For the Rogation- days.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1178
18. Of the State of Matrimony.
19. Of Repentance.
20. Against Idleness.
21. Against Rebellion.
XXXVI. Of Consecration of Bishops and Ministers.
The Book of Consecration of Archbishops and Bishops, and Ordering of Priests and Deacons,
lately set forth in the time of Edward the Sixth, and confirmed at the same time by authority of
Parliament, doth contain all things necessary to such Consecration and Ordering: neither hath it
any thing that of itself is superstitious and ungodly. And therefore whosoever are consecrated or
ordered according to the Rites of that Book, since the second year of the forenamed King Edward
unto this time, or hereafter shall be consecrated or ordered according to the same Rites; we decree
all such to be rightly, orderly, and lawfully consecrated and ordered.
XXXVII. Of the Civil Magistrates.
The Queen’s Majesty hath the chief power in this Realm of England, and other her Dominions,
unto whom the chief Government of all Estates of this Realm, whether they be Ecclesiastical or
Civil, in all causes doth appertain, and is not, nor ought to be, subject to any foreign Jurisdiction.
Where we attribute to the Queen’s Majesty the chief government, by which Titles we understand
the minds of some slanderous folks to be offended; we give not to our Princes the ministering
either of God’s Word, or of the Sacraments, the which thing the Injunctions also lately set forth by
Elizabeth our Queen do most plainly testify; but that only prerogative, which we see to have been
given always to all godly Princes in holy Scriptures by God himself; that is, that they should rule all
estates and degrees committed to their charge by God, whether they be Ecclesiastical or Temporal,
and restrain with the civil sword the stubborn and evil-doers.
The Bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction in this Realm of England.
The Laws of the Realm may punish Christian men with death, for heinous and grievous
offences.
It is lawful for Christian men, at the commandment of the Magistrate, to wear weapons, and
serve in the wars.
XXXVIIL Of Christian Men’s Goods, Which Are Not Common.
The Riches and Goods of Christians are not common, as touching the right, title, and possession
of the same; as certain Anabaptists do falsely boast. Notwithstanding, every man ought, of such
things as he possesseth, liberally to give alms to the poor, according to his ability.
XXXIX. Of a Christian Man’s Oath.
As we confess that vain and rash Swearing is forbidden Christian men by our Lord Jesus Christ,
and James his Apostle, so we judge, that Christian Religion doth not prohibit, but that a man may
swear when the Magistrate requireth, in a cause of faith and charity, so it be done according to the
Prophet’s teaching, in justice, judgment, and truth.
APPENDIX 1 * HISTORIC CONFESSIONS OF FAITH
1179
WESTMINSTER CONFESSION OF FAITH (1643-46)
[TEXT OF AMERICAN VERSION]
Chapter 1: Of the Holy Scripture
1. Although the light of nature, and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the
goodness, wisdom, and power of God, as to leave men unexcusable; yet are they not sufficient to
give that knowledge of God, and of his will, which is necessary unto salvation. Therefore it pleased
the Lord, at sundry times, and in divers manners, to reveal himself, and to declare that his will unto
his church; and afterwards, for the better preserving and propagating of the truth, and for the more
sure establishment and comfort of the church against the corruption of the flesh, and the malice of
Satan and of the world, to commit the same wholly unto writing: which maketh the holy Scripture to
be most necessary; those former ways of God’s revealing his will unto his people being now ceased.
2. Under the name of holy Scripture, or the Word of God written, are now contained all the
books of the Old and New Testaments, which are these:
Old Testament
Genesis
2 Chronicles
Daniel
Exodus
Ezra
Hosea
Leviticus
Nehemiah
Joel
Numbers
Esther
Amos
Deuteronomy
Job
Obadiah
Joshua
Psalms
Jonah
Judges
Proverbs
Micah
Ruth
Ecclesiastes
Nahum
1 Samuel
Song of Songs
Habakkuk
2 Samuel
Isaiah
Zephaniah
1 Kings
Jeremiah
Haggai
2 Kings
Lamentations
Zechariah
1 Chronicles
Ezekiel
Malachi
New Testament
Matthew
1 Timothy
Mark
2 Timothy
Luke
Titus
John
Philemon
Acts
Hebrews
Romans
James
1 Corinthians
1 Peter
2 Corinthians
2 Peter
Galatians
1 John
Ephesians
2 John
Philippians
3 John
Colossians
Jude
1 Thessalonians
Revelation
2 Thessalonians
All which are given by inspiration of God to be the rule of faith and life.
3. The books commonly called Apocrypha, not being of divine inspiration, are no part of the
canon of the Scripture, and therefore are of no authority in the church of God, nor to be any other-
wise approved, or made use of, than other human writings.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1180
4. The authority of the holy Scripture, for which it ought to be believed, and obeyed, dependeth
not upon the testimony of any man, or church; but wholly upon God (who is truth itself) the author
thereof: and therefore it is to be received, because it is the Word of God.
5. We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the church to an high and reverent esteem
of the holy Scripture. And the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty
of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole (which is, to give all glory to God),
the full discovery it makes of the only way of man’s salvation, the many other incomparable excel-
lencies, and the entire perfection thereof, are arguments whereby it doth abundantly evidence itself
to be the Word of God: yet notwithstanding, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible
truth and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by
and with the Word in our hearts.
6. The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man’s salvation,
faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may
be deduced from Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revela-
tions of the Spirit, or traditions of men. Nevertheless, we acknowledge the inward illumination of
the Spirit of God to be necessary for the saving understanding of such things as are revealed in the
Word: and that there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God, and government
of the church, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of
nature, and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the Word, which are always to
be observed.
7. All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all: yet those things
which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation, are so clearly propounded,
and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a
due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them.
8. The Old Testament in Hebrew (which was the native language of the people of God of old), and
the New Testament in Greek (which, at the time of the writing of it, was most generally known to the
nations), being immediately inspired by God, and, by his singular care and providence, kept pure
in all ages, are therefore authentical; so as, in all controversies of religion, the church is finally to
appeal unto them. But, because these original tongues are not known to all the people of God, who
have right unto, and interest in the Scriptures, and are commanded, in the fear of God, to read and
search them, therefore they are to be translated into the vulgar language of every nation unto which
they come, that, the Word of God dwelling plentifully in all, they may worship him in an acceptable
manner; and, through patience and comfort of the Scriptures, may have hope.
9. The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself: and therefore, when
there is a question about the true and full sense of any Scripture (which is not manifold, but one),
it must be searched and known by other places that speak more clearly.
10. The supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees
of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and
in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture.
Chapter 2: Of God, and of the Holy Trinity
1. There is but one only, living, and true God, who is infinite in being and perfection, a most
pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions; immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehen-
sible, almighty, most wise, most holy, most free, most absolute; working all things according to the
counsel of his own immutable and most righteous will, for his own glory; most loving, gracious,
merciful, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin;
the rewarder of them that diligently seek him; and withal, most just, and terrible in his judgments,
hating all sin, and who will by no means clear the guilty.
2. God hath all life, glory, goodness, blessedness, in and of himself; and is alone in and unto
himself all-sufficient, not standing in need of any creatures which he hath made, nor deriving any
APPENDIX 1 ■ HISTORIC CONFESSIONS OF FAITH
1181
glory from them, but only manifesting his own glory in, by, unto, and upon them. He is the alone
fountain of all being, of whom, through whom, and to whom are all things; and hath most sovereign
dominion over them, to do by them, for them, or upon them whatsoever himself pleaseth. In his
sight all things are open and manifest, his knowledge is infinite, infallible, and independent upon
the creature, so as nothing is to him contingent, or uncertain. He is most holy in all his counsels, in
all his works, and in all his commands. To him is due from angels and men, and every other crea-
ture, whatsoever worship, service, or obedience he is pleased to require of them.
3. In the unity of the Godhead there be three persons, of one substance, power, and eternity:
God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost: the Father is of none, neither begotten, nor
proceeding; the Son is eternally begotten of the Father; the Holy Ghost eternally proceeding from
the Father and the Son.
Chapter 3: Of God’s Eternal Decree
1. God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely, and
unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin,
nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes
taken away, but rather established.
2. Although God knows whatsoever may or can come to pass upon all supposed conditions, yet
hath he not decreed anything because he foresaw it as future, or as that which would come to pass
upon such conditions.
3. By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predesti-
nated unto everlasting life; and others foreordained to everlasting death.
4. These angels and men, thus predestinated, and foreordained, are particularly and unchangeably
designed, and their number so certain and definite, that it cannot be either increased or diminished.
5. Those of mankind that are predestinated unto life, God, before the foundation of the world
was laid, according to his eternal and immutable purpose, and the secret counsel and good plea-
sure of his will, hath chosen, in Christ, unto everlasting glory, out of his mere free grace and love,
without any foresight of faith, or good works, or perseverance in either of them, or any other thing
in the creature, as conditions, or causes moving him thereunto; and all to the praise of his glorious
grace.
6. As God hath appointed the elect unto glory, so hath he, by the eternal and most free purpose
of his will, foreordained all the means thereunto. Wherefore, they who are elected, being fallen in
Adam, are redeemed by Christ, are effectually called unto faith in Christ by his Spirit working in
due season, are justified, adopted, sanctified, and kept by his power, through faith, unto salvation.
Neither are any other redeemed by Christ, effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and
saved, but the elect only.
7. The rest of mankind God was pleased, according to the unsearchable counsel of his own will,
whereby he extendeth or withholdeth mercy, as he pleaseth, for the glory of his sovereign power
over his creatures, to pass by; and to ordain them to dishonor and wrath for their sin, to the praise
of his glorious justice.
8. The doctrine of this high mystery of predestination is to be handled with special prudence and
care, that men, attending the will of God revealed in his Word, and yielding obedience thereunto,
may, from the certainty of their effectual vocation, be assured of their eternal election. So shall this
doctrine afford matter of praise, reverence, and admiration of God; and of humility, diligence, and
abundant consolation to all that sincerely obey the gospel.
Chapter 4: Of Creation
1. It pleased God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, for the manifestation of the glory of his eternal
power, wisdom, and goodness, in the beginning, to create, or make of nothing, the world, and all
things therein whether visible or invisible, in the space of six days; and all very good.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1182
2. After God had made all other creatures, he created man, male and female, with reasonable
and immortal souls, endued with knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness, after his own image;
having the law of God written in their hearts, and power to fulfil it: and yet under a possibility of
transgressing, being left to the liberty of their own will, which was subject unto change. Beside this
law written in their hearts, they received a command, not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil; which while they kept, they were happy in their communion with God, and had dominion
over the creatures.
Chapter 5: Of Providence
1. God the great Creator of all things doth uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures,
actions, and things, from the greatest even to the least, by his most wise and holy providence,
according to his infallible foreknowledge, and the free and immutable counsel of his own will, to
the praise of the glory of his wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy.
2. Although, in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first Cause, all things come
to pass immutably, and infallibly; yet, by the same providence, he ordereth them to fall out, accord-
ing to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently.
3. God, in his ordinary providence, maketh use of means, yet is free to work without, above, and
against them, at his pleasure.
4. The almighty power, unsearchable wisdom, and infinite goodness of God so far manifest
themselves in his providence, that it extendeth itself even to the first fall, and all other sins of angels
and men; and that not by a bare permission, but such as hath joined with it a most wise and powerful
bounding, and otherwise ordering, and governing of them, in a manifold dispensation, to his own
holy ends; yet so, as the sinfulness thereof proceedeth only from the creature, and not from God,
who, being most holy and righteous, neither is nor can be the author or approver of sin.
5. The most wise, righteous, and gracious God doth oftentimes leave, for a season, his own chil-
dren to manifold temptations, and the corruption of their own hearts, to chastise them for their
former sins, or to discover unto them the hidden strength of corruption and deceitfulness of their
hearts, that they may be humbled; and, to raise them to a more close and constant dependence for
their support upon himself, and to make them more watchful against all future occasions of sin,
and for sundry other just and holy ends.
6. As for those wicked and ungodly men whom God, as a righteous Judge, for former sins, doth
blind and harden, from them he not only withholdeth his grace whereby they might have been
enlightened in their understandings, and wrought upon in their hearts; but sometimes also with-
draweth the gifts which they had, and exposeth them to such objects as their corruption makes
occasions of sin; and, withal, gives them over to their own lusts, the temptations of the world, and
the power of Satan, whereby it comes to pass that they harden themselves, even under those means
which God useth for the softening of others.
7. As the providence of God doth, in general, reach to all creatures; so, after a most special man-
ner, it taketh care of his church, and disposeth all things to the good thereof.
Chapter 6: Of the Fall of Man, of Sin,
and of the Punishment Thereof
1. Our first parents, being seduced by the subtlety and temptation of Satan, sinned, in eating the
forbidden fruit. This their sin, God was pleased, according to his wise and holy counsel, to permit,
having purposed to order it to his own glory.
2. By this sin they fell from their original righteousness and communion with God, and so
became dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the parts and faculties of soul and body.
3. They being the root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed; and the same death
in sin, and corrupted nature, conveyed to all their posterity descending from them by ordinary
generation.
APPENDIX 1 ■ HISTORIC CONFESSIONS OF FAITH
1183
4. From this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite
to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil, do proceed all actual transgressions.
5. This corruption of nature, during this life, doth remain in those that are regenerated; and
although it be, through Christ, pardoned, and mortified; yet both itself, and all the motions thereof,
are truly and properly sin.
6. Every sin, both original and actual, being a transgression of the righteous law of God, and
contrary thereunto, doth, in its own nature, bring guilt upon the sinner, whereby he is bound over
to the wrath of God, and curse of the law, and so made subject to death, with all miseries spiritual,
temporal, and eternal.
Chapter 7: Of God’s Covenant With Man
1. The distance between God and the creature is so great, that although reasonable creatures
do owe obedience unto him as their Creator, yet they could never have any fruition of him as their
blessedness and reward, but by some voluntary condescension on God’s part, which he hath been
pleased to express by way of covenant.
2. The first covenant made with man was a covenant of works, wherein life was promised to
Adam; and in him to his posterity, upon condition of perfect and personal obedience.
3. Man, by his fall, having made himself incapable of life by that covenant, the Lord was pleased
to make a second, commonly called the covenant of grace; wherein he freely offereth unto sin-
ners life and salvation by Jesus Christ; requiring of them faith in him, that they may be saved, and
promising to give unto all those that are ordained unto eternal life his Holy Spirit, to make them
willing, and able to believe.
4. This covenant of grace is frequently set forth in Scripture by the name of a testament, in ref-
erence to the death of Jesus Christ the Testator, and to the everlasting inheritance, with all things
belonging to it, therein bequeathed.
5. This covenant was differently administered in the time of the law, and in the time of the gos-
pel: under the law, it was administered by promises, prophecies, sacrifices, circumcision, the paschal
lamb, and other types and ordinances delivered to the people of the Jews, all foresignifying Christ
to come; which were, for that time, sufficient and efficacious, through the operation of the Spirit,
to instruct and build up the elect in faith in the promised Messiah, by whom they had full remission
of sins, and eternal salvation; and is called the Old Testament.
6. Under the gospel, when Christ, the substance, was exhibited, the ordinances in which this cov-
enant is dispensed are the preaching of the Word, and the administration of the sacraments of Bap-
tism and the Lord’s Supper: which, though fewer in number, and administered with more simplicity,
and less outward glory, yet, in them, it is held forth in more fullness, evidence and spiritual efficacy,
to all nations, both Jews and Gentiles; and is called the New Testament. There are not therefore two
covenants of grace, differing in substance, but one and the same, under various dispensations.
Chapter 8: Of Christ the Mediator
1. It pleased God, in his eternal purpose, to choose and ordain the Lord Jesus, his only begotten
Son, to be the Mediator between God and man, the Prophet, Priest, and King, the Head and Savior of
his church, the Heir of all things, and Judge of the world: unto whom he did from all eternity give a
people, to be his seed, and to be by him in time redeemed, called, justified, sanctified, and glorified.
2. The Son of God, the second person in the Trinity, being very and eternal God, of one substance
and equal with the Father, did, when the fullness of time was come, take upon him man’s nature,
with all the essential properties, and common infirmities thereof, yet without sin; being conceived
by the power of the Holy Ghost, in the womb of the virgin Mary, of her substance. So that two whole,
perfect, and distinct natures, the Godhead and the manhood, were inseparably joined together in
one person, without conversion, composition, or confusion. Which person is very God, and very
man, yet one Christ, the only Mediator between God and man.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1184
3. The Lord Jesus, in his human nature thus united to the divine, was sanctified, and anointed
with the Holy Spirit, above measure, having in him all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge;
in whom it pleased the Father that all fullness should dwell; to the end that, being holy, harmless,
undefiled, and full of grace and truth, he might be thoroughly furnished to execute the office of a
mediator, and surety. Which office he took not unto himself, but was thereunto called by his Father,
who put all power and judgment into his hand, and gave him commandment to execute the same.
4. This office the Lord Jesus did most willingly undertake; which that he might discharge, he was
made under the law, and did perfectly fulfil it; endured most grievous torments immediately in his
soul, and most painful sufferings in his body; was crucified, and died, was buried, and remained
under the power of death, yet saw no corruption. On the third day he arose from the dead, with
the same body in which he suffered, with which also he ascended into heaven, and there sitteth at
the right hand of his Father, making intercession, and shall return, to judge men and angels, at the
end of the world.
5. The Lord Jesus, by his perfect obedience, and sacrifice of himself, which he, through the eter-
nal Spirit, once offered up unto God, hath fully satisfied the justice of his Father; and purchased,
not only reconciliation, but an everlasting inheritance in the kingdom of heaven, for all those whom
the Father hath given unto him.
6. Although the work of redemption was not actually wrought by Christ till after his incarnation,
yet the virtue, efficacy, and benefits thereof were communicated unto the elect, in all ages succes-
sively from the beginning of the world, in and by those promises, types, and sacrifices, wherein he
was revealed, and signified to be the seed of the woman which should bruise the serpent’s head; and
the Lamb slain from the beginning of the world; being yesterday and today the same, and forever.
7. Christ, in the work of mediation, acts according to both natures, by each nature doing that
which is proper to itself; yet, by reason of the unity of the person, that which is proper to one nature
is sometimes in Scripture attributed to the person denominated by the other nature.
8. To all those for whom Christ hath purchased redemption, he doth certainly and effectu-
ally apply and communicate the same; making intercession for them, and revealing unto them, in
and by the Word, the mysteries of salvation; effectually persuading them by his Spirit to believe
and obey, and governing their hearts by his Word and Spirit; overcoming all their enemies by his
almighty power and wisdom, in such manner, and ways, as are most consonant to his wonderful
and unsearchable dispensation.
Chapter 9: Of Free Will
1. God hath endued the will of man with that natural liberty, that it is neither forced, nor, by any
absolute necessity of nature, determined to good, or evil.
2. Man, in his state of innocency, had freedom, and power to will and to do that which was good
and well pleasing to God; but yet, mutably, so that he might fall from it.
3. Man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good
accompanying salvation: so as, a natural man, being altogether averse from that good, and dead in
sin, is not able, by his own strength, to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto.
4. When God converts a sinner, and translates him into the state of grace, he freeth him from his
natural bondage under sin; and, by his grace alone, enables him freely to will and to do that which
is spiritually good; yet so, as that by reason of his remaining corruption, he doth not perfectly, nor
only, will that which is good, but doth also will that which is evil.
5. The will of man is made perfectly and immutably free to good alone, in the state of glory only.
Chapter 10: Of Effectual Calling
1. All those whom God hath predestinated unto life, and those only, he is pleased, in his appointed
and accepted time, effectually to call, by his Word and Spirit, out of that state of sin and death, in
APPENDIX 1 • HISTORIC CONFESSIONS OF FAITH
1185
which they are by nature, to grace and salvation, by Jesus Christ; enlightening their minds spiritu-
ally and savingly to understand the things of God, taking away their heart of stone, and giving unto
them a heart of flesh; renewing their wills, and, by his almighty power, determining them to that
which is good, and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ: yet so, as they come most freely, being
made willing by his grace.
2. This effectual call is of God’s free and special grace alone, not from anything at all foreseen in
man, who is altogether passive therein, until, being quickened and renewed by the Holy Spirit, he is
thereby enabled to answer this call, and to embrace the grace offered and conveyed in it.
3. Elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated, and saved by Christ, through the Spirit, who
worketh when, and where, and how he pleaseth: so also are all other elect persons who are incapable
of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word.
4. Others, not elected, although they may be called by the ministry of the Word, and may have
some common operations of the Spirit, yet they never truly come unto Christ, and therefore can-
not be saved: much less can men, not professing the Christian religion, be saved in any other way
whatsoever, be they never so diligent to frame their lives according to the light of nature, and the
laws of that religion they do profess. And, to assert and maintain that they may, is very pernicious,
and to be detested.
Chapter 1 1 : Of Justification
1. Those whom God effectually calleth, he also freely justifieth: not by infusing righteousness
into them, but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous;
not for anything wrought in them, or done by them, but for Christ’s sake alone; nor by imputing
faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience to them, as their righteousness;
but by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of Christ unto them, they receiving and resting on
him and his righteousness, by faith; which faith they have not of themselves, it is the gift of God.
2. Faith, thus receiving and resting on Christ and his righteousness, is the alone instrument of
justification: yet is it not alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied with all other saving
graces, and is no dead faith, but worketh by love.
3. Christ, by his obedience and death, did fully discharge the debt of all those that are thus jus-
tified, and did make a proper, real, and full satisfaction to his Father’s justice in their behalf. Yet,
inasmuch as he was given by the Father for them; and his obedience and satisfaction accepted in
their stead; and both, freely, not for anything in them; their justification is only of free grace; that
both the exact justice and rich grace of God might be glorified in the justification of sinners.
4. God did, from all eternity, decree to justify all the elect, and Christ did, in the fullness of time,
die for their sins, and rise again for their justification: nevertheless, they are not justified, until the
Holy Spirit doth, in due time, actually apply Christ unto them.
5. God doth continue to forgive the sins of those that are justified; and, although they can never
fall from the state of justification, yet they may, by their sins, fall under God’s fatherly displeasure,
and not have the light of his countenance restored unto them, until they humble themselves, confess
their sins, beg pardon, and renew their faith and repentance.
6. The justification of believers under the Old Testament was, in all these respects, one and the
same with the justification of believers under the New Testament.
Chapter 12: Of Adoption
1. All those that are justified, God vouchsafeth, in and for his only Son Jesus Christ, to make
partakers of the grace of adoption, by which they are taken into the number, and enjoy the liberties
and privileges of the children of God, have his name put upon them, receive the spirit of adoption,
have access to the throne of grace with boldness, are enabled to cry, Abba, Father, are pitied, pro-
tected, provided for, and chastened by him, as by a Father: yet never cast off, but sealed to the day
of redemption; and inherit the promises, as heirs of everlasting salvation.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1186
Chapter 13: Of Sanctification
1. They, who are once effectually called, and regenerated, having a new heart, and a new spirit
created in them, are further sanctified, really and personally, through the virtue of Christ’s death
and resurrection, by his Word and Spirit dwelling in them: the dominion of the whole body of sin is
destroyed, and the several lusts thereof are more and more weakened and mortified; and they more
and more quickened and strengthened in all saving graces, to the practice of true holiness, without
which no man shall see the Lord.
2. This sanctification is throughout, in the whole man; yet imperfect in this life, there abiding
still some remnants of corruption in every part; whence ariseth a continual and irreconcilable war,
the flesh lusting against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh.
3. In which war, although the remaining corruption, for a time, may much prevail; yet, through
the continual supply of strength from the sanctifying Spirit of Christ, the regenerate part doth
overcome; and so, the saints grow in grace, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.
Chapter 14: Of Saving Faith
1. The grace of faith, whereby the elect are enabled to believe to the saving of their souls, is
the work of the Spirit of Christ in their hearts, and is ordinarily wrought by the ministry of the
Word, by which also, and by the administration of the sacraments, and prayer, it is increased and
strengthened.
2. By this faith, a Christian believeth to be true whatsoever is revealed in the Word, for the
authority of God himself speaking therein; and acteth differently upon that which each particular
passage thereof containeth; yielding obedience to the commands, trembling at the threatenings,
and embracing the promises of God for this life, and that which is to come. But the principal acts of
saving faith are accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ alone for justification, sanctification,
and eternal life, by virtue of the covenant of grace.
3. This faith is different in degrees, weak or strong; may be often and many ways assailed, and
weakened, but gets the victory: growing up in many to the attainment of a full assurance, through
Christ, who is both the author and finisher of our faith.
Chapter 15: Of Repentance Unto Life
1. Repentance unto life is an evangelical grace, the doctrine whereof is to be preached by every
minister of the gospel, as well as that of faith in Christ.
2. By it, a sinner, out of the sight and sense not only of the danger, but also of the filthiness
and odiousness of his sins, as contrary to the holy nature, and righteous law of God; and upon the
apprehension of his mercy in Christ to such as are penitent, so grieves for, and hates his sins, as to
turn from them all unto God, purposing and endeavoring to walk with him in all the ways of his
commandments.
3. Although repentance be not to be rested in, as any satisfaction for sin, or any cause of the
pardon thereof, which is the act of God’s free grace in Christ; yet it is of such necessity to all sinners,
that none may expect pardon without it.
4. As there is no sin so small, but it deserves damnation; so there is no sin so great, that it can
bring damnation upon those who truly repent.
5. Men ought not to content themselves with a general repentance, but it is every man’s duty to
endeavor to repent of his particular sins, particularly.
6. As every man is bound to make private confession of his sins to God, praying for the pardon
thereof; upon which, and the forsaking of them, he shall find mercy; so, he that scandalizeth his
brother, or the church of Christ, ought to be willing, by a private or public confession, and sorrow
for his sin, to declare his repentance to those that are offended, who are thereupon to be reconciled
to him, and in love to receive him.
APPENDIX 1 * HISTORIC CONFESSIONS OF FAITH
1187
Chapter 16: Of Good Works
1. Good works are only such as God hath commanded in his holy Word, and not such as, without
the warrant thereof, are devised by men, out of blind zeal, or upon any pretense of good intention.
2. These good works, done in obedience to God’s commandments, are the fruits and evidences
of a true and lively faith: and by them believers manifest their thankfulness, strengthen their assur-
ance, edify their brethren, adorn the profession of the gospel, stop the mouths of the adversaries,
and glorify God, whose workmanship they are, created in Christ Jesus thereunto, that, having their
fruit unto holiness, they may have the end, eternal life.
3. Their ability to do good works is not at all of themselves, but wholly from the Spirit of Christ.
And that they may be enabled thereunto, beside the graces they have already received, there is
required an actual influence of the same Holy Spirit, to work in them to will, and to do, of his good
pleasure: yet are they not hereupon to grow negligent, as if they were not bound to perform any duty
unless upon a special motion of the Spirit; but they ought to be diligent in stirring up the grace of
God that is in them.
4. They who, in their obedience, attain to the greatest height which is possible in this life, are
so far from being able to supererogate, and to do more than God requires, as that they fall short of
much which in duty they are bound to do.
5. We cannot by our best works merit pardon of sin, or eternal life at the hand of God, by reason
of the great disproportion that is between them and the glory to come; and the infinite distance
that is between us and God, whom, by them, we can neither profit, nor satisfy for the debt of our
former sins, but when we have done all we can, we have done but our duty, and are unprofitable
servants: and because, as they are good, they proceed from his Spirit; and as they are wrought by
us, they are defiled, and mixed with so much weakness and imperfection, that they cannot endure
the severity of God’s judgment.
6. Notwithstanding, the persons of believers being accepted through Christ, their good works
also are accepted in him; not as though they were in this life wholly unblamable and unreprovable
in God’s sight; but that he, looking upon them in his Son, is pleased to accept and reward that which
is sincere, although accompanied with many weaknesses and imperfections.
7. Works done by unregenerate men, although for the matter of them they may be things which
God commands; and of good use both to themselves and others: yet, because they proceed not from
an heart purified by faith; nor are done in a right manner, according to the Word; nor to a right end,
the glory of God, they are therefore sinful, and cannot please God, or make a man meet to receive
grace from God: and yet, their neglect of them is more sinful and displeasing unto God.
Chapter 17: Of The Perseverance of the Saints
1. They, whom God hath accepted in his Beloved, effectually called, and sanctified by his Spirit,
can neither totally nor finally fall away from the state of grace, but shall certainly persevere therein
to the end, and be eternally saved.
2. This perseverance of the saints depends not upon their own free will, but upon the immutabil-
ity of the decree of election, flowing from the free and unchangeable love of God the Father; upon
the efficacy of the merit and intercession of Jesus Christ, the abiding of the Spirit, and of the seed of
God within them, and the nature of the covenant of grace: from all which ariseth also the certainty
and infallibility thereof.
3. Nevertheless, they may, through the temptations of Satan and of the world, the prevalency of
corruption remaining in them, and the neglect of the means of their preservation, fall into grievous
sins; and, for a time, continue therein: whereby they incur God’s displeasure, and grieve his Holy
Spirit, come to be deprived of some measure of their graces and comforts, have their hearts hard-
ened, and their consciences wounded; hurt and scandalize others, and bring temporal judgments
upon themselves.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1188
Chapter 18: Of Assurance of Grace and Salvation
1. Although hypocrites and other unregenerate men may vainly deceive themselves with false
hopes and carnal presumptions of being in the favor of God, and estate of salvation (which hope of
theirs shall perish): yet such as truly believe in the Lord Jesus, and love him in sincerity, endeavor-
ing to walk in all good conscience before him, may, in this life, be certainly assured that they are
in the state of grace, and may rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, which hope shall never make
them ashamed.
2. This certainty is not a bare conjectural and probable persuasion grounded upon a fallible
hope; but an infallible assurance of faith founded upon the divine truth of the promises of salvation,
the inward evidence of those graces unto which these promises are made, the testimony of the Spirit
of adoption witnessing with our spirits that we are the children of God, which Spirit is the earnest
of our inheritance, whereby we are sealed to the day of redemption.
3. This infallible assurance doth not so belong to the essence of faith, but that a true believer may
wait long, and conflict with many difficulties before he be partaker of it: yet, being enabled by the
Spirit to know the things which are freely given him of God, he may, without extraordinary revela-
tion, in the right use of ordinary means, attain thereunto. And therefore it is the duty of everyone
to give all diligence to make his calling and election sure, that thereby his heart may be enlarged in
peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, in love and thankfulness to God, and in strength and cheerful-
ness in the duties of obedience, the proper fruits of this assurance; so far is it from inclining men
to looseness.
4. True believers may have the assurance of their salvation divers ways shaken, diminished, and
intermitted; as, by negligence in preserving of it, by falling into some special sin which woundeth
the conscience and grieveth the Spirit; by some sudden or vehement temptation, by God’s withdraw-
ing the light of his countenance, and suffering even such as fear him to walk in darkness and to have
no light: yet are they never utterly destitute of that seed of God, and life of faith, that love of Christ
and the brethren, that sincerity of heart, and conscience of duty, out of which, by the operation of
the Spirit, this assurance may, in due time, be revived; and by the which, in the meantime, they are
supported from utter despair.
Chapter 19: Of the Law of God
1. God gave to Adam a law, as a covenant of works, by which he bound him and all his posterity to
personal, entire, exact, and perpetual obedience, promised life upon the fulfilling, and threatened
death upon the breach of it, and endued him with power and ability to keep it.
2. This law, after his fall, continued to be a perfect rule of righteousness; and, as such, was deliv-
ered by God upon Mount Sinai, in ten commandments, and written in two tables: the four first
commandments containing our duty towards God; and the other six, our duty to man.
3. Beside this law, commonly called moral, God was pleased to give to the people of Israel, as a
church under age, ceremonial laws, containing several typical ordinances, partly of worship, prefig-
uring Christ, his graces, actions, sufferings, and benefits; and partly, holding forth divers instruc-
tions of moral duties. All which ceremonial laws are now abrogated, under the New Testament.
4. To them also, as a body politic, he gave sundry judicial laws, which expired together with
the state of that people; not obliging any other now, further than the general equity thereof may
require.
5. The moral law doth forever bind all, as well justified persons as others, to the obedience
thereof; and that, not only in regard of the matter contained in it, but also in respect of the author-
ity of God the Creator, who gave it. Neither doth Christ, in the gospel, any way dissolve, but much
strengthen this obligation.
6. Although true believers be not under the law, as a covenant of works, to be thereby justified,
or condemned; yet is it of great use to them, as well as to others; in that, as a rule of life informing
them of the will of God, and their duty, it directs and binds them to walk accordingly; discovering
APPENDIX 1 • HISTORIC CONFESSIONS OF FAITH
1189
also the sinful pollutions of their nature, hearts, and lives; so as, examining themselves thereby,
they may come to further conviction of, humiliation for, and hatred against sin, together with a
clearer sight of the need they have of Christ, and the perfection of his obedience. It is likewise of use
to the regenerate, to restrain their corruptions, in that it forbids sin: and the threatenings of it serve
to show what even their sins deserve; and what afflictions, in this life, they may expect for them,
although freed from the curse thereof threatened in the law. The promises of it, in like manner, show
them God’s approbation of obedience, and what blessings they may expect upon the performance
thereof: although not as due to them by the law as a covenant of works. So as, a man’s doing good,
and refraining from evil, because the law encourageth to the one, and deterreth from the other, is
no evidence of his being under the law; and, not under grace.
7. Neither are the forementioned uses of the law contrary to the grace of the gospel, but do
sweetly comply with it; the Spirit of Christ subduing and enabling the will of man to do that freely,
and cheerfully, which the will of God, revealed in the law, requireth to be done.
Chapter 20: Of Christian Liberty, and Liberty of Conscience
1. The liberty which Christ hath purchased for believers under the gospel consists in their
freedom from the guilt of sin, the condemning wrath of God, the curse of the moral law; and, in
their being delivered from this present evil world, bondage to Satan, and dominion of sin; from
the evil of afflictions, the sting of death, the victory of the grave, and everlasting damnation; as
also, in their free access to God, and their yielding obedience unto him, not out of slavish fear, but
a childlike love and willing mind. All which were common also to believers under the law. But,
under the New Testament, the liberty of Christians is further enlarged, in their freedom from the
yoke of the ceremonial law, to which the Jewish church was subjected; and in greater boldness of
access to the throne of grace, and in fuller communications of the free Spirit of God, than believers
under the law did ordinarily partake of.
2. God alone is Lord of the conscience, and hath left it free from the doctrines and command-
ments of men, which are, in anything, contrary to his Word; or beside it, if matters of faith, or
worship. So that, to believe such doctrines, or to obey such commands, out of conscience, is to
betray true liberty of conscience: and the requiring of an implicit faith, and an absolute and blind
obedience, is to destroy liberty of conscience, and reason also.
3. They who, upon pretense of Christian liberty, do practice any sin, or cherish any lust, do
thereby destroy the end of Christian liberty, which is, that being delivered out of the hands of our
enemies, we might serve the Lord without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him, all the
days of our life.
4. And because the powers which God hath ordained, and the liberty which Christ hath pur-
chased, are not intended by God to destroy, but mutually to uphold and preserve one another, they
who, upon pretense of Christian liberty, shall oppose any lawful power, or the lawful exercise of it,
whether it be civil or ecclesiastical, resist the ordinance of God. And, for their publishing of such
opinions, or maintaining of such practices, as are contrary to the light of nature, or to the known
principles of Christianity (whether concerning faith, worship, or conversation), or to the power of
godliness; or, such erroneous opinions or practices, as either in their own nature, or in the manner
of publishing or maintaining them, are destructive to the external peace and order which Christ
hath established in the church, they may lawfully be called to account, and proceeded against, by
the censures of the church.
Chapter 21: Of Religious Worship, and the Sabbath-Day
1. The light of nature showeth that there is a God, who hath lordship and sovereignty over all, is
good, and doth good unto all, and is therefore to be feared, loved, praised, called upon, trusted in,
and served, with all the heart, and with all the soul, and with all the might. But the acceptable way
of worshiping the true God is instituted by himself, and so limited by his own revealed will, that
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1190
he may not be worshiped according to the imaginations and devices of men, or the suggestions of
Satan, under any visible representation, or any other way not prescribed in the holy Scripture.
2. Religious worship is to be given to God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; and to him alone;
not to angels, saints, or any other creature: and, since the fall, not without a Mediator; nor in the
mediation of any other but of Christ alone.
3. Prayer, with thanksgiving, being one special part of religious worship, is by God required of all
men: and, that it may be accepted, it is to be made in the name of the Son, by the help of his Spirit,
according to his will, with understanding, reverence, humility, fervency, faith, love, and persever-
ance; and, if vocal, in a known tongue.
4. Prayer is to be made for things lawful; and for all sorts of men living, or that shall live here-
after: but not for the dead, nor for those of whom it may be known that they have sinned the sin
unto death.
5. The reading of the Scriptures with godly fear, the sound preaching and conscionable hearing
of the Word, in obedience unto God, with understanding, faith, and reverence, singing of psalms
with grace in the heart; as also, the due administration and worthy receiving of the sacraments
instituted by Christ, are all parts of the ordinary religious worship of God: beside religious oaths,
vows, solemn fastings, and thanksgivings upon special occasions, which are, in their several times
and seasons, to be used in an holy and religious manner.
6. Neither prayer, nor any other part of religious worship, is now, under the gospel, either tied
unto, or made more acceptable by any place in which it is performed, or towards which it is directed:
but God is to be worshiped everywhere, in spirit and truth; as, in private families daily, and in secret,
each one by himself; so, more solemnly in the public assemblies, which ^e not carelessly or wilfully
to be neglected, or forsaken, when God, by his Word or providence, calleth thereunto.
7. As it is the law of nature, that, in general, a due proportion of time be set apart for the worship
of God; so, in his Word, by a positive, moral, and perpetual commandment binding all men in all
ages, he hath particularly appointed one day in seven, for a sabbath, to be kept holy unto him: which,
from the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ, was the last day of the week; and, from
the resurrection of Christ, was changed into the first day of the week, which, in Scripture, is called
the Lord’s day, and is to be continued to the end of the world, as the Christian sabbath.
8. This sabbath is then kept holy unto the Lord, when men, after a due preparing of their hearts,
and ordering of their common affairs beforehand, do not only observe an holy rest, all the day, from
their own works, words, and thoughts about their worldly employments and recreations, but also
are taken up, the whole time, in the public and private exercises of his worship, and in the duties of
necessity and mercy.
Chapter 22: Of Lawful Oaths and Vows
1. A lawful oath is a part of religious worship, wherein, upon just occasion, the person swearing
solemnly calleth God to witness what he asserteth, or promiseth, and to judge him according to the
truth or falsehood of what he sweareth.
2. The name of God only is that by which men ought to swear, and therein it is to be used with all
holy fear and reverence. Therefore, to swear vainly, or rashly, by that glorious and dreadful Name;
or, to swear at all by any other thing, is sinful, and to be abhorred. Yet, as in matters of weight and
moment, an oath is warranted by the Word of God, under the New Testament as well as under the
Old; so a lawful oath, being imposed by lawful authority, in such matters, ought to be taken.
3. Whosoever taketh an oath ought duly to consider the weightiness of so solemn an act, and
therein to avouch nothing but what he is fully persuaded is the truth: neither may any man bind
himself by oath to anything but what is good and just, and what he believeth so to be, and what he
is able and resolved to perform.
4. An oath is to be taken in the plain and common sense of the words, without equivocation,
or mental reservation. It cannot oblige to sin; but in anything not sinful, being taken, it binds to
APPENDIX 1 • HISTORIC CONFESSIONS OF FAITH
1191
performance, although to a man’s own hurt. Nor is it to be violated, although made to heretics, or
infidels.
5. A vow is of the like nature with a promissory oath, and ought to be made with the like religious
care, and to be performed with the like faithfulness.
6. It is not to be made to any creature, but to God alone: and, that it may be accepted, it is to be
made voluntarily, out of faith, and conscience of duty, in way of thankfulness for mercy received, or
for the obtaining of what we want, whereby we more strictly bind ourselves to necessary duties; or,
to other things, so far and so long as they may fitly conduce thereunto.
7. No man may vow to do anything forbidden in the Word of God, or what would hinder any
duty therein commanded, or which is not in his own power, and for the performance whereof he
hath no promise of ability from God. In which respects, popish monastical vows of perpetual single
life, professed poverty, and regular obedience, are so far from being degrees of higher perfection,
that they are superstitious and sinful snares, in which no Christian may entangle himself.
Chapter 23: Of the Civil Magistrate
1. God, the supreme Lord and King of all the world, hath ordained civil magistrates, to be, under
him, over the people, for his own glory, and the public good: and, to this end, hath armed them
with the power of the sword, for the defense and encouragement of them that are good, and for the
punishment of evil doers.
2. It is lawful for Christians to accept and execute the office of a magistrate, when called there-
unto: in the managing whereof, as they ought especially to maintain piety, justice, and peace,
according to the wholesome laws of each commonwealth; so, for that end, they may lawfully, now
under the New Testament, wage war, upon just and necessary occasion.
3. Civil magistrates may not assume to themselves the administration of the Word and sacra-
ments; or the power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven; or, in the least, interfere in matters of
faith. Yet, as nursing fathers, it is the duty of civil magistrates to protect the church of our common
Lord, without giving the preference to any denomination of Christians above the rest, in such a
manner that all ecclesiastical persons whatever shall enjoy the full, free, and unquestioned liberty
of discharging every part of their sacred functions, without violence or danger. And, as Jesus Christ
hath appointed a regular government and discipline in his church, no law of any commonwealth
should interfere with, let, or hinder, the due exercise thereof, among the voluntary members of any
denomination of Christians, according to their own profession and belief. It is the duty of civil
magistrates to protect the person and good name of all their people, in such an effectual manner as
that no person be suffered, either upon pretense of religion or of infidelity, to offer any indignity,
violence, abuse, or injury to any other person whatsoever: and to take order, that all religious and
ecclesiastical assemblies be held without molestation or disturbance.
4. It is the duty of people to pray for magistrates, to honor their persons, to pay them tribute
or other dues, to obey their lawful commands, and to be subject to their authority, for conscience’
sake. Infidelity, or difference in religion, doth not make void the magistrates’ just and legal author-
ity, nor free the people from their due obedience to them: from which ecclesiastical persons are not
exempted, much less hath the pope any power and jurisdiction over them in their dominions, or
over any of their people; and, least of all, to deprive them of their dominions, or lives, if he shall
judge them to be heretics, or upon any other pretense whatsoever.
Chapter 24: Of Marriage and Divorce
1. Marriage is to be between one man and one woman: neither is it lawful for any man to have
more than one wife, nor for any woman to have more than one husband, at the same time.
2. Marriage was ordained for the mutual help of husband and wife, for the increase of mankind
with legitimate issue, and of the church with an holy seed; and for preventing of uncleanness.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1192
3. It is lawful for all sorts of people to marry, who are able with judgment to give their consent.
Yet it is the duty of Christians to marry only in the Lord. And therefore such as profess the true
reformed religion should not marry with infidels, papists, or other idolaters: neither should such
as are godly be unequally yoked, by marrying with such as are notoriously wicked in their life, or
maintain damnable heresies.
4. Marriage ought not to be within the degrees of consanguinity or affinity forbidden by the
Word. Nor can such incestuous marriages ever be made lawful by any law of man or consent of
parties, so as those persons may live together as man and wife.
5. Adultery or fornication committed after a contract, being detected before marriage, giveth
just occasion to the innocent party to dissolve that contract. In the case of adultery after marriage,
it is lawful for the innocent party to sue out a divorce: and, after the divorce, to marry another, as
if the offending party were dead.
6. Although the corruption of man be such as is apt to study arguments unduly to put asunder
those whom God hath joined together in marriage: yet, nothing but adultery, or such wilful deser-
tion as can no way be remedied by the church, or civil magistrate, is cause sufficient of dissolving
the bond of marriage: wherein, a public and orderly course of proceeding is to be observed; and the
persons concerned in it not left to their own wills, and discretion, in their own case.
Chapter 25: Of the Church
1. The catholic or universal church, which is invisible, consists of the whole number of the elect,
that have been, are, or shall be gathered into one, under Christ the head thereof; and is the spouse,
the body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all.
2. The visible church, which is also catholic or universal under the gospel (not confined to one
nation, as before under the law), consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true
religion; and of their children: and is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of
God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation.
3. Unto this catholic visible church Christ hath given the ministry, oracles, and ordinances of
God, for the gathering and perfecting of the saints, in this life, to the end of the world: and doth, by
his own presence and Spirit, according to his promise, make them effectual thereunto.
4. This catholic church hath been sometimes more, sometimes less visible. And particular
churches, which are members thereof, are more or less pure, according as the doctrine of the gos-
pel is taught and embraced, ordinances administered, and public worship performed more or less
purely in them.
5. The purest churches under heaven are subject both to mixture and error; and some have so
degenerated, as to become no churches of Christ, but synagogues of Satan. Nevertheless, there shall
be always a church on earth, to worship God according to his will.
6. There is no other head of the church but the Lord Jesus Christ. Nor can the pope of Rome, in
any sense, be head thereof.
Chapter 26: Of Communion of Saints
1. All saints, that are united to Jesus Christ their head, by his Spirit, and by faith, have fellowship
with him in his graces, sufferings, death, resurrection, and glory: and, being united to one another
in love, they have communion in each other’s gifts and graces, and are obliged to the performance
of such duties, public and private, as do conduce to their mutual good, both in the inward and
outward man.
2. Saints by profession are bound to maintain an holy fellowship and communion in the worship
of God, and in performing such other spiritual services as tend to their mutual edification; as also
in relieving each other in outward things, according to their several abilities and necessities. Which
communion, as God offereth opportunity, is to be extended unto all those who, in every place, call
upon the name of the Lord Jesus.
APPENDIX 1 • HISTORIC CONFESSIONS OF FAITH
1193
3. This communion which the saints have with Christ, doth not make them in any wise partakers
of the substance of his Godhead; or to be equal with Christ in any respect: either of which to affirm
is impious and blasphemous. Nor doth their communion one with another, as saints, take away, or
infringe the title or propriety which each man hath in his goods and possessions.
Chapter 27: Of the Sacraments
1. Sacraments are holy signs and seals of the covenant of grace, immediately instituted by God,
to represent Christ, and his benefits; and to confirm our interest in him: as also, to put a visible
difference between those that belong unto the church, and the rest of the world; and solemnly to
engage them to the service of God in Christ, according to his Word.
2. There is, in every sacrament, a spiritual relation, or sacramental union, between the sign and
the thing signified: whence it comes to pass, that the names and effects of the one are attributed to
the other.
3. The grace which is exhibited in or by the sacraments rightly used, is not conferred by any
power in them; neither doth the efficacy of a sacrament depend upon the piety or intention of him
that doth administer it: but upon the work of the Spirit, and the word of institution, which contains,
together with a precept authorizing the use thereof, a promise of benefit to worthy receivers.
4. There be only two sacraments ordained by Christ our Lord in the gospel; that is to say, Bap-
tism, and the Supper of the Lord: neither of which may be dispensed by any, but by a minister of
the Word lawfully ordained.
5. The sacraments of the Old Testament, in regard of the spiritual things thereby signified and
exhibited, were, for substance, the same with those of the New.
Chapter 28: Of Baptism
1. Baptism is a sacrament of the New Testament, ordained by Jesus Christ, not only for the
solemn admission of the party baptized into the visible church; but also, to be unto him a sign and
seal of the covenant of grace, of his ingrafting into Christ, of regeneration, of remission of sins, and
of his giving up unto God, through Jesus Christ, to walk in newness of life. Which sacrament is, by
Christ’s own appointment, to be continued in his church until the end of the world.
2. The outward element to be used in this sacrament is water, wherewith the party is to be bap-
tized, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, by a minister of the gospel,
lawfully called thereunto.
3. Dipping of the person into the water is not necessary; but Baptism is rightly administered by
pouring, or sprinkling water upon the person.
4. Not only those that do actually profess faith in and obedience unto Christ, but also the infants
of one, or both, believing parents, are to be baptized.
5. Although it be a great sin to contemn or neglect this ordinance, yet grace and salvation are not
so inseparably annexed unto it, as that no person can be regenerated, or saved, without it; or, that
all that are baptized are undoubtedly regenerated.
6. The efficacy of Baptism is not tied to that moment of time wherein it is administered; yet,
notwithstanding, by the right use of this ordinance, the grace promised is not only offered, but
really exhibited, and conferred, by the Holy Ghost, to such (whether of age or infants) as that grace
belongeth unto, according to the counsel of Gods own will, in his appointed time.
7. The sacrament of Baptism is but once to be administered unto any person.
Chapter 29: Of the Lord’s Supper
1. Our Lord Jesus, in the night wherein he was betrayed, instituted the sacrament of his body
and blood, called the Lord’s Supper, to be observed in his church, unto the end of the world, for the
perpetual remembrance of the sacrifice of himself in his death; the sealing all benefits thereof unto
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1194
true believers, their spiritual nourishment and growth in him, their further engagement in and to
all duties which they owe unto him; and, to be a bond and pledge of their communion with him,
and with each other, as members of his mystical body.
2. In this sacrament, Christ is not offered up to his Father; nor any real sacrifice made at all, for
remission of sins of the quick or dead; but only a commemoration of that one offering up of himself,
by himself, upon the cross, once for all: and a spiritual oblation of all possible praise unto God, for
the same: so that the popish sacrifice of the mass (as they call it) is most abominably injurious to
Christ’s one, only sacrifice, the alone propitiation for all the sins of his elect.
3. The Lord Jesus hath, in this ordinance, appointed his ministers to declare his word of insti-
tution to the people; to pray, and bless the elements of bread and wine, and thereby to set them
apart from a common to an holy use; and to take and break the bread, to take the cup, and (they
communicating also themselves) to give both to the communicants; but to none who are not then
present in the congregation.
4. Private masses, or receiving this sacrament by a priest, or any other, alone; as likewise, the
denial of the cup to the people, worshiping the elements, the lifting them up, or carrying them
about, for adoration, and the reserving them for any pretended religious use; are all contrary to the
nature of this sacrament, and to the institution of Christ.
5. The outward elements in this sacrament, duly set apart to the uses ordained by Christ, have
such relation to him crucified, as that, truly, yet sacramentally only, they are sometimes called by
the name of the things they represent, to wit, the body and blood of Christ; albeit, in substance and
nature, they still remain truly and only bread and wine, as they were before.
6. That doctrine which maintains a change of the substance of bread and wine, into the sub-
stance of Christ’s body and blood (commonly called transubstantiation) by consecration of a priest,
or by any other way, is repugnant, not to Scripture alone, but even to common sense, and reason;
overthroweth the nature of the sacrament, and hath been, and is, the cause of manifold supersti-
tions; yea, of gross idolatries.
7. Worthy receivers, outwardly partaking of the visible elements, in this sacrament, do then also,
inwardly by faith, really and indeed, yet not carnally and corporally but spiritually, receive, and feed
upon, Christ crucified, and all benefits of his death: the body and blood of Christ being then, not
corporally or carnally, in, with, or under the bread and wine; yet, as really, but spiritually, present to
the faith of believers in that ordinance, as the elements themselves are to their outward senses.
8. Although ignorant and wicked men receive the outward elements in this sacrament; yet, they
receive not the thing signified thereby; but, by their unworthy coming thereunto, are guilty of the
body and blood of the Lord, to their own damnation. Wherefore, all ignorant and ungodly persons,
as they are unfit to enjoy communion with him, so are they unworthy of the Lord’s table; and can-
not, without great sin against Christ, while they remain such, partake of these holy mysteries, or be
admitted thereunto.
Chapter 30: Of Church Censures
1. The Lord Jesus, as king and head of his church, hath therein appointed a government, in the
hand of church officers, distinct from the civil magistrate.
2. To these officers the keys of the kingdom of heaven are committed; by virtue whereof, they
have power, respectively, to retain, and remit sins; to shut that kingdom against the impenitent, both
by the Word, and censures; and to open it unto penitent sinners, by the ministry of the gospel; and
by absolution from censures, as occasion shall require.
3. Church censures are necessary, for the reclaiming and gaining of offending brethren, for
deterring of others from the like offenses, for purging out of that leaven which might infect the
whole lump, for vindicating the honor of Christ, and the holy profession of the gospel, and for
preventing the wrath of God, which might justly fall upon the church, if they should suffer his cov-
enant, and the seals thereof, to be profaned by notorious and obstinate offenders.
APPENDIX 1 ■ HISTORIC CONFESSIONS OF FAITH
1195
4. For the better attaining of these ends, the officers of the church are to proceed by admonition;
suspension from the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper for a season; and by excommunication from
the church; according to the nature of the crime, and demerit of the person.
Chapter 31: Of Synods and Councils
1. For the better government, and further edification of the church, there ought to be such
assemblies as are commonly called synods or councils: and it belongeth to the overseers and other
rulers of the particular churches, by virtue of their office, and the power which Christ hath given
them for edification and not for destruction, to appoint such assemblies; and to convene together
in them, as often as they shall judge it expedient for the good of the church.
2. It belongeth to synods and councils, ministerially to determine controversies of faith, and
cases of conscience; to set down rules and directions for the better ordering of the public wor-
ship of God, and government of his church; to receive complaints in cases of maladministration,
and authoritatively to determine the same: which decrees and determinations, if consonant to the
Word of God, are to be received with reverence and submission; not only for their agreement with
the Word, but also for the power whereby they are made, as being an ordinance of God appointed
thereunto in his Word.
3. All synods or councils, since the apostles’ times, whether general or particular, may err; and
many have erred. Therefore they are not to be made the rule of faith, or practice; but to be used as
a help in both.
4. Synods and councils are to handle, or conclude nothing, but that which is ecclesiastical: and
are not to intermeddle with civil affairs which concern the commonwealth, unless byway of humble
petition in cases extraordinary; or, by way of advice, for satisfaction of conscience, if they be there-
unto required by the civil magistrate.
Chapter 32: Of the State of Men After Death, and of the
Resurrection of the Dead
1. The bodies of men, after death, return to dust, and see corruption: but their souls, which nei-
ther die nor sleep, having an immortal subsistence, immediately return to God who gave them: the
souls of the righteous, being then made perfect in holiness, are received into the highest heavens,
where they behold the face of God, in light and glory, waiting for the full redemption of their bodies.
And the souls of the wicked are cast into hell, where they remain in torments and utter darkness,
reserved to the judgment of the great day. Beside these two places, for souls separated from their
bodies, the Scripture acknowledgeth none.
2. At the last day, such as are found alive shall not die, but be changed: and all the dead shall be
raised up, with the selfsame bodies, and none other (although with different qualities), which shall
be united again to their souls forever.
3. The bodies of the unjust shall, by the power of Christ, be raised to dishonor: the bodies of the
just, by his Spirit, unto honor; and be made conformable to his own glorious body.
Chapter 33: Of the Last Judgment
1. God hath appointed a day, wherein he will judge the world, in righteousness, by Jesus Christ,
to whom all power and judgment is given of the Father. In which day, not only the apostate angels
shall be judged, but likewise all persons that have lived upon earth shall appear before the tribunal
of Christ, to give an account of their thoughts, words, and deeds; and to receive according to what
they have done in the body, whether good or evil.
2. The end of God’s appointing this day is for the manifestation of the glory of his mercy, in the
eternal salvation of the elect; and of his justice, in the damnation of the reprobate, who are wicked
and disobedient.For then shall the righteous go into everlasting life, and receive that fullness of joy
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1196
and refreshing, which shall come from the presence of the Lord; but the wicked who know not God,
and obey not the gospel of Jesus Christ, shall be cast into eternal torments, and be punished with
everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.
3. As Christ would have us to be certainly persuaded that there shall be a day of judgment, both
to deter all men from sin; and for the greater consolation of the godly in their adversity: so will he
have that day unknown to men, that they may shake off all carnal security, and be always watchful,
because they know not at what hour the Lord will come; and may be ever prepared to say, Come
Lord Jesus, come quickly, Amen.
THE NEW HAMPSHIRE BAPTIST CONFESSION (1833)
DECLARATION OF FAITH
I. Of the Scriptures.
We believe that the Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired, and is a perfect treasure
of heavenly instruction; that it has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth without any
mixture of error for its matter; that it reveals the principles by which God will judge us; and there-
fore is, and shall remain to the end of the world, the true center of Christian union, and the supreme
standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and opinions should be tried.
II. Of the True God.
We believe that there is one, and only one, living and true God, an infinite, intelligent Spirit,
whose name is JEHOVAH, the Maker and Supreme Ruler of heaven and earth; inexpressibly glo-
rious in holiness, and worthy of all possible honor, confidence, and love; that in the unity of the
Godhead there are three persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit; equal in every divine
perfection, and executing distinct and harmonious offices in the great work of redemption.
III. Of the Fall of Man.
We believe that man was created in holiness, under the law of his Maker; but by voluntary trans-
gression fell from that holy and happy state; in consequence of which all mankind are now sinners,
not by constraint, but choice; being by nature utterly void of that holiness required by the law of
God, positively inclined to evil; and therefore under just condemnation to eternal ruin, without
defense or excuse.
IV. Of the Way of Salvation.
We believe that the salvation of sinners is wholly of grace, through the mediatorial offices of the
Son of God; who by the appointment of the Father, freely took upon him our nature, yet without sin;
honored the divine law by his personal obedience, and by his death made a full atonement for our
sins; that having risen from the dead, he is now enthroned in heaven; and uniting in his wonderful
person the tenderest sympathies with divine perfections, he is every way qualified to be a suitable,
a compassionate, and all-sufficient Saviour.
V. Of Justification.
We believe that the great gospel blessing which Christ secures to such as believe in him is Justi-
fication; that Justification includes the pardon of sin, and the promise of eternal life on principles
APPENDIX 1 • HISTORIC CONFESSIONS OF FAITH
1197
of righteousness; that it is bestowed, not in consideration of any works of righteousness which we
have done, but solely through faith in the Redeemer’s blood; by virtue of which faith his perfect
righteousness is freely imputed to us of God; that it brings us into a state of most blessed peace and
favor with God, and secures every other blessing needful for time and eternity.
VI. Of the Freeness of Salvation.
We believe that the blessings of salvation are made free to all by the gospel; that it is the immedi-
ate duty of all to accept them by a cordial, penitent, and obedient faith; and that nothing prevents
the salvation of the greatest sinner on earth but his own inherent depravity and voluntary rejection
of the gospel; which rejection involves him in an aggravated condemnation.
VII. Of Grace in Regeneration.
We believe that, in order to be saved, sinners must be regenerated, or born again; that regen-
eration consists in giving a holy disposition to the mind; that it is effected in a manner above our
comprehension by the power of the Holy Spirit, in connection with divine truth, so as to secure
our voluntary obedience to the gospel; and that its proper evidence appears in the holy fruits of
repentance, and faith, and newness of life.
VIII. Of Repentance and Faith.
We believe that Repentance and Faith are sacred duties, and also inseparable graces, wrought in
our souls by the regenerating Spirit of God; whereby being deeply convinced of our guilt, danger,
and helplessness, and of the way of salvation by Christ, we turn to God with unfeigned contrition,
confession, and supplication for mercy; at the same time heartily receiving the Lord Jesus Christ as
our Prophet, Priest, and King, and relying on him as the only and all-sufficient Saviour.
IX. Of God’s Purpose of Grace.
We believe that Election is the eternal purpose of God, according to which he graciously regen-
erates, sanctifies, and saves sinners; that being perfectly consistent with the free agency of man, it
comprehends all the means in connection with the end; that it is a most glorious display of God’s
sovereign goodness, being infinitely free, wise, holy, and unchangeable; that it utterly excludes
boasting, and promotes humility, love, prayer, praise, trust in God, and active imitation of his free
mercy; that it encourages the use of means in the highest degree; that it may be ascertained by its
effects in all who truly believe the gospel; that it is the foundation of Christian assurance; and that
to ascertain it with regard to ourselves demands and deserves the utmost diligence.
X. Of Sanctification.
We believe that Sanctification is the process by which, according to the will of God, we are made
partakers of his holiness; that it is a progressive work; that it is begun in regeneration; and that
it is carried on in the hearts of believers by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, the Sealer
and Comforter, in the continual use of the appointed means — especially the Word of God, self-
examination, self-denial, watchfulness, and prayer.
XI. Of the Preservation of Saints.
We believe that such only are real believers as endure unto the end; that their persevering attach-
ment to Christ is the grand mark which distinguishes them from superficial professors; that a
special Providence watches over their welfare; and they are kept by the power of God through faith
unto salvation.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1198
XII. Of the Harmony of the Law and the Gospel.
We believe that the Law of God is the eternal and unchangeable rule of his moral government;
that it is holy, just, and good; and that the inability which the Scriptures ascribe to fallen men to
fulfill its precepts arises entirely from their love of sin; to deliver them from which, and to restore
them through a Mediator to unfeigned obedience to the holy Law, is one great end of the Gospel,
and of the means of grace connected with the establishment of the visible Church.
XIII. Of a Gospel Church.
We believe that a visible Church of Christ is a congregation of baptized believers, associated by
covenant in the faith and fellowship of the gospel; observing the ordinances of Christ; governed by
his laws, and exercising the gifts, rights, and privileges invested in them by his Word; that its only
scriptural offices are Bishops, or Pastors, and Deacons, whose qualifications, claims, and duties are
defined in the Epistles to Timothy and Titus.
XIV. Of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
We believe that Christian Baptism is the immersion in water of a believer, into the name of the
Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit; to show forth, in a solemn and beautiful emblem, our faith in the
crucified, buried, and risen Savior, with its effect in our death to sin and resurrection to a new life;
that it is prerequisite to the privileges of a Church relation; and to the Lord’s Supper, in which the
members of the Church, by the sacred use of bread and wine, are to commemorate together the
dying love of Christ; preceeded always by solemn self-examination.
XV. Of the Christian Sabbath.
We believe that the first day of the week is the Lord’s Day or Christian Sabbath; and is to be
kept sacred to religious purposes, by abstaining from all secular labor and sinful recreations; by the
devout observance of all the means of grace, both private and public; and by preparation for that
rest that remaineth for the people of God.
XVI. Of Civil Government.
We believe that civil government is of divine appointment, for the interests and good order of
human society; and that magistrates are to be prayed for, conscientiously honored and obeyed;
except only things opposed to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the only Lord of the con-
science, and the Prince of the kings of the earth.
XVII. Of the Righteous and the Wicked.
We believe that there is a radical and essential difference between the righteous and the wicked;
that such only as through faith are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and sanctified by the
Spirit of our God, are truly righteous in his esteem; while all such as continue in impenitence and
unbelief are in his sight wicked, and under the curse; and this distinction holds among men both
in and after death.
XVIII. Of the World to Come.
We believe that the end of the world is approaching; that at the last day Christ will descend from
heaven and raise the dead from the grave to final retribution; that a solemn separation will then
take place; that the wicked will be adjudged to endless punishment, and the righteous to endless
joy; and that this judgment will fix forever the final state of men in heaven or hell, on principles of
righteousness.
APPENDIX 1 - HISTORIC CONFESSIONS OF FAITH
1199
THE BAPTIST FAITH AND MESSAGE SOUTHERN BAPTIST
CONVENTION (1925, REVISED 1963, 2000)
I. The Scriptures
The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is Gods revelation of Himself to man.
It is a perfect treasure of divine instruction. It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth,
without any mixture of error, for its matter. Therefore, all Scripture is totally true and trustworthy.
It reveals the principles by which God judges us, and therefore is, and will remain to the end of the
world, the true center of Christian union, and the supreme standard by which all human conduct,
creeds, and religious opinions should be tried. All Scripture is a testimony to Christ, who is Himself
the focus of divine revelation.
II. God
There is one and only one living and true God. He is an intelligent, spiritual, and personal
Being, the Creator, Redeemer, Preserver, and Ruler of the universe. God is infinite in holiness and
all other perfections. God is all powerful and all knowing; and His perfect knowledge extends to
all things, past, present, and future, including the future decisions of His free creatures. To Him
we owe the highest love, reverence, and obedience. The eternal triune God reveals Himself to us
as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature,
essence, or being.
A. God the Father God as Father reigns with providential care over His universe, His creatures, and
the flow of the stream of human history according to the purposes of His grace. He is all powerful,
all knowing, all loving, and all wise. God is Father in truth to those who become children of God
through faith in Jesus Christ. He is fatherly in His attitude toward all men.
B. God the Son Christ is the eternal Son of God. In His incarnation as Jesus Christ He was conceived
of the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. Jesus perfectly revealed and did the will of God, taking
upon Himself human nature with its demands and necessities and identifying Himself completely
with mankind yet without sin. He honored the divine law by His personal obedience, and in His
substitutionary death on the cross He made provision for the redemption of men from sin. He was
raised from the dead with a glorified body and appeared to His disciples as the person who was with
them before His crucifixion. He ascended into heaven and is now exalted at the right hand of God
where He is the One Mediator, fully God, fully man, in whose Person is effected the reconciliation
between God and man. He will return in power and glory to judge the world and to consummate His
redemptive mission. He now dwells in all believers as the living and ever present Lord.
C. God the Holy Spirit The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God, fully divine. He inspired holy men of
old to write the Scriptures. Through illumination He enables men to understand truth. He exalts
Christ. He convicts men of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. He calls men to the Saviour,
and effects regeneration. At the moment of regeneration He baptizes every believer into the Body
of Christ. He cultivates Christian character, comforts believers, and bestows the spiritual gifts by
which they serve God through His church. He seals the believer unto the day of final redemption.
His presence in the Christian is the guarantee that God will bring the believer into the fullness of
the stature of Christ. He enlightens and empowers the believer and the church in worship, evange-
lism, and service.
Ill- Man
Man is the special creation of God, made in His own image. He created them male and female as
the crowning work of His creation. The gift of gender is thus part of the goodness of God’s creation.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1200
In the beginning man was innocent of sin and was endowed by his Creator with freedom of choice.
By his free choice man sinned against God and brought sin into the human race. Through the
temptation of Satan man transgressed the command of God, and fell from his original innocence
whereby his posterity inherit a nature and an environment inclined toward sin. Therefore, as soon
as they are capable of moral action, they become transgressors and are under condemnation. Only
the grace of God can bring man into His holy fellowship and enable man to fulfill the creative pur-
pose of God. The sacredness of human personality is evident in that God created man in His own
image, and in that Christ died for man; therefore, every person of every race possesses full dignity
and is worthy of respect and Christian love.
IV. Salvation
Salvation involves the redemption of the whole man, and is offered freely to all who accept Jesus
Christ as Lord and Saviour, who by His own blood obtained eternal redemption for the believer.
In its broadest sense salvation includes regeneration, justification, sanctification, and glorification.
There is no salvation apart from personal faith in Jesus Christ as Lord.
A. Regeneration, or the new birth, is a work of God’s grace whereby believers become new crea-
tures in Christ Jesus. It is a change of heart wrought by the Holy Spirit through conviction of sin, to
which the sinner responds in repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Repentance
and faith are inseparable experiences of grace.
Repentance is a genuine turning from sin toward God. Faith is the acceptance of Jesus Christ
and commitment of the entire personality to Him as Lord and Saviour.
B. Justification is God’s gracious and full acquittal upon principles of His righteousness of all
sinners who repent and believe in Christ. Justification brings the believer unto a relationship of
peace and favor with God.
C. Sanctification is the experience, beginning in regeneration, by which the believer is set apart
to God’s purposes, and is enabled to progress toward moral and spiritual maturity through the pres-
ence and power of the Holy Spirit dwelling in him. Growth in grace should continue throughout
the regenerate person’s life.
D. Glorification is the culmination of salvation and is the final blessed and abiding state of the
redeemed.
V. God’s Purpose of Grace
Election is the gracious purpose of God, according to which He regenerates, justifies, sanctifies,
and glorifies sinners. It is consistent with the free agency of man, and comprehends all the means
in connection with the end. It is the glorious display of God’s sovereign goodness, and is infinitely
wise, holy, and unchangeable. It excludes boasting and promotes humility.
All true believers endure to the end. Those whom God has accepted in Christ, and sanctified by
His Spirit, will never fall away from the state of grace, but shall persevere to the end. Believers may
fall into sin through neglect and temptation, whereby they grieve the Spirit, impair their graces and
comforts, and bring reproach on the cause of Christ and temporal judgments on themselves; yet
they shall be kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.
VI. The Church
A New Testament church of the Lord Jesus Christ is an autonomous local congregation of bap-
tized believers, associated by covenant in the faith and fellowship of the gospel; observing the two
ordinances of Christ, governed by His laws, exercising the gifts, rights, and privileges invested in
them by His Word, and seeking to extend the gospel to the ends of the earth. Each congregation
operates under the Lordship of Christ through democratic processes. In such a congregation each
member is responsible and accountable to Christ as Lord. Its scriptural officers are pastors and
deacons. While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is
limited to men as qualified by Scripture.
APPENDIX 1 « HISTORIC CONFESSIONS OF FAITH
1201
The New Testament speaks also of the church as the Body of Christ which includes all of the
redeemed of all the ages, believers from every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation.
VII. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper
Christian baptism is the immersion of a believer in water in the name of the Father, the Son, and
the Holy Spirit. It is an act of obedience symbolizing the believer’s faith in a crucified, buried, and risen
Saviour, the believer’s death to sin, the burial of the old life, and the resurrection to walk in newness
of life in Christ Jesus. It is a testimony to his faith in the final resurrection of the dead. Being a church
ordinance, it is prerequisite to the privileges of church membership and to the Lord’s Supper.
The Lord’s Supper is a symbolic act of obedience whereby members of the church, through par-
taking of the bread and the fruit of the vine, memorialize the death of the Redeemer and anticipate
His second coming.
VTII. The Lord’s Day
The first day of the week is the Lord’s Day. It is a Christian institution for regular observance.
It commemorates the resurrection of Christ from the dead and should include exercises of worship
and spiritual devotion, both public and private. Activities on the Lord’s Day should be commensu-
rate with the Christian’s conscience under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
IX. The Kingdom
The Kingdom of God includes both His general sovereignty over the universe and His particular
kingship over men who willfully acknowledge Him as King. Particularly the Kingdom is the realm
of salvation into which men enter by trustful, childlike commitment to Jesus Christ. Christians
ought to pray and to labor that the Kingdom may come and God’s will be done on earth. The full
consummation of the Kingdom awaits the return of Jesus Christ and the end of this age.
X. Last Things
God, in His own time and in His own way, will bring the world to its appropriate end. According
to His promise, Jesus Christ will return personally and visibly in glory to the earth; the dead will be
raised; and Christ will judge all men in righteousness. The unrighteous will be consigned to Hell,
the place of everlasting punishment. The righteous in their resurrected and glorified bodies will
receive their reward and will dwell forever in Heaven with the Lord.
XI. Evangelism and Missions
It is the duty and privilege of every follower of Christ and of every church of the Lord Jesus
Christ to endeavor to make disciples of all nations. The new birth of man’s spirit by God’s Holy
Spirit means the birth of love for others. Missionary effort on the part of all rests thus upon a spiri-
tual necessity of the regenerate life, and is expressly and repeatedly commanded in the teachings
of Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ has commanded the preaching of the gospel to all nations. It is the
duty of every child of God to seek constantly to win the lost to Christ by verbal witness undergirded
by a Christian lifestyle, and by other methods in harmony with the gospel of Christ.
XII. Education
Christianity is the faith of enlightenment and intelligence. In Jesus Christ abide all the treasures
of wisdom and knowledge. All sound learning is, therefore, a part of our Christian heritage. The new
birth opens all human faculties and creates a thirst for knowledge. Moreover, the cause of education
in the Kingdom of Christ is co-ordinate with the causes of missions and general benevolence, and
should receive along with these the liberal support of the churches. An adequate system of Christian
education is necessary to a complete spiritual program for Christ’s people.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1202
In Christian education there should be a proper balance between academic freedom and aca-
demic responsibility. Freedom in any orderly relationship of human life is always limited and never
absolute. The freedom of a teacher in a Christian school, college, or seminary is limited by the pre-
eminence of Jesus Christ, by the authoritative nature of the Scriptures, and by the distinct purpose
for which the school exists.
XIII. Stewardship
God is the source of all blessings, temporal and spiritual; all that we have and are we owe to Him.
Christians have a spiritual debtorship to the whole world, a holy trusteeship in the gospel, and a
binding stewardship in their possessions. They are therefore under obligation to serve Him with
their time, talents, and material possessions; and should recognize all these as entrusted to them
to use for the glory of God and for helping others. According to the Scriptures, Christians should
contribute of their means cheerfully, regularly, systematically, proportionately, and liberally for the
advancement of the Redeemer’s cause on earth.
XIV. Cooperation
Christ’s people should, as occasion requires, organize such associations and conventions as may
best secure cooperation for the great objects of the Kingdom of God. Such organizations have no
authority over one another or over the churches. They are voluntary and advisory bodies designed
to elicit, combine, and direct the energies of our people in the most effective manner. Members of
New Testament churches should cooperate with one another in carrying forward the missionary,
educational, and benevolent ministries for the extension of Christ’s Kingdom. Christian unity in
the New Testament sense is spiritual harmony and voluntary cooperation for common ends by
various groups of Christ’s people. Cooperation is desirable between the various Christian denomi-
nations, when the end to be attained is itself justified, and when such cooperation involves no
violation of conscience or compromise of loyalty to Christ and His Word as revealed in the New
Testament.
XV. The Christian and the Social Order
All Christians are under obligation to seek to make the will of Christ supreme in our own lives
and in human society. Means and methods used for the improvement of society and the establish-
ment of righteousness among men can be truly and permanently helpful only when they are rooted
in the regeneration of the individual by the saving grace of God in Jesus Christ. In the spirit of
Christ, Christians should oppose racism, every form of greed, selfishness, and vice, and all forms of
sexual immorality, including adultery, homosexuality, and pornography. We should work to pro-
vide for the orphaned, the needy, the abused, the aged, the helpless, and the sick. We should speak
on behalf of the unborn and contend for the sanctity of all human life from conception to natural
death. Every Christian should seek to bring industry, government, and society as a whole under the
sway of the principles of righteousness, truth, and brotherly love. In order to promote these ends
Christians should be ready to work with all men of good will in any good cause, always being careful
to act in the spirit of love without compromising their loyalty to Christ and His truth.
XVI. Peace and War
It is the duty of Christians to seek peace with all men on principles of righteousness. In accor-
dance with the spirit and teachings of Christ they should do all in their power to put an end to
war.
The true remedy for the war spirit is the gospel of our Lord. The supreme need of the world is
the acceptance of His teachings in all the affairs of men and nations, and the practical application
of His law of love. Christian people throughout the world should pray for the reign of the Prince
of Peace.
APPENDIX 1 * HISTORIC CONFESSIONS OF FAITH
1203
XVII. Religious Liberty
God alone is Lord of the conscience, and He has left it free from the doctrines and command-
ments of men which are contrary to His Word or not contained in it. Church and state should be
separate. The state owes to every church protection and full freedom in the pursuit of its spiritual
ends. In providing for such freedom no ecclesiastical group or denomination should be favored by
the state more than others. Civil government being ordained of God, it is the duty of Christians to
render loyal obedience thereto in all things not contrary to the revealed will of God. The church
should not resort to the civil power to carry on its work. The gospel of Christ contemplates spiritual
means alone for the pursuit of its ends. The state has no right to impose penalties for religious
opinions of any kind. The state has no right to impose taxes for the support of any form of religion.
A free church in a free state is the Christian ideal, and this implies the right of free and unhindered
access to God on the part of all men, and the right to form and propagate opinions in the sphere of
religion without interference by the civil power.
XVIII. The Family
God has ordained the family as the foundational institution of human society. It is composed of
persons related to one another by marriage, blood, or adoption.
Marriage is the uniting of one man and one woman in covenant commitment for a lifetime. It is
God’s unique gift to reveal the union between Christ and His church and to provide for the man and
the woman in marriage the framework for intimate companionship, the channel of sexual expres-
sion according to biblical standards, and the means for procreation of the human race.
The husband and wife are of equal worth before God, since both are created in God’s image. The
marriage relationship models the way God relates to His people. A husband is to love his wife as
Christ loved the church. He has the God-given responsibility to provide for, to protect, and to lead
his family. A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the
church willingly submits to the headship of Christ. She, being in the image of God as is her husband
and thus equal to him, has the God-given responsibility to respect her husband and to serve as his
helper in managing the household and nurturing the next generation.
Children, from the moment of conception, are a blessing and heritage from the Lord. Par-
ents are to demonstrate to their children God’s pattern for marriage. Parents are to teach their
children spiritual and moral values and to lead them, through consistent lifestyle example and
loving discipline, to make choices based on biblical truth. Children are to honor and obey their
parents.
THE CHICAGO STATEMENT ON BIBLICAL INERRANCY
( 1978 )
PREFACE
The authority of Scripture is a key issue for the Christian Church in this and every age. Those
who profess faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior are called to show the reality of their disciple-
ship by humbly and faithfully obeying God’s written Word. To stray from Scripture in faith or
conduct is disloyalty to our Master. Recognition of the total truth and trustworthiness of Holy
Scripture is essential to a full grasp and adequate confession of its authority.
The following Statement affirms this inerrancy of Scripture afresh, making clear our under-
standing of it and warning against its denial. We are persuaded that to deny it is to set aside the
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1204
witness of Jesus Christ and of Holy Spirit and to refuse that submission to the claims of God’s own
word which marks true Christian faith. We see it as our timely duty to make this affirmation in the
face of current lapses from the truth of inerrancy among our fellow Christians and misunderstand-
ing of this doctrine in the world at large.
This Statement consists of three parts: a Summary Statement, Articles of Affirmation and
Denial, and an accompanying Exposition. It has been prepared in the course of a three-day consul-
tation in Chicago. Those who have signed the Summary Statement and the Articles wish to affirm
their own conviction as to the inerrancy of Scripture and to encourage and challenge one another
and all Christians to growing appreciation and understanding of this doctrine. We acknowledge
the limitations of a document prepared in a brief, intensive conference and do not propose that this
Statement be given creedal weight. Yet we rejoice in the deepening of our own convictions through
our discussions together, and we pray that the Statement we have signed may be used to the glory of
our God toward a new reformation of the Church in its faith, life, and mission.
We offer this Statement in a spirit, not of contention, but of humility and love, which we pur-
pose by God’s grace to maintain in any future dialogue arising out of what we have said. We gladly
acknowledge that many who deny the inerrancy of Scripture do not display the consequences of
this denial in the rest of their belief and behavior, and we are conscious that we who confess this
doctrine often deny it in life by failing to bring our thoughts and deeds, our traditions and habits,
into true subjection to the divine Word.
We invite responses to this statement from any who see reason to amend its affirmations about
Scripture by the light of Scripture itself, under whose infallible authority we stand as we speak.
We claim no personal infallibility for the witness we bear, and for any help which enables us to
strengthen this testimony to God’s Word we shall be grateful.
A SHORT STATEMENT
1. God, who is Himself Truth and speaks truth only, has inspired Holy Scripture in order thereby
to reveal Himself to lost mankind through Jesus Christ as Creator and Lord, Redeemer and Judge.
Holy Scripture is God’s witness to Himself.
2. Holy Scripture, being God’s own Word, written by men prepared and superintended by His
Spirit, is of infallible divine authority in all matters upon which it touches: it is to be believed, as
God’s instruction, in all that it affirms; obeyed, as God’s command, in all that it requires; embraced,
as God’s pledge, in all that it promises.
3. The Holy Spirit, Scripture’s divine Author, both authenticates it to us by His inward witness
and opens our minds to understand its meaning.
4. Being wholly and verbally God-given, Scripture is without error or fault in all its teaching, no
less in what it states about God’s acts in creation, about the events of world history, and about its
own literary origins under God, than in its witness to God’s saving grace in individual lives.
5. The authority of Scripture is inescapably impaired if this total divine inerrancy is in any way
limited or disregarded, or made relative to a view of truth contrary to the Bible’s own; and such
lapses bring serious loss to both the individual and the Church.
ARTICLES OF AFFIRMATION AND DENIAL
Article I
We affirm that the Holy Scriptures are to be received as the authoritative Word
of God.
We deny that the Scriptures receive their authority from the Church, tradition, or any other
human source.
APPENDIX 1 * HISTORIC CONFESSIONS OF FAITH
1205
Article II
We affirm that the Scriptures are the supreme written norm by which God binds the conscience,
and that the authority of the Church is subordinate to that of Scripture.
We deny that Church creeds, councils, or declarations have authority greater than or equal to
the authority of the Bible.
Article III
We affirm that the written Word in its entirety is revelation given by God.
We deny that the Bible is merely a witness to revelation, or only becomes revelation in encounter,
or depends on the responses of men for its validity.
Article IV
We affirm that God who made mankind in His image has used language as a means of revela-
tion.
We deny that human language is so limited by our creatureliness that it is rendered inadequate as
a vehicle for divine revelation. We further deny that the corruption of human culture and language
through sin has thwarted God’s work of inspiration.
Article V
We affirm that God’s revelation in the Holy Scriptures was progressive.
We deny that later revelation, which may fulfill earlier revelation, ever corrects or contradicts
it. We further deny that any normative revelation has been given since the completion of the New
Testament writings.
Article VI
We affirm that the whole of Scripture and all its parts, down to the very words of the original,
were given by divine inspiration.
We deny that the inspiration of Scripture can rightly be affirmed of the whole without the parts,
or of some parts but not the whole.
Article VII
We affirm that inspiration was the work in which God by His Spirit, through human writers,
gave us His Word. The origin of Scripture is divine. The mode of divine inspiration remains largely
a mystery to us.
We deny that inspiration can be reduced to human insight, or to heightened states of conscious-
ness of any kind.
Article VIII
We affirm that God in His work of inspiration utilized the distinctive personalities and literary
styles of the writers whom He had chosen and prepared.
We deny that God, in causing these writers to use the very words that He chose,
overrode their personalities.
Article IX
We affirm that inspiration, though not conferring omniscience, guaranteed true and trustwor-
thy utterance on all matters of which the Bible authors were moved to speak and write.
We deny that the finitude or fallenness of these writers, by necessity or otherwise, introduced
distortion or falsehood into God’s Word.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1206
Article X
We affirm that inspiration, strictly speaking, applies to the autographic text of Scripture, which
in the providence of God can be ascertained from available manuscripts with great accuracy. We
further affirm that copies and translations of Scripture are the Word of God to the extent that they
faithfully represent the original.
We deny that any essential element of the Christian faith is affected by the absence of the auto-
graphs. We further deny that this absence renders the assertion of Biblical inerrancy invalid or
irrelevant.
Article XI
We affirm that Scripture, having been given by divine inspiration, is infallible, so that, far from
misleading us, it is true and reliable in all matters it addresses.
We deny that it is possible for the Bible to be at the same time infallible and errant in its asser-
tions. Infallibility and inerrancy may be distinguished, but not separated.
Article XII
We affirm that Scripture in its entirety is inerrant, being free from all falsehood, fraud, or
deceit.
We deny that Biblical infallibility and inerrancy are limited to spiritual, religious or redemptive
themes, exclusive of assertions in the fields of history and science. We further deny that scientific
hypotheses about earth history may properly be used to overturn the teaching of Scripture on
creation and the flood.
Article XIII
We affirm the propriety of using inerrancy as a theological term with reference to the complete
truthfulness of Scripture.
We deny that it is proper to evaluate Scripture according to standards of truth and error that
are alien to its usage or purpose. We further deny that inerrancy is negated by Biblical phenomena
such as a lack of modern technical precision, irregularities of grammar or spelling, observational
descriptions of nature, the reporting of falsehoods, the use of hyperbole and round numbers, the
topical arrangement of material, variant selections of material in parallel accounts, or the use of
free citations.
Article XIV
We affirm the unity and internal consistency of Scripture.
We deny that alleged errors and discrepancies that have not yet been resolved vitiate the truth
of claims of the Bible.
Article XV
We affirm that the doctrine of inerrancy is grounded in the teaching of the Bible about inspira-
tion.
We deny that Jesus’ teaching about Scripture maybe dismissed by appeals to accommodation or
to any natural limitation of His humanity.
Article XVI
We affirm that the doctrine of inerrancy has been integral to the Church’s faith throughout its
history.
We deny that inerrancy is a doctrine invented by Scholastic Protestantism, or is a reactionary
position postulated in response to negative higher criticism.
APPENDIX 1 • HISTORIC CONFESSIONS OF FAITH
1207
Article XVII
We affirm that the Holy Spirit bears witness to the Scriptures, assuring believers of the truthful-
ness of God’s written Word.
We deny that this witness of the Holy Spirit operates in isolation from or against Scripture.
Article XVIII
We affirm that the text of Scripture is to be interpreted by grammatico-historical exegesis, tak-
ing account of its literary forms and devices, and that Scripture is to interpret Scripture.
We deny the legitimacy of any treatment of the text or quest for sources lying behind it that leads
to relativizing, dehistoricizing, or discounting its teaching, or rejecting its claims to authorship.
Article XIX
We affirm that a confession of the full authority, infallibility, and inerrancy of Scripture is vital
to a sound understanding of the whole of the Christian faith. We further affirm that such confession
should lead to increasing conformity to the image of Christ.
We deny that such confession is necessary for salvation. However, we further deny that inerrancy
can be rejected without grave consequences, both to the individual and to the Church.
Appendix
SCRIPTURE MEMORY
PASSAGES FROM THE NIV
AND NASB
The Scripture memory passages quoted at the end of each chapter are taken from the Revised
Standard Version . This appendix includes all the Scripture memory passages from two other com-
mon versions, the New International Version ® (NIV®) and the New American Standard Bible (NASB) .
(NASB passages begin on p. 1215.)
NIV PASSAGES
CHAPTER 1: Matt. 28:18-20:
Then lesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of
the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And
surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
CHAPTER 2: Ps. 1:1-2:
Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners
or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates
day and night.
CHAPTER 3: Heb. 1:1 -2:
In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various
ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things,
and through whom he made the universe.
CHAPTER 4: 2 Tim. 3:16- 17:
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in
righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
CHAPTER 5: Ps. 12:6:
And the words of the LORD are flawless, like silver refined in a furnace of clay, purified seven
times.
1208
APPENDIX 2 • SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGES
1209
CHAPTER 6: Deut. 6:6-7:
These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your
children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie
down and when you get up.
CHAPTER 7: Matt. 4:4:
Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes
from the mouth of God.’”
CHAPTER 8: Ps. 119:1:
Blessed are they whose ways are blameless, who walk according to the law of the LORD.
CHAPTER 9: Rom. MS -20:
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of
men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to
them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible
qualities — his eternal power and divine nature — have been clearly seen, being understood from
what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
CHAPTER 10: Ps. 145:1-3:
I will exalt you, my God the King; I will praise your name for ever and ever. Every day I will
praise you and extol your name for ever and ever. Great is the LORD and most worthy of praise; his
greatness no one can fathom.
CHAPTER 11: Ps. 102:25-27:
In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your
hands. They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment. Like clothing you will
change them and they will be discarded. But you remain the same, and your years will never end.
CHAPTER 12: Ex. 34:6-7:
And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The LORD, the LORD, the compassion-
ate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to
thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpun-
ished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of fathers to the third and fourth
generation.”
CHAPTER 13: Ps. 73:25-26:
Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my
heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
CHAPTER 14: Matt. 3:16-17:
As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened,
and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. And a voice from heaven
said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”
CHAPTER 15: Neh. 9:6:
You alone are the LORD. You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, and all their starry
host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to everything, and
the multitudes of heaven worship you.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1210
CHAPTER 16: Rom. 8:28:
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been
called according to his purpose.
CHAPTER 17: Heb. 2:3-4:
How shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation? This salvation, which was first announced
by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him. God also testified to it by signs, wonders
and various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.
CHAPTER 18: Heb. 4:14-16:
Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son
of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to
sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we
are — yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may
receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
CHAPTER 19: Rev. 5:1 1 - 12:
Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and
ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders.
In a loud voice they sang: “Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and
wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!”
CHAPTER 20: James 4:7-8:
Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God
and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-
minded.
CHAPTER 21: Gen. 1:26-27:
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish
of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures
that move along the ground.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created
him; male and female he created them.
CHAPTER 22: Col. 3:18-19:
Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not
be harsh with them.
CHAPTER 23: 2 Cor. 7:1:
Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contami-
nates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.
CHAPTER 24: Ps. 51:1 -4:
Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my
transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is
evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge.
CHAPTER 25: Heb. 8:10:
This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put
my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God and they will be my people.
APPENDIX 2 • SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGES
1211
CHAPTER 26: John 1:14:
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of
the One and Only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
CHAPTER 27: Rom. 3:23-26:
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through
the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through
faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the
sins committed beforehand unpunished — he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time,
so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.
CHAPTER 28: 1 Cor. 15:20-23:
But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as
in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own turn: Christ, the firstfruits;
then, when he comes, those who belong to him.
CHAPTER 29: 1 Peter 2:9-10:
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that
you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once
you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but
now you have received mercy.
CHAPTER 30: Rom. 8:12-14:
Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation — but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to
it. For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the
misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.
CHAPTER 31: Luke 6:35-36:
But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything
back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to
the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
CHAPTER 32: Eph. 1:3-6:
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly
realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world
to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through
Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will — to the praise of his glorious grace, which
he has freely given us in the One he loves.
CHAPTER 33: Matt. 11:28-30:
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon
you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
CHAPTER 34: John 3:5-8:
Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the Kingdom of God unless he is born of
water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be
surprised at my saying, You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1212
sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of
the Spirit.”
CHAPTER 35: John 3:16:
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall
not perish but have eternal life.
CHAPTER 36: Rom. 3:27-28:
Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On that of observing the law? No,
but on that of faith. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law.
CHAPTER 37: Rom. 8:14- 17:
Because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit
that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry,
“Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are
children, then we are heirs — heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his suf-
ferings in order that we may also share in his glory.
CHAPTER 38: Rom. 6:1 1 - 14:
In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not
let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body
to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been
brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness.
For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.
CHAPTER 39: 1 Cor. 12:12-13:
The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they
form one body. So it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body — whether
Jews or Greeks, slave or free — and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.
CHAPTER 40: John 10:27-28:
My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they
shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.
CHAPTER 41: Phil. 1:20-24:
I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so
that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live
is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me.
Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with
Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body.
CHAPTER 42: 1 Cor. 15:42-44:
So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised
imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in
power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also
a spiritual body.
CHAPTER 43: Gal. 2:20:
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the
body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
APPENDIX 2 ■ SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGES
1213
CHAPTER 44: Eph. 4:1 1 - 13:
It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to
be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may
be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become
mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
CHAPTER 45: Eph. 4:14- 16:
Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there
by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming.
Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is,
Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows
and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
CHAPTER 46: 2 Cor. 10:3-4:
For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight
with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strong-
holds.
CHAPTER 47: 1 Peter 5:1-4:
To the elders among you, I appeal as a fellow elder, a witness of Christ’s sufferings and one who
also will share in the glory to be revealed: Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, serv-
ing as overseers — not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not
greedy for money, but eager to serve; not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples
to the flock. And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that will
never fade away.
CHAPTER 48: Acts 2:41 -42:
Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their
number that day. They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the
breaking of bread and to prayer.
CHAPTER 49: Rom. 6:3 -4:
Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his
death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ
was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
CHAPTER 50: 1 Cor. 11:23-26:
For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was
betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is
for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This
cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For
whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
CHAPTER 51: Rev. 4:11:
You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all
things, and by your will they were created and have their being.
CHAPTER 52: 1 Peter 4:10-11:
Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s
grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1214
If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be
praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen.
CHAPTER 53: 1 Cor. 12:7-11:
Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is
given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by means of
the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit,
to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to
another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All
these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as he determines.
CHAPTER 54: 1 Thess. 4: 15 - 18:
According to the Lord’s own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the
coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself
will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the
trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are
left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will
be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage each other with these words.
CHAPTER 55: Rev. 20:4-6:
I saw thrones on which were seated those who had been given authority to judge. And I saw the
souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony for Jesus and because of the word
of God. They had not worshiped the beast or his image and had not received his mark on their fore-
heads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years. (The rest of the
dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.) This is the first resurrection. Blessed
and holy are those who have part in the first resurrection. The second death has no power over them,
but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years.
CHAPTER 56: Rev. 20:1 1 - 13:
Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. Earth and sky fled from his pres-
ence, and there was no place for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the
throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were
judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. The sea gave up the dead that
were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged
according to what he had done.
CHAPTER 57: Rev. 21:3-4:
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he
will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.
He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain,
for the old order of things has passed away.”
APPENDIX 2 ■ SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGES
1215
NASB PASSAGES
CHAPTER 1: Matt. 28:18-20:
And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven
and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the
Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo,
I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
CHAPTER 2: Ps. 1:1 -2:
How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path
of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers! But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and in His law he
meditates day and night.
CHAPTER 3: Heb. 1:1-2:
God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways,
in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom
also He made the world.
CHAPTER 4: 2 Tim. 3:16-17:
All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for train-
ing in righteousness; that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.
CHAPTER 5: Ps. 12:6:
The words of the LORD are pure words; as silver tried in a furnace on the earth, refined seven
times.
CHAPTER 6: Deut. 6:6-7:
And these words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart; and you shall teach
them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk
by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.
CHAPTER 7: Matt. 4:4:
But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word
that proceeds out of the mouth of God.”’
CHAPTER 8: Ps. 119:1:
How blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the LORD.
CHAPTER 9: Rom. 1:18-20:
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of
men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident
within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible
attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through
what has been made, so that they are without excuse.
CHAPTER 10: Ps. 145:1-3:
I will extol Thee, my God, O King; and I will bless Thy name forever and ever. Every day I will
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1216
bless Thee, and I will praise Thy name forever and ever. Great is the Lord, and highly to be praised;
and His greatness is unsearchable.
CHAPTER 11: Ps. 102:25-27:
Of old Thou didst found the earth; and the heavens are the work of Thy hands. Even they will per-
ish, but Thou dost endure; And all of them will wear out like a garment; like clothing Thou wilt change
them, and they will be changed. But Thou art the same, and Thy years will not come to an end.
CHAPTER 12: Ex. 34:6-7:
Then the LORD passed by in front of him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD God, com-
passionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; who keeps
lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means
leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchil-
dren to the third and fourth generations.”
CHAPTER 13: Ps. 73:25-26:
Whom have I in heaven but Thee? And besides Thee, I desire nothing on earth. My flesh and my
heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
CHAPTER 14: Matt. 3:16- 17:
And after being baptized, Jesus went up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens
were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove, and coming upon Him, and behold,
a voice out of the heavens, saying, “This is M/beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased.”
CHAPTER 15: Neh. 9:6:
Thou alone art the LORD. Thou hast made the heavens, the heaven of heavens with all their host,
the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. Thou dost give life to all of them and
the heavenly host bows down before Thee.
CHAPTER 16: Rom. 8:28:
And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to
those who are called according to His purpose.
CHAPTER 17: Heb. 2:3-4:
How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? After it was at the first spoken through the
Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard, God also bearing witness with them, both by signs
and wonders and by various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit according to His own will.
CHAPTER 18: Heb. 4:14- 16:
Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God,
let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our
weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore
draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and may find grace to
help in time of need.
CHAPTER 19: Rev. 5:1 1 - 12:
And I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne and the living creatures
and the elders; and the number of them was myriads of myriads, and thousands of thousands, say-
APPENDIX 2 * SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGES
1217
ing with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom
and might and honor and glory and blessing.”
CHAPTER 20: James 4:7-8:
Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and
He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-
minded.
CHAPTER 21: Gen. 1:26-27:
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule
over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and
over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” And God created man in His own image, in the
image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
CHAPTER 22: Col. 3:18-19:
Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and do
not be embittered against them.
CHAPTER 23: 2 Cor. 7:1:
Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh
and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.
CHAPTER 24: Ps. 51:1 -4:
Be gracious to me, O God, according to Thy lovingkindness; according to the greatness of Thy
compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me
from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against Thee, Thee only,
I have sinned, and done what is evil in Thy sight, so that Thou art justified when Thou dost speak,
and blameless when Thou dost judge.
CHAPTER 25: Heb. 8:10:
For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I
will put my laws into their minds, and I will write them upon their hearts. And I will be their God,
and they shall be My people.
CHAPTER 26: John 1:14:
And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only
begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
CHAPTER 27: Rom. 3:23-26:
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through
the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood
through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He
passed over the sins previously committed; for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the
present time, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
CHAPTER 28: 1 Cor. 15:20-23:
But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep. For since
by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1218
also in Christ all shall be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, after that
those who are Christ’s at His coming.
CHAPTER 29: 1 Peter 2:9-10:
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession,
that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvel-
ous light; for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received
mercy, but now you have received mercy.
CHAPTER 30: Rom. 8:12-14:
So then brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh — for if
you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the
deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.
CHAPTER 31: Luke 6:35-36:
But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will
be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men.
Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
CHAPTER 32: Eph. 1:3-6:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual
blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the
world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as
sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of
the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.
CHAPTER 33: Matt. 1 1:28-30:
Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon
you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and You shall find rest for your souls.
For My yoke is easy, and My load is light.
CHAPTER 34: John 3:5-8:
Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot
enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the
Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it
wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so
is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
CHAPTER 35: John 3:16:
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him
should not perish, but have eternal life.
CHAPTER 36: Rom. 3:27-28:
Where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith.
For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law.
CHAPTER 37: Rom. 8:14-17:
For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you have not received
APPENDIX 2 • SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGES
1219
a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which
we cry out, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of
God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow-heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with
Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him.
CHAPTER 38: Rom. 6:1 1 - 14:
Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not
let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the
members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as
those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall
not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace.
CHAPTER 39: 1 Cor. 12:12-13:
For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though
they are many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body,
whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.
CHAPTER 40: John 10:27-28:
My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them;
and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of My hand.
CHAPTER 41: Phil. 1:20-24:
According to my earnest expectation and hope, that I shall not be put to shame in anything, but
that with all boldness, Christ shall even now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or
by death. For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I am to live on in the flesh, this will
mean fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which to choose. But I am hard pressed from both
directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better; yet to remain
on in the flesh is more necessary for your sake.
CHAPTER 42: 1 Cor. 15:42-44:
So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable
body; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is
sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual
body.
CHAPTER 43: Gal. 2:20:
I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and
the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered
Himself up for me.
CHAPTER 44: Eph. 4:1 1 - 13:
And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pas-
tors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the
body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God,
to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.
CHAPTER 45: Eph. 4:14- 16:
As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves, and carried about by
every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1220
truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him, who is the head, even Christ, from whom
the whole body, being fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies, according to the
proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself
in love.
CHAPTER 46: 2 Cor. 10:3-4:
For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our
warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.
CHAPTER 47: 1 Peter 5:1 -4:
Therefore, I exhort the elders among you, as your fellow-elder and witness of the sufferings of
Christ, and a partaker also of the glory that is to be revealed, shepherd the flock of God among you,
not under compulsion, but voluntarily, according to the will of God; and not for sordid gain, but
with eagerness; nor yet as lording it over those allotted to your charge, but proving to be examples
to the flock. And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.
CHAPTER 48: Acts 2:41-42:
So then, those who had received his word were baptized; and there were added that day about
three thousand souls. And they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and
to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.
CHAPTER 49: Rom. 6:3-4:
Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized
into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that
as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in new-
ness of life.
CHAPTER 50: 1 Cor. 11:23-26:
For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night
in which He was betrayed took bread; and when he had given thanks, He broke it, and said, “This
is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same way the cup also, after
supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in
remembrance of Me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s
death until He comes.
CHAPTER 51: Rev. 4:11:
Worthy art Thou, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for Thou didst
create all things, and because of Thy will they existed, and were created.
CHAPTER 52: 1 Peter 4:10-11:
As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another, as good stewards of the
manifold grace of God. Whoever speaks, let him speak, as it were, the utterances of God; whoever
serves, let him do so as by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified
through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
CHAPTER 53: 1 Cor. 12:7-11:
But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given
the word of wisdom through the Spirit, and to another the word of knowledge according to the same
APPENDIX 2 • SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGES
1221
Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit, and to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, and to
another the effecting of miracles, and to another prophecy, and to another the distinguishing of
spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. But one and
the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He wills.
CHAPTER 54: 1 Thess. 4:15-18:
For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, and remain until the com-
ing of the Lord, shall not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend
from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God; and the
dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with
them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore
comfort one another with these words.
CHAPTER 55: Rev. 20:4-6:
And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given to them. And I saw the
souls of those who had been beheaded because of the testimony of Jesus and because of the word of
God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received the mark upon
their forehead and upon their hand; and they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand
years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were completed. This is the
first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who has a part in the first resurrection; over these the
second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with Him
for a thousand years.
CHAPTER 56: Rev. 20:1 1 - 13:
And I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven
fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing
before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life;
and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds.
And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in
them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds.
CHAPTER 57: Rev. 21:3-4:
And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men,
and He shall dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be among
them, and He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there shall no longer be any death;
there shall no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.”
Appendix
CONTEMPORARY WORSHIP
SONGS CLASSIFIED BY
CHAPTER
Each chapter in this book includes a hymn related to the subject treated in the chapter. In addi-
tion, I was able to find contemporary worship songs that correspond to the subjects of twenty-six of
the fifty-seven chapters in the book. I have listed the songs here according to chapter and have given
the first line and the location in the songbook Praise Chorus Book (Nashville: Maranatha Music,
1990). (Perhaps this list may serve as an encouragement to song writers to compose contemporary
worship songs related to the subjects of the other chapters of the book.)
Chapter
First Line of Song
7
Seek ye first the kingdom of God
10
Father, we love you, we worship and adore you
11
For Thou, O Lord, art high (I exalt Thee)
12 or 13
Great is the Lord, he is holy and just
12 or 13
I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever
12 or 13
Lord, the light of Your love is shining
12 or 13
0 Lord, You’re beautiful
12 or 13
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases
12 or 13
Thy loving kindness is better than life
14
Holy holy; holy holy
15
Thou art worthy
18
Seek ye first the kingdom of God
20
Mighty Warrior, dressed for battle
21
For Thou, 0 Lord, art high (I exalt Thee)
21
In my life, Lord, be glorified
24
Create in me a clean heart, O God
24
Search me, O God, and know my heart today
26
All hail, King Jesus
26
Isn’t he beautiful?
26
Jesus, name above all names
26
Open our eyes, Lord, we want to see Jesus
1222
APPENDIX 3 • CONTEMPORARY WORSHIP SONGS
1223
26
26
26
27
28
28
28
29
30
30
33
35
37
38
38
38
45
45
46
48
51
51
51
51
51
51
51
51
51
51
54
54
57
57
Praise the name of Jesus
Son of God, this is our praise song
There is a Redeemer
There is a Redeemer
All hail, King Jesus
All heaven declares the glory of the risen Lord
He is Lord, He is Lord
Come and praise Him, royal priesthood
Not by might, nor by power
Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me
God forgave my sin in Jesus’ name
O let the Son of God enfold you
Behold, what manner of love
Change my heart, O God
Lord, the light of Your love is shining
0 let the Son of God enfold you
Bind us together, Lord
Here we are, gathered together as a family
In heavenly armor we’ll enter the land
This is holy ground
As the deer panteth for the water
Bless the Lord, O my soul
For Thou, O Lord, art high (I exalt Thee)
Hosanna, Hosanna
1 love you, Lord, and I lift my voice
Let our praise to You be as incense
Thou art worthy, Great Jehovah
We bring the sacrifice of praise
We will glorify the King of kings
When I look into your holiness
All hail, King Jesus
Majesty, worship His majesty!
All hail, King Jesus
Therefore the redeemed of the Lord shall return
Appendix
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
OF EVANGELICAL SYSTEMATIC
THEOLOGIES
This bibliography lists most of the major evangelical systematic theologies available in English
and a few shorter guides to Christian doctrine. With the exception of the two Roman Catholic
theologies (by McBrien and Ott) which are included because I have cross-referenced them at the
end of each chapter, all of the authors on this list fall generally within a “conservative evangelical”
theological position. 1
In the appendix following this bibliography I have added a master list of the thirty-four Protes-
tant and two Roman Catholic theologies which I cross-referenced at the end of each chapter.
Arminius, James. The Writings of James Arminius. 3 vols. Vols. 1 and 2 trans. by James Nichols. Vol. 3
translated by W. R. Bagnell. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1956.
Arminius (1560- 1609) was a Reformed pastor in Amsterdam and later professor of theol-
ogy at the University of Leyden. His disagreement with some of the central tenets of Calvinism
led to a great controversy in the Netherlands which continued long after his death. His ideas
became the foundation of a system of thought now known as Arminianism, which continues
today in conservative Wesleyan and Methodist churches, and in many other Protestant groups.
This collection of writings, assembled after his death, is not strictly organized as a systematic
theology, but does contain discussions of most important theological topics.
Bavinck, Herman. The Doctrine of God. Trans, by William Hendriksen. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1951.
Reprint edition: Carlisle, Pa.: Banner of Truth, 1977.
. Our Reasonable Faith. Trans, by Henry Zylstra. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956. Reprint edition:
Grand Rapids: Baker, 1977.
. The Philosophy of Revelation. Trans, by Geerhardus Vos, Nikolas Steffens, and Henry Dosker.
Reprint edition Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979. First published 1909 by Longmans, Green, and Co.
Bavinck (1854-1921) was a Dutch theologian and one of this century’s most brilliant
l A very helpful and more broadly-based annotated bibliog- to Modern Theologians” on pp. 39-55. In addition, valuable brief
raphy, including notes on works from several prominent liberal notes on dozens of important theologians from all theological tra-
scholars, may be found in John Jefferson Davis, Theology Primer ditions may be found in Millard Erickson, Concise Dictionary of
(Grand Rapids: Baker, 1981), pp. 74— 79; see also his “Brief Guide Christian Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1986).
1224
APPENDIX 4 • ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
1225
spokesmen for a Reformed theological position. His great four-volume systematic theology,
Gereformeerde Dogmatiek , still awaits translation into English (only volume 2, The Doctrine of
Gody has been translated).
Berkhof, Louis. Introduction to Systematic Theology. Reprint edition: Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979. First
published by Eerdmans, 1932.
. Systematic Theology. Fourth edition, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1939.
The standard Reformed textbook for systematic theology by a former president of Calvin
Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan. This book is a great treasure-house of information and
analysis, and is probably the most useful one-volume systematic theology available from any
theological perspective. Berkhof lived from 1873 to 1957.
Berkouwer, G. C. Studies in Dogmatics. 14 vols. (1952-1976).
. The Church. Trans, by James E. Davidson. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976.
. Divine Election. Trans, by Hugo Bekker. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1960.
. Faith and Justification. Trans, by Lewis B. Smedes. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1954.
. Faith and Perseverance. Trans, by Robert D. Knudsen. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1958.
. Faith and Sanctification. Trans, by John Vriend. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1952.
. General Revelation. (No translator named.) Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1955.
. Man: The Image of God. Trans, by Dirk W. Jellma. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1962.
. Holy Scripture. Trans, and edited by Jack B. Rogers. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975.
. The Person of Christ. Trans, by John Vriend. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1954.
. The Providence of God. Trans, by Louis B. Smedes. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1952.
. The Return of Christ. Trans, by James Van Oosterom. Ed. by Marlin J. Van Elderen. Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972.
. The Sacraments. Trans, by Hugo Bekker. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1969.
. Sin. Trans, by Philip C. Holtrop. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971.
. The Work of Christ. Trans, by Cornelius Lambregtse. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965.
Major contemporary studies by a Reformed theologian who was professor of systematic
theology at the Free University of Amsterdam.
Bloesch, Donald G. Essentials of Evangelical Theology. 2 vols.. New York: Harper & Row, 1978-79.
A work by a contemporary theologian who is broadly in the Reformed tradition, but much
less clear on the doctrines of election and the authority of Scripture, for example, than other
writers classified as “Reformed” in this bibliography. (More recentiy, Bloesch has begun to pub-
lish a multi- volume systematic theology.)
Boice, James Montgomery. Foundations of the Christian Faith. Revised one-volume edition. Downers
Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press, 1986.
A recent Reformed guide to systematic theology written by the theologian-pastor of Tenth
Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia. This work is written in a popular, readable style, with help-
ful application of doctrines to life. It was previously published in four separate volumes: The
Sovereign God (1978), God the Redeemer (1978) , Awakening to God (1979), and God and History
(1981).
Boyce, James Pettigru. Abstract of Systematic Theology. Reprint edition: Christian Gospel Foundation,
n.d. First published 1887.
A Baptist systematic theology that is also Reformed in doctrinal orientation by a former
president and professor of systematic theology in the Southern Baptist Seminary, Louisville,
Kentucky. Boyce lived from 1827 to 1888.
Buswell, James Oliver, Jr. A Systematic Theology of the Christian Religion. 2 vols. Grand Rapids: Zonder-
van, 1962-63.
A Reformed systematic theology by the former dean of the graduate faculty at Covenant
College and Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1226
Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion. 2 vols. Ed. by John T. McNeill. Trans, and indexed by
Ford Lewis Battles. The Library of Christian Classics, Vols. 20-21. Philadelphia: Westminster,
1960. Trans, from the 1559 text and collated with earlier versions.
This is the best available English translation of Calvins systematic exposition of the Chris-
tian faith. Calvin (1509-64) was a French reformer who became the greatest theologian of the
Reformation and, according to many estimates, the greatest theologian in the history of the
church. Reformed in doctrinal perspective.
Carter, Charles W„ ed. A Contemporary Wesleyan Theology: Biblical , Systematic , and Practical. 2 vols.
Grand Rapids: Francis Asbury Press (Zondervan), 1983.
This is a collection of 24 essays on major doctrinal themes by several scholars representing
a wide range of conservative Wesleyan denominations and institutions. The set also includes
some essays on practical theology and ethics. Charles Carter, who contributed four of the
chapters, is Professor of Religion and Missions at Marion College, Marion, Indiana. The advi-
sory committee for the volumes includes representatives of United Methodist, Free Methodist,
Church of the Nazarene, Missionary Church, Salvation Army, Wesleyan Church, and other
groups.
Chafer, Lewis Sperry. Systematic Theology. 1 vols. plus index vol. Dallas: Dallas Seminary Press,
1947-48.
. Systematic Theology: Abridged edition. 2 vols. Ed. by John F. Walvoord, Donald K. Campbell,
and Roy B. Zuck. Wheaton: Victor, 1988.
Chafer (1871-1952) was the first president of Dallas Theological Seminary. The seven-
volume edition is the most extensive dispensational systematic theology ever written. The two
volume edition is a condensation of the earlier work.
Cottrell, Jack. What the Bible Says About God the Creator. Joplin, Mo.: College Press, 1983.
. What the Bible Says About God the Redeemer. Joplin, Mo.: College Press, 1987.
Cottrell is an articulate and thoughtful Arminian theologian who teaches at Cincinnati Bible
Seminary (Christian Church/Churches of Christ). I have indexed these volumes as 1 ( God the
Creator ), 2 ( God the Ruler), and 3 (God the Redeemer).
. What the Bible Says About God the Ruler. Joplin, Mo.: College Press, 1984.
Dabney, Robert L. Discussions: Evangelical and Theological. London: Banner of Truth, 1967. Reprint
of 1890 edition.
. Systematic Theology. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1985. Reprint of 1878 edition.
A Southern Presbyterian who represented a strongly Reformed position, Dabney (1820-98)
was professor of theology at Union Seminary in Virginia. He was also chaplain and later chief
of staff for General Stonewall Jackson during the American Civil War.
Edwards, Jonathan. The Works of Jonathan Edwards. 2 vols. Revised and corrected by Edward Hickman.
Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1974. Reprint of 1834 edition.
A 25-volume set of Edwards’s works has been published by Yale University Press
(1957-2006).
Edwards (1703-1758) was a pastor in Northampton, Massachusetts, and, for one month
before his death from a smallpox injection, president of Princeton. Some consider him the
greatest American philosopher-theologian. He did not write an entire systematic theology, but
his works contain writings on most theological topics. He is strongly Reformed in outlook, and
combines profound thought with warm-hearted devotion to Christ.
Erickson, Millard. Christian Theology. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1985.
A clear and very thorough recent textbook in systematic theology from a Baptist perspec-
tive. Erickson, who was Academic Dean at Bethel Theological Seminary in St. Paul, Minn., now
teaches at Southwestern Baptist Seminary in Ft. Worth, Texas. This book includes interaction
with all the major trends in contemporary nonevangelical theology, as well as helpful material
for personal application.
APPENDIX 4 • ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
1227
Finney, Charles G. Finney's Lectures on Systematic Theology. Ed. by J. H. Fairchild. Grand Rapids: Eerd-
mans, 1953. Reprint of 1878 edition.
Finney (1792- 1875) was a revivalist and president of Oberlin College 1851-66. Not rep-
resentative of any one theological position, but articulated some strong Arminian arguments.
Emphasis on personal holiness and perfectionism. Not really a complete systematic theology,
because many topics are not covered.
Garret, James Leo. Systematic Theology: Biblical Historical Evangelical 2 vols. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1990, 1995.
Garret was a professor of theology at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is Baptis-
tic and evangelical in his convictions, yet gives much more space to representing different positions
clearly than to arguing for his own position. With 1,530 total pages, these volumes are an amaz-
ingly rich resource for historical, bibliographical, and biblical data on each doctrine treated.
Gill, John. Complete Body of Doctrinal and Practical Divinity. 2 vols. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1978. First
published as A Body of Doctrinal Divinity (1767) and A Body of Practical Divinity (1770).
Gill (1697-1771) was a highly influential Baptist pastor, a prolific writer, and a respected
theologian in 18th-century England. He was also Reformed (or Calvinistic) in his view of God’s
sovereignty. His book, The Cause of God and Truth (1735-38; reprinted Grand Rapids: Baker,
1981) is one of the most thorough defenses of Calvinistic theology ever written.
Henry, Carl F. H. God t Revelation , and Authority. 6 vols. Waco, Tex.: Word, 1976-83.
A major work containing detailed interaction with hundreds of other scholarly positions.
Henry is a leading evangelical theologian with great strengths especially in the areas of apolo-
getics and philosophical theology.
Heppe, Heinrich. Reformed Dogmatics: Set Out and Illustrated From the Sources. Rev. and ed. by Ernst
Bizer. Trans, by G. T. Thompson. Reprint edition. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1978. First published
1861. English translation first published 1950.
Heppe (1820-79) was a German scholar who collected and quoted extensively from many
earlier Reformed theologians. Because the quotations are arranged according to the topics of
systematic theology, this book is a valuable sourcebook.
Hodge, Charles. Systematic Theology. 3 vols. Reprint edition: Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970. First
published 1871-73.
A major Reformed systematic theology which is still widely used today. Hodge (1797- 1878)
was professor of systematic theology at Princeton Theological Seminary.
Lewis, Gordon R., and Bruce Demarest. Integrative Theology. 3 vols. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1987-94.
Lewis and Demarest are both professors of systematic theology at Denver Seminary in Colo-
rado (a Conservative Baptist seminary). This is an excellent contemporary work that integrates
historical, biblical, apologetic, and practical material with systematic theology.
Litton, Edward Arthur. Introduction to Dogmatic Theology. New edition, ed. by Philip E. Hughes. Lon-
don: James Clarke, 1960. First published 1882-92.
A standard Anglican (or Episcopalian) systematic theology by an evangelical British theo-
logian of the 19th century. Litton lived from 1813 to 1897.
McBrien, Richard P. Catholicism. 2 vols. Minneapolis: Winston Press, 1980.
A responsible and extensive explanation of Catholic teachings as they have been affected by
the period since Vatican II. Contains bibliographies with each chapter.
Miley, John. Systematic Theology. 2 vols. Library of Biblical and Theological Literature, Vols. 5-6. New
York: Eaton and Mains, 1892-94. Reprint: Peabody, Mass.: Hendrikson, 1989.
This is probably the most scholarly and extensive Arminian systematic theology ever writ-
ten. Miley was a professor at Drew Theological Seminary, Madison, New Jersey.
Milne, Bruce. Know the Truth. Leicester: InterVarsity Press, 1982.
A thoughtful, clearly- written evangelical guide to Christian doctrine which has found wide use
among students. Milne lectured in biblical and historical theology at Spurgeon’s College, London.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1228
Mueller, John Theodore. Christian Dogmatics. St. Louis: Concordia, 1934.
A condensation and translation of Francis Pieper’s Christliche Dogmatik (Christian Dog-
matics) by a professor of systematic theology at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, a Missouri
Synod Lutheran seminary. An excellent statement of conservative Lutheran theology.
Mullins, Edgar Young. The Christian Religion in Its Doctrinal Expression. Philadelphia: Judson Press,
1917.
An evangelical systematic theology by a former president of the Southern Baptist Seminary
in Louisville, Kentucky. Mullins lived from 1860 to 1928.
Murray, John. Collected Writings of John Murray. 4 vols. Carlisle, Pa.: Banner of Truth, 1976-82.
. The Imputation of Adam's Sin. Reprint edition: Nutley, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1977.
First published Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959.
. Principles of Conduct. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1957.
. Redemption Accomplished and Applied. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1955.
Murray (1898-1975) was professor of systematic theology at Westminster Seminary in
Philadelphia and one of the most articulate modern defenders of Reformed theology.
Oden, Thomas. The Living God. Systematic Theology, Vol. 1. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987.
Oden is a Methodist theologian who has moved from his previous liberal theological con-
victions to a conservative evangelical position. He interacts extensively with theologians from
the early history of the church.
Olson, Arnold T. This We Believe: The Background and Exposition of the Doctrinal Statement of The
Evangelical Free Church of America. Minneapolis, Minn.: Free Church Publications, 1961.
A guide to Christian doctrine based on the widely-used statement of faith of the Evangelical
Free Church of America. Olson was the first president of the Evangelical Free Church.
Ott, Ludwig. Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma. Ed. by James Canon Bastible. Trans, by Patrick Lynch.
St Louis: Herder, 1955. First published in German in 1952.
A standard textbook of traditional Roman Catholic theology.
Packer, J. I. Concise Theology: A Guide to Historic Christian Beliefs. Wheaton, 111.: Tyndale House, 1993.
This readable volume lives up to its name, because Packer, an Anglican with strong Reformed
convictions, is a master of saying much in a few words. He is a professor of theology at Regent
College in Vancouver, British Columbia, and one of the most widely- respected evangelical theo-
logians today.
Pieper, Francis. Christian Dogmatics. 4 vols. Trans, by Theodore Engelder et al. St. Louis: Concordia,
1950-57. First published in German, 1917-24.
This is standard systematic theology of conservative Lutheranism. Pieper (1852-1931) was
a Missouri Synod theologian and professor and president of Concordia Seminary in St. Louis.
Pope, William Burt. A Compendium of Christian Theology. 2d ed. 3 vols. New York: Phillips and Hunt,
n.d.
This work, first published in 1875-76, is one of the greatest systematic theologies written
from a Wesleyan or Arminian perspective.
Purkiser, W. T., ed. Exploring our Christian Faith. Kansas City, Mo.: Beacon Hill Press, 1960.
A more popular Arminian systematic theology with contributions from several authors.
Ryrie, Charles. Basic Theology. Wheaton, 111.: Victor, 1986.
A very clearly written introduction to systematic theology from a dispensationalist perspec-
tive, by a former professor of systematic theology at Dallas Theological Seminary.
Shedd, William G. T. Dogmatic Theology. 3 vols. in 4. Reprint edition: Minneapolis: Klock and Klock,
1979. Originally published by Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1889.
A useful Reformed systematic theology by a former professor at Union Theological Semi-
nary in New York. (Note that the entire range of systematic theology is treated in Vols. I and II,
and that Vol. Ill contains supplementary material for every part of Vols. I and II. Vol. Ill is not
well indexed.) Shedd lived from 1820 to 1894.
APPENDIX 4 * ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
1229
Strong, Augustus H. Systematic Theology. Valley Forge, Pa.: Judson Press, 1907.
Strong (1836-1921) was president and professor of theology at Rochester Theological
Seminary, and, from 1905 to 1910, was the first president of the Northern Baptist Convention.
This text was widely used in Baptist circles for most of the twentieth century, until it was largely
replaced by Millard Erickson’s Christian Theology (1983-85).
Thiessen, Henry Clarence. Introductory Lectures in Systematic Theology. Rev. by Vernon D. Doerksen.
Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977. First published 1949.
An evangelical systematic theology textbook by a former chairman of the faculty of the
graduate school at Wheaton College. Thiessen is Baptistic and Dispensational in theological
perspective.
Thomas, W. H. Griffith. The Principles of Theology: An Introduction to the Thirty-Nine Articles. Fifth
edition, revised. London: Church Book Room Press, 1956. (First published 1930.)
Although this book is structured around the Anglican Thirty-Nine Articles, it functions
well as a thoughtful introductory text in Christian doctrine even for those outside the Angli-
can tradition. It has been widely used in British evangelical circles for many years. Thomas
(1861-1924) was principal of Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, and then professor of Old Testament at
Wycliffe College, Toronto. He also played a role in founding Dallas Seminary just before his
death.
Thornwell, James Henley. The Collected Writings of James Henley Thornwell. 4 vols. Ed. by John B.
Adger. New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1871-73. Reprint edition: Edinburgh and Car-
lisle, Pa.: Banner of Truth, 1974.
Thornwell (1812-62) was a Reformed theologian who was professor of theology in the
Presbyterian Theological Seminary at Columbia, South Carolina.
Turretin, Francis. Institutes ofElenctic Theology. 3 vols. Trans, by George Musgrave Giger. Ed. by James
T. Dennison, Jr. Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1992-97.
Turretin (1623-87) taught theology for over thirty years at the Academy in Geneva. His
work, written in Latin, is said to be one of the fullest expressions of Calvinistic theology ever
published. It was reprinted (in Latin) in 1847 and widely used as a theological textbook for
American Presbyterians, most notably by Charles Hodge at Princeton. George Giger translated
Turretin’s Institutes in the mid-nineteenth century, but the translation lay unpublished for over
a century. James Dennison of Westminster Seminary has done extensive editorial work to make
this great theology text finally available to English readers.
Van Til, Cornelius. In Defense of the Faith, Vol. 5: An Introduction to Systematic Theology. N.p.: Presby-
terian and Reformed, 1976.
This volume contains Van Til’s discussions of the nature of systematic theology, of revela-
tion, and of the doctrine of God. Van Til was a Reformed theologian and philosopher who
taught at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia and is best known for his “presup-
positional” system of apologetics.
Warfield, Benjamin B. Biblical and Theological Studies. Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed,
1976.
. Christology and Criticism. London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1929.
• The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible. Ed. by Samuel G. Craig. Introduction by Cornelius
Van Til. Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1967.
. The Lord of Glory. New York: American Tract Society, 1907.
. Perfectionism . Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1958.
A condensation of Warfield’s earlier 2-vol. work on perfectionism published by OUP, omit-
ting extensive interaction with particular German theologians.
. The Person and Work of Christ. Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1950.
Contains reprints of 2 articles from ST, 5 from BD, 6 from CC, and 1 other article.
. The Plan of Salvation. Rev. ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1942.
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1230
. Selected Shorter Writings of Benjamin B. Warfield. 2 vols. Nuttley, N.J.: Presbyterian and
Reformed, 1970-73.
. Studies in Theology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1932.
Warfield (1851-1921) was a Reformed theologian who taught New Testament and then
systematic theology at Princeton Theological Seminary from 1887-1921. In the estimate of
many people, he was one of the greatest American theologians.
Watson, Richard. Theological Institutes. 2 vols. New York: G. Lane and P. Sandford, 1843. First published
1823.
This is the earliest systematic theology by a Methodist. Watson (1781-1833) was Arminian
in theological perspective.
Wiley, H. Orton. Christian Theology. Three vols. Kansas City, Mo.: Nazarene Publishing House,
1940-43.
A recent Arminian systematic theology by a respected theologian in the Church of the Naza-
rene. Probably the best Arminian systematic theology published in the twentieth century, but
it does not match Miley in scholarly depth.
Williams, J. Rodman. Renewal Theology: Systematic Theology From a Charismatic Perspective. 3 vols.
Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1988-92.
Williams is a charismatic scholar who teaches at Regent University (formerly CBN Univer-
sity). This clearly written theology interacts extensively with the biblical text and with other
literature. It is the first published from an explicitly charismatic perspective.
Appendix
MASTER LIST OF SYSTEMATIC
THEOLOGIES INDEXED AT THE
END OF EACH CHAPTER
Full bibliographical data for these works maybe found in the bibliography in Appendix 4. If one
of these works is not listed at the end of a chapter, it means that I was unable to find a treatment of
that chapter’s topic in that specific work.
SECTIONS IN EVANGELICAL SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGIES
1. Anglican (Episcopalian)
1882-92 Litton
1930 Thomas
2. Arminian (Wesleyan or Methodist)
1847 Finney
1875-76 Pope
1892-94 Miley
1940 Wiley
1960 Purkiser
1983 Carter
1983- Cottrell
1987-90 Oden
3. Baptist
1767 Gill
1887 Boyce
1907 Strong
1917 Mullins
1976-83 Henry
1983-85 Erickson
1987-94 Lewis/Demarest
4. Dispensational
1947 Chafer
1949 Thiessen
1986 Ryrie
1231
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1232
5. Lutheran
1917-24
Pieper
1934
Mueller
Reformed (or Presbyterian)
1559
Calvin
1724-58
Edwards
1861
Heppe
1871-73
Hodge
1878
Dabney
1887-1921
Warfield
1889
Shedd
1909
Bavinck
1937-66
Murray
1938
Berkhof
1962
Buswell
7. Renewal (or charismatic/Pentecostal)
1988-92 Williams
SECTIONS IN REPRESENTATIVE ROMAN CATHOLIC
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGIES
1. Roman Catholic: Traditional
1955 Ott
2. Roman Catholic: Post-Vatican II
1980 McBrien
Appendix
THE MONOGENES
CONTROVERSY: "ONLY” OR
“ONLY BEGOTTEN”?
(See chapter 14, “ God in Three Persons: The Trinity,” especially C.2.a, “ TheArian Controversy,” on
pages 243-44, See also the Nicene Creed on page 1169, )
The controversy over the term “only begotten” was unnecessary because it was based on a mis-
understanding of the meaning of the Greek word monogene (used of Jesus in John 1:14, 18; 3:16, 18;
and 1 John 4:9).
For many years it was thought to be derived from two Greek terms: mono, meaning “only,” and
gennao , meaning “beget” or “bear.” Even the received version of the Nicene Creed understands it
that way, since the explanatory phrases “ begotten of the Father before all worlds” and “ begotten , not
made” both use the verb gennao (beget) to explain monogenes. But linguistic study in the twentieth
century has shown that the second half of the word is not closely related to the verb gennao (beget,
bear), but rather to the term genos (class, kind). Thus the word means rather the “one-of-a-kind”
Son or the “unique” Son. (See BAGD , 527; D. Moody, “The Translation of John 3:16 in the Revised
Standard Version, JBL 72 [1953], 213—19.) The idea of “only-begotten” in Greek would have been,
not monogenes , but monogennetos. However, it is not impossible that the Nicene fathers in A.D. 325
and 381 would have understood monogenes to include the idea of “begetting,” since the word is used
several times elsewhere to refer to someone who is an “only” child, and the idea of begetting could
commonly be assumed to be present.
The fact that the word does not mean “the only son that someone has begotten” can be con-
firmed by noticing its use in Hebrews 11:17, where Isaac is called Abraham’s monogenes — but cer-
tainly Isaac was not the only son Abraham had begotten, for he had also begotten Ishmael. The
term there means rather that Isaac was Abraham’s “unique” son, that there was none other like
him. (The word elsewhere means “unique” with no idea of begetting in view, in the LXX in Psalms
21 [22] :20; 34 [35] : 17; Wisdom 7:22; 1 Clement 25:2.) Thus the NIV translates John 3:16, “he gave
his one and only Son,” and the NASB margin reads “or, unique , only one of His kind.” The RSV
translates, he gave his only Son.” All of these versions have rightly omitted any idea of “begetting”
from the translation.
1233
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1234
It is reassuring, however, to see that even though the early church had a misunderstanding of
one biblical word, the rest of Scripture came to the defense of doctrinal purity and prevented the
church from falling into the error of Arianism (although the struggle consumed most of the fourth
century A.D.).
If the phrases “begotten of the Father before all worlds” and “begotten, not made” were not in the
Nicene Creed, the phrase would only be of historical interest to us now, and there would be no need
to talk of any doctrine of the “eternal begetting of the Son.” But since the phrase remains in a creed
that is still commonly used, we perpetuate the unfortunate necessity of having to explain to every
new generation of Christians that “begotten of the Father” has nothing to do with any other Eng-
lish sense of the word beget. It would seem more helpful if the language of “eternal begetting of the
Son” (also called the “eternal generation of the Son”) were not retained in any modern theological
formulations. Similarly, to refer to Jesus as Gods “only begotten” Son — language that derives from
the King James translation — seems to be more confusing than helpful. What is needed is simply
that we insist on eternal personal differences in the relationship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
and that the Son eternally relates to the Father as a son does to his father.
(The fact that Jesus is said to be “born of God” in 1 John 5:18 is probably not a reference to an
eternal relationship, but rather refers to the incarnation when Christ was born as a man; compare
Acts 13:33; Heb. 1:5.)
Finally, in previous discussions of what this “eternal begetting” might have meant, it has been
suggested that the Father has eternally been in some sense the source of the distinctions in role
among the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (e.g., Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology , 93-94). So long as
we do not assume that these personal distinctions had a beginning at some point in time, nothing
in Scripture would seem to contradict this idea, but nothing in Scripture would indicate that we
should affirm it, either. Perhaps there is no meaningful sense in which we should speak about any
one of the persons being a “source” of these personal distinctions, for they have always existed and
are essential to the nature of God himself.
GLOSSARY
BY JEFF PURSWELL
(Numbers in parentheses at the end of each entry refer to chapters and sections in this book.)
absolute authority: The highest authority in one’s life; an authority that cannot be disproved by
appeal to any higher authority. (4A.4)
accommodation: The theory that the biblical writers at times incidentally affirmed falsehoods
believed by the people of their time so as not to obscure the larger points they were trying to
make. (5B.4)
active obedience: A term referring to Christ’s perfect obedience to God during his earthly life that
earned the righteousness that God credits to those who place their faith in Christ. (27C.1)
adoption: An act of God whereby he makes us members of his family. (37A)
adoptionism: The false teaching that Jesus lived as an ordinary man until his baptism, at which
time God “adopted” him as his “Son” and conferred on him supernatural powers; this teaching
thus denies Jesus’ preexistence and divine nature. (14C.2.c)
age of accountability: The term used by some theologians to indicate a point in a person’s life before
which (according to their view) he is not held responsible for sin and is not counted guilty before
God. (24D.3)
amillennialism: The view that there will be no literal thousand-year bodily reign of Christ on earth
prior to the final judgment and the eternal state; on this view, scriptural references to the mil-
lennium in Revelation 20 actually describe the present church age. (55A.1)
angel: A created, spiritual being with moral judgment and high intelligence, but without a physical
body. (19A)
Angel of the Lord: A form that God took on at various times in Scripture in order to appear to
human beings. (19A.11)
annihilationism: The teaching that after death unbelievers suffer the penalty of God’s wrath for a
time, and then are “annihilated,” or destroyed, so that they no longer exist. Some forms of this
teaching hold that annihilation occurs immediately upon death. (41C.2)
anthropomorphic language: Language that speaks of God in human terms. (11A.2)
antichrist: The “man of lawlessness” who will appear prior to the second coming of Christ and will
cause great suffering and persecution, only to be destroyed by Jesus. The term is also used to
describe other figures who embody such an opposition to Christ and are precursors of the final
antichrist. (54F.3.e)
Apocrypha: The collection of books included in the canon of Scripture by the Roman Catholic
Church but not included in the canon by Protestants (from the Greek word apocrypha , “things
that are hidden”). (3A)
Apollinarianism: The fourth-century heresy which held that Christ had a human body but not a
human mind or spirit, and that the mind and spirit of Christ were from the divine nature of the
Son of God. (26C.l.a)
1235
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1236
apologetics: The discipline that seeks to provide a defense of the truthfulness of the Christian faith
for the purpose of convincing unbelievers. (1A.1)
apostle: A recognized office of the early church. Apostles are in several ways the New Testament
counterpart to the Old Testament prophet and as such had the authority to write words of
Scripture. (47A.1)
archangel: An angel with authority over other angels. (19A.4)
Arianism: The erroneous doctrine that denies the full deity of the Jesus Christ and the Holy
Spirit. (14C.2.a)
Arminianism: A theological tradition that seeks to preserve the free choices of human beings and
denies God’s providential control over the details of all events. (16G)
ascension: The rising of Jesus from the earth into heaven forty days after his resurrection.
(28B.1)
asceticism: An approach to living that renounces the comforts of the material world. (15D)
aseity: Another name for the attribute of God’s independence or self-existence. (11B.1)
assurance of salvation: The internal sense we may have based upon certain evidences in our
lives that we are truly “born again” and will persevere as Christians until the end of our lives.
(40D)
atonement: The work Christ did in his life and death to earn our salvation. (27)
attributes of being: Aspects of God’s character that describe his essential mode of
existence. (12 A)
attributes of purpose: Aspects of God’s character that pertain to making and carrying out deci-
sions. (13D)
authority of Scripture: The idea that all the words in Scripture are God’s in such a way that to
disbelieve or disobey any word of Scripture is to disbelieve or disobey God. (4)
autograph: The original copy of a biblical document (from auto-, “self,” and graph, “writing”).
(5B.3)
baptism by the Holy Spirit: A rendering of a phrase also translated “baptism in/with the Holy
Spirit.” The translation of the Greek preposition en with the word “by” can seem to indicate that
the Holy Spirit is the agent doing the baptizing, but the phrase more accurately refers to the Spirit
as the element “in” which (or “with” which) believers are “baptized” at conversion. (39B)
baptism in/with the Holy Spirit: A phrase the New Testament authors use to speak of coming
into the new covenant power of the Holy Spirit. This would include the impartation of new
spiritual life (in regeneration), cleansing from sin, a break with the power and love of sin, and
empowering for ministry. (39B)
beatific vision: The true and real, though not exhaustive, seeing of God that will occur in heaven
(lit., “the vision that makes blessed or happy”). (12A.2)
beauty: That attribute of God whereby he is the sum of all desirable qualities. (13E.19)
being filled with the Holy Spirit: See “filled with the Holy Spirit.”
being raised with Christ: See “raised with Christ.”
belief: In contemporary culture this term usually refers to the acceptance of the truth of some-
thing, such as facts about Christ, with no necessary element of personal commitment or
dependence involved. In the New Testament this term often involves this sense of commit-
ment (cf. John 3:16; see also “faith”). (35A.1-3)
believable profession of faith: A central component of the “baptistic” view of baptism, which
holds that only those who have given reasonable evidence of believing in Christ should be
baptized. (49B)
GLOSSARY
1237
believers’ baptism: The view that baptism is appropriately administered only to those who give
a believable profession of faith in Jesus Christ. (49B)
biblical theology: The study of the teaching of the individual authors and sections of the Bible
and of the place of each teaching in the historical development of the Bible. (1A.1)
“binding and loosing”: Words of Jesus that refer to the actions of placing under and releasing
from church discipline (Matt. 18:17-18; 16:19). (46B)
bishop: Translation of the Greek episkopos , a term used interchangeably with “pastor,” “overseer,”
and “elder” to refer to the main governing office of a local church in the New Testament. The
term also refers to a priest who has authority over a group of churches in an episcopalian form
of church government. (47A.2.b; 47C.1)
blameless: Morally perfect in God’s sight, a characteristic of those who follow God’s word com-
pletely (Ps. 119:1). (8A)
blasphemy against the Holy Spirit: The unusually malicious, willful rejection and slander
against the Holy Spirit’s work attesting to Christ, and attributing that work to Satan (also see
“unpardonable sin”). (24D.6)
blessedness: The doctrine that God delights fully in himself and in all that reflects his character.
(13E.18)
blood of Christ: A phrase referring to Christ’s death in its saving aspects, since the blood he shed
on the cross was the clear outward evidence that his life blood was poured out when he died
a sacrificial death to pay for our redemption. (27C.2.c.(3))
body of Christ: A scriptural metaphor for the church. This metaphor is used in two different
ways, one to stress the interdependence of the members of the body, and one to stress Christ’s
headship of the church. (44A.4)
born again: A scriptural term (John 3:3-8) referring to God’s work of regeneration by which he
imparts new spiritual life to us. (34A)
born of the Spirit: Another term for “regeneration” that indicates the special role played by the
Holy Spirit in imparting new spiritual life to us. (34A)
born of water: A phrase used by Jesus in John 3:5 that refers to the spiritual cleansing from sin
that accompanies God’s work of regeneration (cf. Ezek. 36:25-26). (34C)
Calvinism: A theological tradition named after the sixteenth-century French reformer John
Calvin (1509-64) that emphasizes the sovereignty of God in all things, man’s inability to do
spiritual good before God, and the glory of God as the highest end of all that occurs. (16)
canon: The list of all the books that belong in the Bible (from the Greek kanon y “reed; measuring
rod; standard of measure”). (3)
canonical: A term describing preserved writings that are deemed to have divine authorship and
therefore which are to be included in the canon of Scripture as God’s authoritative words in
written form. (3)
certain knowledge: Knowledge that is established beyond doubt or question. Because God knows
all the facts of the universe and never lies, the only absolutely certain knowledge we can have
is found in God’s words in Scripture. (3C)
cessationist: Someone who thinks that certain miraculous spiritual gifts ceased when the apos-
tles died and Scripture was complete. (17D.2; 52B)
Chalcedonian definition: The statement produced by the Council of Chalcedon in A.D. 451 that
has been regarded by most branches of Christianity as the orthodox definition of the biblical
teaching on the person of Christ. (26C.2)
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1238
charismatic: A term referring to any groups or people that trace their historical origin to the
charismatic renewal movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Such groups seek to practice all the
spiritual gifts mentioned in the New Testament but, unlike many Pentecostal denominations,
allow differing viewpoints on whether baptism in the Holy Spirit is subsequent to conversion
and whether tongues is a sign of baptism in the Holy Spirit. (39)
cherubim: A class of created spiritual beings who, among other things, guarded the entrance to
the Garden of Eden. (19A.3.a)
Christian ethics: Any study that answers the question, “What does God require us to do and
what attitudes does he require us to have today?” with regard to any given situation. (1A.4)
church: The community of all true believers for all time. (44A.1)
circular argument: An argument that seeks to prove its conclusion by appealing to a claim that
depends on the truth of the conclusion. (4A.5)
clarity of Scripture: The idea that the Bible is written in such a way that its teachings are able to
be understood by all who will read it seeking God’s help and being willing to follow it. (6C)
classis: The term for a regional governing body within the Christian Reformed Church (similar
to a presbytery in a presbyterian system). (47C.2)
common grace: The grace of God by which he gives people innumerable blessings that are not
part of salvation. (31A)
communicable attributes: Aspects of Gods character that he shares or “communicates” with
us. (11A.1)
communication of attributes: A term referring to the giving of certain attributes from Jesus’
divine nature to his human nature (and vice versa) that resulted from the uniting of the two
natures in one person, each nature retaining its respective unique properties. (26C.3.e)
communion: A term commonly used to refer to the Lord’s Supper. (50C.1)
communion of saints: A term in the Apostles’ Creed referring to the fellowship that believers on
earth have with believers in heaven by virtue of a common worship. (41C.l.b)
compatibilism: Another term for the Reformed view of providence. The term indicates that abso-
lute divine sovereignty is compatible with human significance and real human choices. (16A)
complementarian: The view that men and women are equal in value before God but that some
governing and teaching roles in the church are reserved for men. (Preface, 2; 47D)
concordist theory: Another term for the day-age theory of creation, so named because it seeks
agreement or “concord” between the Bible and scientific conclusions about the age of the
earth. (15E.4.a.(l))
concurrence: An aspect of God’s providence whereby he cooperates with created things in every
action, directing their distinctive properties to cause them to act as they do. (16B)
conditional immortality: The teaching that God has created people so that they only have
immortality (the power to live forever) if they accept Christ as Savior. Under this view, those
who do not become Christians will simply cease to exist at death or at the time of the final
judgment. (56G)
congregational government: The form of church government in which final governing authority
rests with the local congregation. (47C)
consequent absolute necessity: The view that the atonement was not absolutely necessary, but, as
a “consequence” of God’s decision to save some human beings, the atonement was absolutely
necessary. (27B)
consistory: The term for a local board of elders in the Christian Reformed Church (similar to a
“session” in a presbyterian system). (47C.2)
GLOSSARY
1239
contradiction: A set of two statements, one of which denies the other. (IE. 3)
conversion: Our willing response to the gospel call, in which we sincerely repent of sins and place
our trust in Christ for salvation. (35)
cosmological argument: An argument for the existence of God based on the observation that,
since every known thing in the universe has a cause, the universe itself must also have a cause,
which can only be God. (9C)
covenant: An unchangeable, divinely imposed legal agreement between God and man that stipu-
lates the conditions of their relationship. (25)
covenant community: The community of Gods people. Protestant proponents of infant baptism
view baptism as a sign of entrance into the “covenant community” of God’s people. (49B.4)
covenant of grace: The legal agreement between God and man, established by God after the fall
of Adam, whereby man could be saved. Although the specific provisions of this covenant
varied at different times during redemptive history, the essential condition of requiring faith
in Christ the redeemer remained the same. (25C)
covenant of redemption: The agreement between the members of the Trinity in which each
agreed to fulfill his respective role to accomplish the salvation of human beings. (25B)
covenant of works: The legal agreement between God and Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden
whereby participation in the blessings of the covenant depended on the obedience, or “works,”
of Adam and Eve. (25A)
creation: The doctrine that God created the entire universe out of nothing. The universe was
originally very good; and he created it to glorify himself. (15)
creationism: The view that God creates a new soul for each person and sends it to that person’s
body sometime between conception and birth. (23F)
Cro-Magnon man: An early example of man, believed to have lived between 9000 B.C. and
35,000 B.C. (15E.3.b)
Darwinian evolution: The general theory of evolution (see also “macro-evolution”) named after
Charles Darwin, the British naturalist who expounded this theory in 1859 in his Origin of
Species by Means of Natural Selection. (15E.2.c.(l))
day-age theory: An “old earth” theory of creation that views the days of Genesis 1 as extremely
long “ages” of time. (15E.4.a.(l))
deacon: A translation of the Greek diakonos (“servant”) . In certain contexts the term refers to a church
officer whose responsibilities involves various forms of service, including financial oversight,
administrative responsibilities, and caring for the physical needs of the congregation. (47A.3)
death: The termination of life brought about by the entrance of sin into the world. (For the Chris-
tian, death brings us into the presence of God because of Christ’s payment of the penalty for
our sins.) (41A)
decrees of God: The eternal plans of God whereby, before the creation of the world, he deter-
mined to bring about everything that happens. (2B.1; 16D)
deism: The view that God created the universe but is not now directly involved in the creation.
(15B)
demonized: To be under demonic influence (Greek daimonizomai). The term often suggests
more extreme cases of demonic influence. (20D.3)
demon possession: A misleading phrase found in some English translations of the Bible that
seems to suggest that a person’s will is completely dominated by a demon. The Greek term
daimonizomai is better translated “under demonic influence,” which could range from mild
to strong influence or attack. (20D.3)
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1240
demons: Evil angels who sinned against God and who now continually work evil in the world.
( 20 )
depravity: Another term for “inherited corruption.” (24C.2.a)
determinism: The idea that acts, events, and decisions are the inevitable results of some condi-
tion or decision prior to them that is independent of the human will. (32C.2.d)
dichotomy: The view that man is made up of two parts, body and soul/spirit. (23A)
dictation: The idea that God expressly spoke every word of Scripture to the human authors. (4A.6)
difference in role: The idea that men and women have been given by God different primary func-
tions in the family and the church. (22C)
diocese: In an episcopalian system of church government, the churches under the jurisdiction
of a bishop. (47C.1)
dispensationalism: A theological system that began in the nineteenth century with the writ-
ings of J. N. Darby. Among the general doctrines of this system are the distinction between
Israel and the church as two groups in God’s overall plan, the pretribulational rapture of the
church, a future literal fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies concerning Israel, and the
dividing of biblical history into seven periods, or “dispensations,” of God’s ways of relating
to his people. (55A.3.b)
dispensational premillennialism: Another term for “pretribulational premillennialism.” The
term “dispensational” is used because most proponents of this view wish to maintain a clear
distinction between the church and Israel, with whom God deals under different arrange-
ments, or “dispensations.” (55A.3.b)
distinguishing between spirits: A special ability to recognize the influence of the Holy Spirit or
of demonic spirits in a person. (20D.4; 53G)
distortion of roles: The idea that in the punishments God gave to Adam and Eve after their sin,
he did not introduce new roles or functions but simply introduced pain and distortion into
the functions they previously had. (22C.2.h)
docetism: The heretical teaching that Jesus was not really a man but only seemed to be one (from
the Greek verb dokeq “to seem, to appear to be”). (26A.5)
doctrine: What the whole Bible teaches us today about some particular topic. (1A.4)
dogma: Another term for “doctrine.” The word is often used to refer more specifically to doc-
trines that have official church endorsement. (1A.4)
dogmatic theology: Another term for “systematic theology.” (1A.4)
dualism: The idea that both God and the material universe have eternally existed side by side as
two ultimate forces in the universe. It implies that there is an eternal conflict between God
and the evil aspects of the material universe. (15B; 24B)
dying with Christ: A phrase that describes a person’s break with his old way of life by virtue of
his being united with Christ through faith. (43A.3.a)
Eastern church: A major segment of the church, now known as the Orthodox church, that sepa-
rated from the Western (Roman Catholic) church in A.D. 1054. (45E)
economic subordination: The teaching that certain members of the Trinity have roles or func-
tions that are subject to the control or authority of other members. (14D.2)
effective calling: An act of God the Father, speaking through the human proclamation of the
gospel, in which he summons people to himself in such a way that they respond in saving
faith. (33A)
egalitarian: The view that all functions and roles in the church are open to men and women
alike. (Preface, 2; 47D)
GLOSSARY
1241
ekklesia : A Greek term translated “church” in the New Testament. The word literally means
“assembly” and in the Bible indicates the assembly or congregation of the people of God.
(44A.1)
elder: The main governing group in a church in the New Testament (Greek presbyteros).
(47A.2.a)
election: An act of God before creation in which he chooses some people to be saved, not on
account of any foreseen merit in them, but only because of his sovereign good pleasure. (32)
empowerment for service: A primary aspect of the work of the Holy Spirit to bring evidence of
God’s presence and to bless. (30A.2)
episcopalian government: A hierarchical form of church government in which bishops have govern-
ing authority over groups of churches (from the Greek episkopos, “overseer,” “bishop”). (47C.1)
equality in personhood: The idea that men and women are created equally in God’s image and
therefore are equally important to God and equally valuable to him. (22B)
eschatology: The study of “the last things,” or future events (from the Greek eschatos , “last”). (54)
eternal begetting of the Son: Description of the eternal relationship that has existed within the
Trinity between the Father and the Son in which the Son has eternally related to the Father
as a Son. (14C.1.2.a)
eternal conscious punishment: A description of the nature of punishment in hell, which will be
unending and of which the unbeliever will be fully aware. (56G)
eternal security: Another term for “perseverance of the saints.” However, this term can be mis-
understood to mean that all who have once made a profession of faith are “eternally secure”
in their salvation when they may not have been genuinely converted at all. (40D.3)
eternity: When used of God, the doctrine that God has no beginning, end, or succession of
moments in his own being, and he sees all time equally vividly, yet God sees events in time
and acts in time. (11B.3)
ethics: See “Christian ethics.”
Eucharist: Another term for the Lord’s Supper (from the Greek eucharistia , “giving of thanks”).
(50C.1)
Eutychianism: Another term for monophysitism, named after the fifth-century monk Eutyches.
(26C.1.C)
evangelism: The proclamation of the gospel to unbelievers (from the Greek euangelizq “to
announce good news”). (44C.3; also 48B.10)
exaltation of Christ: One of the two “states” of Christ, the other being humiliation. The state of
exaltation includes four aspects of his work: his resurrection, ascension into heaven, session
at the right hand of God, and return in glory and power. (28C)
example theory: The view that in the atonement Christ did not bear the just penalty of God for
our sins but that he simply provided us with an example of how we should trust and obey God
perfectly, even if this leads to death. (27C.2.d.(3))
excommunication: The final step of church discipline in which a person is put out of the fellow-
ship, or “communion,” of the church. (46D.l.a)
exegesis: The process of interpreting a text of Scripture. (6D)
ex nihilo : A Latin phrase meaning “out of nothing,” referring to God’s creation of the universe
without the use of any previously existing materials. (15A.1)
ex opere operato: A Latin phrase meaning “by the work performed.” In Roman Catholic teaching
the phrase is used to indicate that the sacraments, such as baptism, work in virtue of the actual
activity done independent of the subjective attitude of faith in the participants. (50B.3)
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1242
exorcism: The action of driving out an evil spirit by a spoken command. (20D.6)
external calling: The general gospel invitation offered to all people that comes through human
proclamation of the gospel. Also referred to as “general calling” or “the gospel call,” this call
can be rejected by people. (33A)
extreme unction: One of the seven sacraments in Roman Catholic teaching, the anointing with
oil that is administered to a dying person (also known as “last rites”). (48A)
faith: Trust or dependence on God based on the fact that we take him at his word and believe
what he has said. (See also “saving faith.”) (18C.2; also 35A.3)
faith and practice: A term used by some people who, denying the inerrancy of the Bible, claim
that the Bible’s purpose is only to tell us about these two subjects. (5B.1)
faithfulness: The doctrine that God will always do what he has said and fulfill what he has
promised. (12B.5)
fasting: The discipline of abstaining for a time from all or certain foods. In the Bible, fasting
often accompanies prayer for the purpose of intensive intercession, repentance, worship, or
the seeking of guidance. (18C.12)
fatalism: A system in which human choices and human decisions make no real difference because
things will turn out as they have been previously ordained. This is in contrast to the doctrine
of election, in which people make real choices that have real consequences and for which they
will be held accountable. (32C.1)
filioque : Latin for “and from the Son,” a term referring to a clause inserted into the Nicene Creed
to indicate that the Holy Spirit proceeds not from the Father only but also from the Son. The
controversy that arose over this doctrinal point contributed to the split between the Eastern
and Western churches in A.D. 1054. (14C.2.d)
filled with the Holy Spirit: An event subsequent to conversion in which a believer experiences
a fresh infilling with the Holy Spirit that may result in a variety of consequences, including
greater love for God, greater victory over sin, greater power for ministry, and sometimes the
receiving of new spiritual gifts. (39D.2.c)
final judgment: The last and ultimate proclamation by Jesus Christ of the eternal destinies of
all people which will take place after the millennium and the rebellion that occurs at the end
of it. (56A.1)
firstfruits: The first portion of a ripening harvest (Greek aparche). In describing Christ in his
resurrection as the “firstfruits” (1 Cor. 15:20), the Bible indicates that our resurrection bodies
will be like his when God raises us from the dead. (28A.4.c)
flood geology: The view that attributes the present geological status of the earth to the tremen-
dous natural forces caused by the flood of Genesis 6-9. (15E.4.b.(2))
foreknowledge: Relating to the doctrine of election, the personal, relational knowledge by which
God thought of certain people in a saving relationship to himself before creation. This is to be
distinguished from the mere knowledge of facts about a person. (32C.2.a)
forensic: A term that means “having to do with legal proceedings.” This term is used to describe
justification as being a legal declaration by God that in itself does not change our internal
nature or character. (36A)
free choices: Choices made according to our free will (see “free will”). (16B.9)
freedom: That attribute of God whereby he does whatever he pleases. (13D.15)
free will: (a) with respect to God: All things that God decided to will but had no necessity to will
according to his nature. (13D.14.b)
(b) with respect to man: The ability to make willing choices that have real effects (however,
GLOSSARY
1243
other people define this in other ways, including the ability to make choices that are not
determined by God). (16B.9)
gap theory: The idea that between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 is a gap of millions of years during which
God judged an earlier creation, making it “without form and void” and necessitating a second
creation depicted in Genesis 1:3 -2:3. (15E.2.d)
general assembly: In a presbyterian form of church government, the term for the national (or
regional) governing body. (47C.2)
general eschatology: The study of future events that will affect the entire universe, such as the
second coming of Christ, the millennium, and the final judgment. (54)
general redemption: Another term for “unlimited atonement.” (27D)
general revelation: The knowledge of Gods existence, character, and moral law that comes
through creation to all humanity. (7E)
gifts of the Holy Spirit: All abilities that are empowered by the Holy Spirit and used in any min-
istry of the church. (52 A)
glorification: The final step in the application of redemption. It will happen when Christ returns
and raises from the dead the bodies of all believers for all time who have died, and reunites
them with their souls, and changes the bodies of all believers who remain alive, thereby giving
all believers at the same time perfect resurrection bodies like his own. (42)
glory: The created brightness that surrounds Gods revelation of himself. In another sense of the
term, it refers to God’s honor. (13E.20)
God: In the New Testament, a translation of the Greek word theos, which is usually, but not
always, used to refer to God the Father. (26B.l.a)
God-breathed: A translation of the Greek theopneustos (sometimes translated “inspired by
God”), which the Bible (2 Tim. 3:16) uses metaphorically to describe the words of Scripture
as being spoken by God. (4A)
goodness: The doctrine that God is the final standard of good, and that all that God is and does
is worthy of approval. (12C.6)
gospel call: The general gospel invitation to all people that comes through human proclamation
of the gospel. Also referred to as “external calling.” (33A)
government: An aspect of God’s providence that indicates that God has a purpose in all that he
does in the world and providentially governs or directs all things in order that they accomplish
his purposes. (16C)
governmental theory: The theory that Christ’s death was not a payment for our sins but God’s
demonstration of the fact that, since he is the moral governor of the universe, some kind of
penalty must be paid whenever his laws are broken. (27C.2.e.(4))
grace: God’s goodness toward those who deserve only punishment. (12C.8)
Great Commission: The final commands of Jesus to the disciples, recorded in Matthew 28:18-20.
(1C.1)
great tribulation: An expression from Matthew 24:21 referring to a period of great hardship and
suffering prior to the return of Christ. (54F.3.b; 55E)
great white throne judgment: Another term for the final judgment spoken of in Revelation
20:11-15. (56A.2)
healing: A gift of the Holy Spirit that functions to bring a restoration to health as a foretaste of
the complete freedom from physical weakness and infirmity that Christ purchased for us by
his death and resurrection. (53D)
heaven: The place where God most fully makes known his presence to bless. It is in heaven where
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1244
God most fully reveals his glory, and where angels, other heavenly creatures, and redeemed
saints all worship him. (57A.1)
hell: A place of eternal conscious punishment for the wicked. (56G)
hermeneutics: The study of correct methods of interpreting texts. (6D)
hierarchical government: Another term for an episcopalian form of church government in
which final decision-making authority lies outside the local church. (47C).
historical theology: The historical study of how Christians in different periods have understood
various theological topics. (1A.1)
historic premillennialism: The view that Christ will return to the earth after a period of great
tribulation and then establish a millennial kingdom. At this time believers who have died will
be raised from the dead and believers who are alive will receive glorified resurrection bodies,
and both will reign with Christ on earth for a thousand years. (55A.3.a)
history of redemption: The series of events throughout history by which God acted to bring
about the salvation of his people. (3B)
holiness: The doctrine that God is separated from sin and devoted to seeking his own honor.
(12C.9)
holy orders: One of the seven sacraments in Roman Catholic teaching, the ordination to the
priesthood or diaconate. (48A)
Holy Spirit: One of the three persons of the Trinity whose work it is to manifest the active pres-
ence of God in the world, and especially in the church. (30)
homoiousios : A Greek word meaning “of a similar nature,” used by Arius in the fourth century
to affirm that Christ was a supernatural heavenly being but to deny that he was of the same
nature as God the Father. (14C.2.a)
homoousios: A Greek word, meaning “of the same nature,” which was included in the Nicene
Creed to teach that Christ was of the exact same nature as God the Father and therefore was
fully divine as well as fully human. (14C.2.a)
homo sapiens : The scientific designation for an early form of man (lit., “wise man”), believed by
many to have lived sometime between 300,000 B.C. and 40,000 B.C. (15E.3.b)
humiliation of Christ: One of the two “states” of Christ, the other being exaltation. The state of
humiliation includes four aspects of his work: his incarnation, suffering, death, and burial.
(28C)
hypostatic union: The union of Christ’s human and divine natures in one person (from the
Greek hypostasis, “being”). (26C.2)
ICBI: International Council on Biblical Inerrancy. This organization drafted the “Chicago State-
ment on Biblical Inerrancy” in 1978 that affirmed the inerrancy of Scripture and defined what
most evangelicals understand by the term inerrancy. (5B.2; Appendix 1)
ideal time theory: Another name for “mature creationism.” (15E.4.b. (1))
image of God: The nature of man such that he is like God and represents God. (21C.1)
imago Dei : A Latin phrase meaning “image of God.” (21C.1)
immanent: Existing or remaining in. The term is used in theology to speak of God’s involvement
in creation. (15B)
immersion: The mode of baptism in the New Testament in which the person is put completely
under the water and then brought back up again. (49A)
imminent: A term referring to the fact that Christ could return and might return at any time,
and that we are to be prepared for him to come at any day. (54F.1)
immutability: Another term for God’s unchangeableness. (11B.2)
GLOSSARY
1245
impassibility: The doctrine, often based on a misunderstanding of Acts 14:15, that God does not
have passions or emotions. Scripture instead teaches that God does have emotions, but he does
not have sinful passions or emotions. (llB.2.c)
impeccability: The doctrine that Christ was not able to sin. (26A.4)
impute: To think of as belonging to someone, and therefore to cause it to belong to that person.
God “thinks of” Adam’s sin as belonging to us, and it therefore belongs to us, and in justifica-
tion he thinks of Christ’s righteousness as belonging to us and so relates to us on this basis.
(24C.1; 36C)
incarnation: The act of God the Son whereby he took to himself a human nature. (26B)
“in Christ”: A term referring to a variety of relationships between believers and Christ through
which Christians receive the benefits of salvation. (43A)
incommunicable attributes: Aspects of God’s character that God does not share with us. (11A.1)
incomprehensible: Not able to be fully understood. As this applies to God, it means that God can-
not be understood fully or exhaustively, although we can know true things about God. (10B)
incorruptible: The nature of our future resurrection bodies, which will be like Christ’s resur-
rection body and therefore will not wear out, grow old, or be subject to any kind of sickness
or disease. (28A.4.c)
independence: The doctrine that God does not need us or the rest of creation for anything, yet
we and the rest of creation can glorify him and bring him joy. (11B.1)
inerrancy: The idea that Scripture in the original manuscripts does not affirm anything that is
contrary to fact. (5A)
infallibility: The idea that Scripture is not able to lead us astray in matters of faith and practice.
(5B.1)
infant baptism: See “paedobaptism.”
infinite: When used of God, a term referring to the fact that he is not subject to any of the limita-
tions of humanity or of creation in general. (llB.2.e)
infinity with respect to space: Another term for God’s omnipresence. (11B.4)
infinity with respect to time: Another term for God’s eternity. (11B.3)
infused righteousness: Righteousness that God actually puts into us and that changes us internally.
The Roman Catholic Church understands justification to involve such an infusion, which differs
from Protestantism’s view that justification is a legal declaration by God. (36C)
inherited corruption: The sinful nature, or the tendency to sin, which all people inherit because
of Adam’s sin (often referred to as “original pollution”). This idea entails that (1) in our
natures we totally lack spiritual good before God; and (2) in our actions we are totally unable
to do spiritual good before God. (24C.2)
inherited guilt: The idea that God counts all people guilty because of Adam’s sin (often referred
to as “original guilt”). (24C.1)
inherited sin: The guilt and the tendency to sin that all people inherit because of Adam’s sin
(often referred to as “original sin”). (24C)
“in Jesus’ name”: A term referring to prayer made on Jesus’ authorization and consistent with
his character. (18B.3)
inner sense of God: An instinctive awareness of God’s existence that every human being has.
(9A)
inspiration: A term referring to the fact that the words of Scripture are spoken by God. Because
of the weak sense of this word in ordinary usage, this text prefers the term “God-breathed” to
indicate that the words of Scripture are spoken by God. (4A.1)
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1246
intelligent design: The view that God directly created the world and its many life forms, which
stands against the view that new species came about through an evolutionary process of ran-
dom mutation. (15E.2.b)
intercession: Jesus’ ongoing act of standing in God’s presence and making petitions before him
on our behalf as our great high priest. (29B.3) The term is also used to refer to prayers of
request for ourselves or others. (18)
intermediate state: The condition or mode of being of a person between the time of one’s death
and the time that Christ returns to give believers new resurrection bodies. (4 1C)
internal calling: Another term for “effective calling.” (33A)
interpretation of tongues: The gift of the Holy Spirit by which the general meaning of something
spoken in tongues is reported to the church. (53E.2.e)
“in the Holy Spirit”: The state of consciously dwelling in an atmosphere of God’s manifested
presence. (30E)
invisibility: The doctrine that God’s total essence, all of his spiritual being, will never be able to
be seen by us, yet God still shows himself to us through visible, created things. (12A.2)
invisible church: The church as God sees it. (44A.2)
“in, with, and under”: A phrase descriptive of the Lutheran view of the Lord’s Supper that holds, in
contrast to the idea that the bread actually becomes the physical body of Christ, that the physical
body of Christ is present “in, with, and under” the bread of the Lord’s Supper. (50C.2)
irresistible grace: A term that refers to the fact that God effectively calls people and also gives
them regeneration, both of which guarantee that we will respond in saving faith. This term
is subject to misunderstanding since it seems to imply that people do not make a voluntary,
willing choice in responding to the gospel. (34A)
jealousy: The doctrine that God continually seeks to protect his own honor. (12C.12)
judgment: See “final judgment.”
judgment of the nations: In the dispensational premillennial view, a judgment that will come
between the tribulation and the beginning of the millennium, during which time nations are
judged according to how they have treated the Jewish people during the tribulation. (56A.2)
justice: Another term for God’s righteousness. (12C.11)
justification: An instantaneous legal act of God in which he (1) thinks of our sins as forgiven and
Christ’s righteousness as belonging to us, and (2) declares us to be righteous in his sight. (36)
kenosis theory: The theory that Christ gave up some of his divine attributes while he was on
earth as a man (from the Greek verb kenoQ which means “to empty”). (26B.3)
“keys of the kingdom”: A phrase used by Jesus in Matthew 16:19 referring to the authority to
preach the gospel and to exercise discipline within the church. (46B)
king: One of the three offices fulfilled by Christ in which he rules over the church and the uni-
verse. (29)
knowable: A term referring to the fact that we can know true things about God, and that we can
know God himself and not simply facts about him. (9A)
knowledge: The doctrine that God fully knows himself and all things actual and possible in one
simple and eternal act. (12B.3)
laying on of hands: A practice that often accompanied prayer in the New Testament as a means
of personal ministry to individuals. (48B.11)
likeness: A term referring to something that is similar but not identical to the thing it repre-
sents, such as man’s being made after God’s “likeness” (Gen. 1:26, translating Hebrew demut)
(21C.1)
GLOSSARY
1247
limbo: According to a view common in Roman Catholic theology, the place where the souls of
believers who died before Christ’s resurrection went to wait for his work of redemption to be
complete (from the Latin limbus , “border”). (41C.l.c)
limited atonement: The Reformed view that Christ’s death actually paid for the sins of those
whom he knew would ultimately be saved. A preferable term for this view is “particular
redemption” in that the power of the atonement is not limited, but rather it is fully effective
for particular people. (27D.1)
literary framework theory: An “old earth” theory of creation that views the six days of Genesis
1, not as a chronological sequence of events, but as a literary “framework” that the author uses
to teach about God’s creative activity. (15E.4.a.(2))
living creatures: A class of created spiritual beings with appearances like a lion, an ox, a man,
and an eagle who are said to worship around the throne of God. (19A.3.c)
logos: The Greek term for “word” by which the apostle John refers to Jesus in John 1:1. As applied
to Jesus, the term implies both the Old Testament concept of the powerful, creative word of
God and the Greek idea of the organizing and unifying principle of the universe. (26B.l.c)
Lord: In the New Testament, a translation of the Greek word kyrios that is usually, but not always,
used to refer to Christ. In the Greek translation of the Old Testament, this word is used to
translate the Hebrew yhwh, the personal name of the omnipotent God. (26B.l.b)
Lord’s Supper: One of the two ordinances that Jesus commanded his church to observe. This is
an ordinance to be observed repeatedly throughout our Christian lives as a sign of continuing
in fellowship with Christ. (50)
love: When used of God, the doctrine that God eternally gives of himself to others. (12C.7)
macro-evolution: The “general theory of evolution,” or the view that all organisms emerged from
nonliving substance. (15E.2.C.1)
major doctrine: A doctrine that has a significant impact on our thinking about other doctrines,
or that has a significant impact on how we live the Christian life. (1C.2)
manifestation of God’s active presence: A description of the work of the Holy Spirit, the member
of the Trinity whom Scripture most often represents as being present to do God’s work in the
world. (30)
maranatha: An Aramaic term used in 1 Corinthians 16:22, meaning “Our Lord, come,” express-
ing eager longing for Christ’s return. (54B)
marks of the church: The distinguishing characteristics of a true church. In Protestant tradition,
these have usually been recognized as the right preaching of the Word of God and the right
administration of the sacraments (baptism and the Lord’s Supper). (44B.1)
materialism: The view that the material universe is all that exists. (15B)
mature creationism: A “young earth” theory of creation which holds that the original creation
had an “appearance of age” from the very beginning. Also called the “ideal time” theory, in
that the appearance of age does not in fact indicate any actual time. (15E.4.b.(l))
means of grace: Any activities within the fellowship of the church that God uses to give more
grace to Christians. (48A)
mediator: The role that Jesus plays in coming between God and us, enabling us to come into the
presence of God. (18B.2)
mental attributes: Aspects of God’s character that describe the nature of his knowing and rea-
soning. (12B)
mercy: God’s goodness toward those in misery and distress. (12C.8)
Michael: An archangel who appears as a leader in the angelic army. (19A.4)
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1248
micro-evolution: The view that small developments occur within one species without creating
new species. (15E.2.c.(l))
middle knowledge: An Arminian view of God’s foreknowledge which teaches that, because God
knows what every creature would do in any given set of circumstances, he therefore foreknows
everything that happens in the world by bringing about the situations in which all creatures
act. (16H.5.a)
midtribulation rapture: A variation of the pretribulational premillennial view in which Christ
returns in the middle of the seven year tribulation to rescue believers, and then again after the
tribulation to reign on earth for 1,000 years. (55A.1.3.b)
mighty work: A biblical term for miracles (translating the Hebrew geburdh and the Greek dyna-
mis ), indicating an act displaying great or divine power. (17A)
millennium: A term that refers to the period of 1,000 years mentioned in Revelation 20:4-5 as
the time of the reign of Christ and believers over the earth (from Latin millennium , “thousand
years”). (55)
minor doctrine: A doctrine that has very little impact on how we think about other doctrines,
and that has very little impact on how we live the Christian life. (lC.2.c)
miracle: A less common kind of God’s activity in which he arouses people’s awe and wonder and
bears witness to himself. (17A)
miraculous gifts: Gifts given by the Holy Spirit that are less common, and that arouse people’s
awe and wonder and bear witness to God. (52A.6)
modalism: The heretical teaching that holds that God is not really three distinct persons, but
only one person who appears to people in different “modes” at different times. (14C.1)
modalistic monarchianism: Another term for modalism. (14C.1)
monism: The view that man is only one element, and that his body is the person. (23A)
monophysitism: The fifth-century heresy which held that Christ had only one nature, that being
a mixture of divine and human natures (from the Greek monos , “one,” and physis y “nature”).
(26C.1.C)
monothelite view: The position that Jesus had only one will, a view that was rejected as heretical
in the seventh century. (26C.3.a)
moral argument: An argument for the existence of God which reasons that there must be a God
who is the source of man’s sense of right and wrong. (9C)
moral attributes: Aspects of God’s character that describe his moral or ethical nature. (12C)
moral influence theory: The theory that Christ’s death was not a payment for sins, but simply
a demonstration of how much God loved human beings by identifying with their sufferings,
even to the point of death. This becomes, then, an example designed to draw from us a grate-
ful response. (27C.2.e.(2))
mortal sin: In Roman Catholic teaching, a sin that causes spiritual death and cannot be forgiven.
(24D.4.b)
mutual submission: A phrase that proponents of egalitarianism use to describe the type of rela-
tionship they believe should exist between husband and wife, in which each is subject to the
other in the same way. In this understanding of “mutual submission,” it undermines the
unique authority that the Bible gives to the husband in the marriage relationship. (22C.3)
mystical union: A term referring to the union between the believer and Christ, the workings of
which are not fully understood and are known only through God’s revelation in Scripture.
(43)
names of God: Various descriptions of God’s character that are found in Scripture. (11A.2)
GLOSSARY
1249
natural law: Relative to the discussion on miracles, any of the “laws of nature” or inherent quali-
ties of the natural order that are viewed by some people as operating independently of God.
(17A)
natural selection: The idea, assumed in evolutionary theory, that living organisms that are most
fitted to their environment survive and multiply while others perish (also called “survival of
the fittest”). (15E.2.c.(l))
necessary will: Those things that God must will according to his own nature.
(13D.14.b)
necessity of Scripture: The idea that the Bible is necessary for knowing the gospel, for maintain-
ing spiritual life, and for knowing God's will, but is not necessary for knowing that God exists
or for knowing something about God's character and moral laws. (7)
neo-cat astrophism: Another term for the flood geology view of the geological status of the earth.
(15E.4.b.(2))
neo-orthodoxy: A twentieth-century theological movement represented by the teachings of Karl
Barth. Instead of the orthodox position that all the words of Scripture were spoken by God,
Barth taught that the words of Scripture become God's words to us as we encounter them.
(4A.2)
Nestorianism: A fifth-century heresy that taught that there were two separate persons in Christ,
a human person and a divine person. (26C.l.b)
new covenant: The administration of the covenant of grace established after the death and res-
urrection of Christ, a covenant in which Christ's atoning death covers all of the believer's
sins and the Holy Spirit empowers the believer to fulfill the righteous demands of the law.
(25C.2)
new covenant experience of the Holy Spirit: The more powerful work of the Holy Spirit in
people’s lives that began at Pentecost for the disciples and now happens at conversion for
believers. (39B)
new heavens and new earth: A description of the entirely renewed creation in which believers
will dwell after the final judgment. (57A)
New Testament theology: The study of the teaching of the individual authors and sections of the
New Testament, and of the place of each teaching in the historical development of the New
Testament. (1A.1)
nonmiraculous gifts: Gifts given by the Holy Spirit that are more common and appear to be
more ordinary, such as serving, teaching, encouraging, and doing acts of mercy. (52A.6)
“not discerning the body”: A phrase used in 1 Corinthians 11:29 of the Corinthians' abuse of
the Lord's Supper. In their selfish, inconsiderate conduct toward each other during the Lord's
Supper, they were not understanding the unity and interdependence of people in the church,
which is the body of Christ. (SOD)
office: A publicly recognized position of one having the right and responsibility to perform cer-
tain functions for the benefit of the whole church. (47A)
officer: Someone who has been recognized as having the right and responsibility to perform
certain functions for the benefit of the whole church. (47A)
old covenant: A term referring specifically to the Mosaic covenant established at Mount Sinai,
which was an administration of detailed written laws given for a time to restrain the sins of
the people and to be a custodian to point people to Christ. (25C.2)
old covenant experience of the Holy Spirit: The less powerful and less extensive work of the Holy
Spirit that characterized the old covenant before the day of Pentecost. (39B)
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1250
“old earth” theory: A theory of creation that views the earth as very old, perhaps as old as 4.5
billion years. (15E.3)
Old Testament theology: The study of the teaching of the individual authors and sections of
the Old Testament, and of the place of each teaching in the historical development of the Old
Testament. (1A.1)
omnipotence: The doctrine that God is able to do all his holy will (from Latin omni, “all,” and
potens , “powerful”). (13D.16)
omnipresence: The doctrine that God does not have size or spatial dimensions and is pres-
ent at every point of space with his whole being, yet God acts differently in different places.
(11B.4)
omniscience: The doctrine that God fully knows himself and all things actual and possible in
one simple and eternal act. (12B.3)
one simple and eternal act: A term referring to an aspect of God’s knowledge whereby he is
always fully aware of everything and his knowledge never changes or grows. (12B.3)
only begotten: A mistranslation of the Greek word monogenes (John 3:16, et al.), which actually
means “unique” or “one of a kind.” The Arians used this word to deny Christ’s deity, but the
rest of the church understood it to mean that the Son eternally related as a son to the Father.
(14C.2.a)
ontological argument: An argument for the existence of God that begins with the idea of God
as the greatest of beings that can be imagined. As such, the characteristic of existence must
belong to such a being, since it is greater to exist than not to exist. (9C)
ontological equality: A phrase that describes the members of the Trinity as eternally equal in
being or existence. (14D.2)
order: Another term for Gods peace. (12C.10)
order of salvation: A theological term referring to a list of the events in which God applies salva-
tion to us in the specific order in which they are believed to occur in our lives (sometimes
referred to by the Latin phrase ordo salutis). (32)
ordinance: A term commonly used by Baptists to refer to baptism and the Lord’s Supper; other
Protestants such as those in Lutheran, Reformed, and Anglican churches have preferred the
word “sacrament” for these ceremonies. (See also “sacrament.”) (49)
original guilt: Another term for “inherited guilt.” (24C.1)
original pollution: Another term for our inherited sinful nature (see “inherited
corruption”). (24C.2)
original sin: The traditional term for the doctrine referred to in this text as “inherited sin.” (24C)
overseer: A translation of the Greek episkopos , a term used interchangeably with “overseer,” “pas-
tor,” and “elder” to refer to the main governing office of a local church in the New Testament.
(47A.2.b)
paedobaptism: The practice of baptizing infants (the prefix “paido-” is derived from the Greek
paisy “child”). (49B.4)
pantheism: The idea that the whole universe is God or part of God. (15B)
paradox: A seemingly contradictory statement that may nonetheless be true; an apparent but not
real contradiction. (ID. 3)
parousia: The second coming of Christ (from the Greek parousia y “coming”). (54A)
particular redemption: Another, more preferable term for the Reformed doctrine of “limited
atonement.” (27D.1)
passive obedience: A term referring to Christ’s sufferings for us in which he took the penalty due
GLOSSARY
1251
for our sins and as a result died for our sins. (27C.2)
pastor: A term used interchangeably with “elder,” “overseer,” and “bishop” to refer to the main
governing office of a local church in the New Testament. Translating the Greek poimen, the
term identifies the shepherding task with the office of elder. (47A.2.b)
patience: Gods goodness in withholding of punishment toward those who sin over a period of
time. (12C.8)
peace: The doctrine that God is separate from all confusion and disorder in his being and in his
actions, yet he is continually active in innumerable well-ordered, fully controlled, simultane-
ous actions. (12C.10)
Pelagius: A fifth-century monk who taught (Pelagianism) that man has the ability to obey God’s
commands and can take the first and most important steps toward salvation on his own.
(24D.2)
penal substitution: The view that Christ in his death bore the just penalty of God for our sins as
a substitute for us. (27C.2.c.(4))
Pentecost: A Jewish feast during which, following the ascension of Jesus, the Holy Spirit was
poured out in new covenant fullness and power on the disciples. This day marked the point
of transition between the old covenant work and ministry of the Holy Spirit and the new
covenant work and ministry of the Holy Spirit. (39B)
Pentecostal: Any denomination or group that traces its historical origin to the Pentecostal revival
that began in the United States in 1901 and that holds to the doctrinal positions (a) that bap-
tism in the Holy Spirit is ordinarily an event subsequent to conversion, (b) that baptism in
the Holy Spirit is made evident by the sign of speaking in tongues, and (c) that all the spiritual
gifts mentioned in the New Testament are to be sought and used today. (39)
perfection: The doctrine that God completely possesses all excellent qualities and lacks no part
of any qualities that would be desirable for him. (13E.17)
perfectionism: The view that sinless perfection, or freedom from conscious sin, is possible in this
life for the Christian. (38B.4)
perseverance of the saints: The doctrine that all those who are truly “born again” will be kept by
God’s power and will persevere as Christians until the end of their lives, and that only those
who persevere until the end have been truly “born again.” (40)
personal address: A form of God’s word in which he speaks directly to people on earth. (2B.2)
personal eschatology: The study of future events that will happen to individuals, such as death,
the intermediate state, and glorification. (54)
perspicuity: An older term for the clarity of Scripture. (6C)
philosophical theology: The study of theological topics that primarily employs the tools and
methods of philosophical reasoning and what can be known about God from observing the
universe. (1A.1)
pictorial-day theory: Another term for the literary framework view of Genesis 1. (15E.4.a.(2))
plenary inspiration: The idea that all the words of Scripture are God’s words, plenary meaning
“full.” (4A.1)
postmillennialism: The view that Christ will return to the earth after the millennium. In this
view, the millennium is an age of peace and righteousness on the earth, brought about by the
progress of the gospel and the growth of the church. (55A.2)
posttribulational premillennialism: Another term for historic premillennialism (or “classic pre-
millennialism”). This is distinguished from other premillennial views by the idea that Christ
will return after the great tribulation. (55A.3.a)
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1252
posttribulational rapture: The “taking up” of believers after the great tribulation to be with
Christ just a few moments prior to his coming to earth with them to reign during the millen-
nial kingdom (or, on the amillennial view, during the eternal state). (55E)
power: Another term for God’s omnipotence. (13D.16)
power of the church: The church’s God-given authority to carry on spiritual warfare, proclaim
the gospel, and exercise church discipline. (46)
prayer: Personal communication with God. (18)
predestination: Another term for “election”; in Reformed theology generally, this is a broader term
that includes not only election (for believers), but also reprobation (for nonbelievers). (32)
premillennialism: A term that includes a variety of views having in common the belief that
Christ will return to the earth before the millennium. (55A.3)
presbyterian government: A form of church government in which elders govern their respective
local churches, and some elders, through a presbytery and general assembly, govern churches
in a region and the denomination as a whole. (47C.2)
presbytery: A group of elders drawn from several churches in a region and having governing
authority over those churches. (See also “classis.”) (47C.2)
preservation: An aspect of God’s providence whereby he keeps all created things existing and
maintaining the properties with which he created them. (16A)
presupposition: An assumption that forms the beginning point of any study. (IB)
pretribulational premillennialism: The view that Christ will return secretly before the great
tribulation to call believers to himself, and then again after the tribulation to reign on earth
for 1,000 years. (55A.3.b)
pretribulational rapture: The “taking up” of believers into heaven secretly during Christ’s first
return prior to the great tribulation. (55E)
priest: A person appointed by God in the Old Testament to offer sacrifices, prayers, and praises
to God on behalf of the people. This office was fulfilled by Christ, who has become the great
high priest for all believers. The term can also refer to a category of church officers in both
Roman Catholic and Anglican churches, though they each attach different meanings to the
word “priest.” (29; 47C)
primary cause: The divine, invisible, directing cause of everything that happens. (16B.4)
primogeniture: The Old Testament practice in which the firstborn in any generation in a human
family has leadership in the family for that generation. (22C.2.a)
principalities and powers: Other names for demonic powers in some verses of the Bible,
progressive creationism: An “old earth” theory which holds that God created new types of plant
and animal creatures at several different points of time in the earth’s history, and between
those points, plant and animal life developed more diversity on its own.
prophecy (as a spiritual gift in the New Testament): The New Testament gift of the Holy Spirit
that involves telling something that God has spontaneously brought to mind. (53A)
prophet: One of the offices fulfilled by Christ, the office by which he most fully reveals God to
us and speaks to us the words of God. (29A)
propitiation: A sacrifice that bears God’s wrath to the end and in so doing changes God’s wrath
toward us into favor. (27C.2.b.(4))
providence: The doctrine that God is continually involved with all created things in such a way
that he (1) keeps them existing and maintaining the properties with which he created them;
(2) cooperates with created things in every action, directing their distinctive properties to
cause them to act as they do; and (3) directs them to fulfill his purposes. (16)
GLOSSARY
1253
purgatory: In Roman Catholic doctrine, the place where the souls of believers go to be further
purified from sin until they are ready to be admitted into heaven. (41C.l.a)
purity of the church: The church’s degree of freedom from wrong doctrine and conduct, and its
degree of conformity to God’s revealed will for the church. (45B)
raised in glory: A phrase describing our future resurrection bodies, which will exhibit a beauty
and radiance appropriate to the position of exaltation and rule over creation that God will give
us after the manner of Christ. (28A.4.c; also 42C)
raised in power: A phrase describing our future resurrection bodies, which will exhibit the full-
ness of strength and power that God intended human beings to have in their bodies when he
created them. (28A.2; also 42C)
raised with Christ: A phrase that describes the aspect of union with Christ by which a person receives
new spiritual life and a change in his character and personality after coming to faith. (43A.3.a)
random mutation: The view that various life forms resulted from an evolutionary process in
which random differences occurred when cells reproduced themselves. (15E.2.b)
ransom to Satan theory: The view that in the atonement Christ paid a ransom to Satan to redeem
us out of his kingdom. (27C.2.e.(l))
rapture: The “taking up” or snatching up (from Latin rapio , “seize, snatch, carry away”) of believ-
ers to be with Christ when he returns to the earth. (55A.3.b; also 55E)
reconciliation: The removal of enmity and the restoration of fellowship between two parties.
(27C.2.d.(3))
rector: The officer in charge of a local parish in an episcopalian system of church
government. (47C.1)
redemption: Christ’s saving work viewed as an act of “buying back” sinners out of their bond-
age to sin and to Satan through the payment of a ransom (though the analogy should not be
pressed to specify anyone to whom a ransom was paid). (27C.2.d.(4))
Reformed: Another term for the theological tradition known as Calvinism. (16)
regeneration: A secret act of God in which he imparts new spiritual life to us; sometimes called
“being born again.” (34)
repentance: A heartfelt sorrow for sin, a renouncing of it, and a sincere commitment to forsake
it and walk in obedience to Christ. (35B)
reprobation: The sovereign decision of God before creation to pass over some persons, in sor-
row deciding not to save them, and to punish them for their sins and thereby to manifest his
justice. (32E)
resurrection: A rising from the dead into a new kind of life not subject to sickness, aging, dete-
rioration, or death. (2 8 A)
revealed will: God’s declared will concerning what we should do or what God commands us to
do. (13D.14.b.(2))
righteousness: The doctrine that God always acts in accordance with what is right and that he is
himself the final standard of what is right. (12C.11)
Sabellianism: Another name for modalism, a term derived from the third-century teacher Sabel-
lius, who propagated this doctrine. (14C.1)
sacrament: In Protestant teaching, a ceremony or rite that the church observes as a sign of God’s
grace and as one means by which those who are already justified receive God’s continuing
grace in their lives. The two Protestant sacraments are baptism and the Lord’s Supper. In
Roman Catholic teaching, there are seven sacraments, and they are understood as a necessary
means of conveying saving grace. (See also “ordinance.”) (48A; 49)
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1254
sacrifice: Christ’s death on the cross viewed from the standpoint that he paid the penalty that
we deserved. (27C.2.d.(l))
sanctification: A progressive work of God and man that makes us more and more free from sin
and more like Christ in our actual lives. (38)
Satan: The personal name of the head of the demons. (20B)
saving faith: Trust in Jesus Christ as a living person for forgiveness of sins and for eternal life
with God. (35A.3)
Scripture: The writings (Greek graphs rendered in Latin by scriptura ) of the Old and New Testa-
ments, which have historically been recognized as God’s words in written form. Another term
for the Bible. (4A)
secondary cause: The properties and actions of created things that bring about events in the
world. (16B.4)
second coming of Christ: The sudden, personal, visible, bodily return of Christ from heaven to
earth. (54A)
secret will: God’s hidden decrees by which he governs the universe and determines everything
that will happen. (13D.14.b.2)
self-attesting: The self-authenticating nature of the Bible by which it convinces us that its words
are God’s words. (4A.4)
self-existence: Another term for God’s independence. (11B.1)
separation: With reference to the church, the act of formal division of one group from another
on the basis of doctrinal differences, matters of conscience, or practical considerations. Such
separation can take more severe forms, such as the refusal to cooperate or the avoidance of
personal fellowship. (45E-F)
seraphim: A class of created spiritual beings that are said to continually worship God. (19A.3.b)
session: The “sitting down” of Christ at God’s right hand after his ascension, indicating that his
work of redemption was complete and that he received authority over the universe. The term
can also refer to the group of elders with governing authority over a local church in a presby-
terian form of church government (28B.3; 47C.2)
sign: A biblical term for miracles (translating the Hebrew *oth and the Greek semeion), specifi-
cally meaning something that points to or indicates something else, especially God’s activity
and power. (17A)
“signs of an apostle”: A phrase used by the apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:12 that refers to those
various things that distinguished him as a true apostle from others who were false apostles.
Some who deny the continuation of miracles today use this phrase to contend that miracles
were uniquely the signs that distinguished apostles from ordinary Christians. (17D.2)
simplicity: Another term for the unity of God. (11B.5)
sin: Any failure to conform to the moral law of God in act, attitude, or nature. (24A)
sinless perfection: The state of being totally free from sin; some hold that such a state is possible
in this life. (See also “perfectionism.”) (38B.4)
Son of God: A title often used of Jesus to designate him as the heavenly, eternal Son who is equal
in nature to God himself. (26B.l.c)
Son of Man: The term by which Jesus referred to himself most often, which had an Old Testament
background, especially in the heavenly figure who was given eternal rule over the world in the
vision in Daniel 7:13. (26B.l.c)
sons of God: Another name for angels (Job 1:6; 2:1). (19A.2)
soul: The immaterial part of man; used interchangeably with “spirit.” (23B.1)
GLOSSARY
1255
soul sleep: The doctrine that believers go into a state of unconscious existence when they die, and
that they return to consciousness when Christ returns and raises them to eternal life. (41C.l.b)
sovereignty: Gods exercise of power over his creation. (13D.16)
speaking in tongues: Prayer or praise spoken in syllables not understood by the speaker. (53E.2)
special grace: The grace of God that brings people to salvation; also known as “saving grace.”
(31A)
special revelation: God’s words addressed to specific people, including the words of the Bible. This
is to be distinguished from general revelation, which is given to all people generally. (7E)
spirit: The immaterial part of man, a term used interchangeably with “soul.” (23B.1)
spiritual body: The type of body we will receive at our future resurrection, which will not be
“immaterial” but rather suited to and responsive to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. (28A.2;
42C)
spirituality: The doctrine that God exists as a being that is not made of any matter, has no parts or
dimensions, is unable to be perceived by our bodily senses, and is more excellent than any other
kind of existence. (12A.1)
spiritual presence: A phrase descriptive of the Reformed view of the Lord’s Supper that regards
Christ as spiritually present in a special way as we partake of the bread and wine. (50C.3)
states of Jesus Christ: The different relationships Jesus had to God’s law, to the possession of
authority, and to receiving honor for himself, during the various stages in his work. The two
states of Jesus Christ are humiliation and exaltation. (28C)
subordinationism: The heretical teaching that the Son was inferior or “subordinate” in being to
God the Father. (14C.2.b)
sufficiency of Scripture: The idea that Scripture contained all the words of God he intended his
people to have at each stage of redemptive history, and that it now contains all the words of
God we need for salvation, for trusting him perfectly, and for obeying him perfectly. (8A)
summary attributes: God’s attributes of perfection, blessedness, beauty, and glory, which are
called “summary” attributes in this book because they have to do with looking at and evaluat-
ing all the other attributes of God considered together as a whole,
symbolic presence: The common Protestant view that the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper
symbolize the body and blood of Christ, rather than change into or somehow contain the
body and blood of Christ. (50C.3)
synod: A national governing assembly of a denomination (sometimes called a general assembly).
(47C.2)
systematic theology: Any study that answers the question, “What does the whole Bible teach us
today?” about any given topic. (1A)
teaching: In the New Testament, the ability to explain Scripture and apply it to people’s lives.
(53B)
teleological argument: An argument for the existence of God which reasons that, since the uni-
verse exhibits evidence of order and design, there must be an intelligent and purposeful God
who created it to function in this way. (9C)
temporary blessings: Influences of the Holy Spirit and the church that make unbelievers look or
sound like genuine believers when in fact they are not. (40C)
textual variants: Occurrences of different words in different ancient copies of the same verse of
Scripture. (5B.3)
theistic evolution: The theory that God used the process of evolution to bring about all of the
life forms on earth. (15E.2.b)
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1256
theophany: An “appearance of God” in which he takes on a visible form to show himself to
people. (12A.2)
total depravity: The traditional term for the doctrine referred to in this text as “total inability.”
(24C.2.a)
total inability: Man’s total lack of spiritual good and inability to do good before God (often
referred to as “total depravity”). (24C.2.a)
traducianism: The view that the soul of a child is inherited from the baby’s mother and father at
the time of conception. (23F).
transcendent: The term used to describe God as being greater than the creation and independent
of it. (15B)
transitional types: Fossils showing some characteristics of one animal and some of the next
developmental type, which, if found, would provide evidence for evolutionary theory by fill-
ing in the gaps between distinct kinds of animals. (15E.2.c)
transubstantiation: The Roman Catholic teaching that the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper
(often referred to as “the eucharist”) actually become the body and blood of Christ. (50C.1)
trichotomy: The view that man is made up of three parts: body, soul, and spirit. (23C)
Trinity: The doctrine that God eternally exists as three persons — Father, Son, and Holy Spir-
it — and each person is fully God, and there is one God. (14)
tritheism: The belief that there are three gods. (14C.3)
trust: An aspect of biblical faith or belief in which we not only know and agree with facts about
Jesus, but also place personal trust in him as a living person. (35A.3)
truthfulness: The doctrine that God is the true God and that all his knowledge and words are
both true and the final standard of truth. (12B.5)
twenty-four-hour day theory: The view that the six “days” of creation in Genesis 1 are to be
understood as literal twenty-four-hour days. (15E.3.e)
two-class Christianity: A view of the church that divides it into two categories of believers, such
as ordinary believers versus “sanctified” believers, or ordinary believers versus Spirit-baptized
believers. (39D.1)
ubiquity of Christ’s human nature: The teaching, put forth by Martin Luther in support of his
view of the Lord’s Supper, that Christ’s human nature was present everywhere (“ubiquitous”)
after his ascension. (50C.2)
unchangeableness: The doctrine that God is unchanging in his being, perfections, purposes, and
promises, yet he does act and feel emotions, and he acts and feels differently in response to
different situations. (11B.2)
union with Christ: A phrase that summarizes several different relationships between believers and
Christ, through which Christians receive every benefit of salvation. These relationships include
the fact that we are in Christ, Christ is in us, we are like Christ, and we are with Christ. (43)
unity: The doctrine that God is not divided into parts, yet we see different attributes of God
emphasized at different times. (11B.5)
unity of the church: The church’s degree of freedom from divisions among true
Christians. (45B)
universalism: The doctrine that all people will ultimately be saved. (56G)
unlimited atonement: The view that Christ’s death actually paid for the sins of all people who
ever lived. (27D)
unpardonable sin: The unusually malicious, willful rejection and slander against the Holy Spir-
it’s work attesting to Christ, and attributing that work to Satan. (24D.6)
GLOSSARY
1257
valid proofs: Arguments for the existence of God that are based on facts and that correctly reason
to a true conclusion. No such proofs, however, are able to compel agreement from everyone
who considers them. (9C)
venial sin: In Roman Catholic teaching, a sin that can be forgiven, although perhaps after pun-
ishments in this life or in purgatory. (24D.4.b)
veracity: Another term for God’s truthfulness. (12B.5)
vicar: In an episcopalian system of church government, a church officer in charge of a local par-
ish and acting in place of a rector. (47C.1)
vicarious atonement: The work Christ did to earn our salvation by standing in our place in his
life and death. (27C.2.c.(4))
virgin birth: The biblical teaching that Jesus was conceived in the womb of his mother Mary by
a miraculous work of the Holy Spirit and without a human father. (26A.1)
visible church: The church as Christians on earth see it. Because only God sees our hearts, the
visible church will always include some unbelievers. (44A.2)
voluntary choices: Choices that are made in accord with our desires, with no awareness of
restraints on our will or compulsion against our will. (16H.3)
waiting on the Lord: A posture of the heart during prayer in which we wait quietly before God
for some sense of guidance in our prayer, and also for an assurance of God’s presence and of
his answer to our prayer. (18C.9)
watchers: Another name for angels (Dan. 4:13, 17, 23). (19A.2)
Western church: A term referring to the Roman Catholic Church, from which the Eastern
(Orthodox) church separated in A.D. 1054. Later, the Western church split into Protestant
and Roman Catholic branches. (45E)
will: The attribute of God whereby he approves and determines to bring about every action neces-
sary for the existence and activity of himself and all creation. (13D.14)
willing choices: Choices that are made in accord with our desires, with no awareness of restraints
on our will. (16B.9).
wisdom: The doctrine that God always chooses the best goals and the best means to those goals.
(12B.4)
wonder: A biblical word for miracles (translating the Hebrew mopeth and the Greek teras), spe-
cifically referring to an event that causes people to be amazed or astonished. (17A)
Word of God: A phrase that refers to several different things in the Bible, including the Son
of God, the decrees of God, God’s words of personal address, God’s words spoken through
human lips, and God’s words in written form, the Bible. It is this last form of the Word of God
that is the focus of systematic theology, since it is the form that is available for study, for public
inspection, for repeated examination, and as a basis for mutual discussion. (2)
word of knowledge: The ability to speak with knowledge about a situation. (53F)
word of wisdom: The ability to speak a wise word in various situations. (53F)
worship: The activity of glorifying God in his presence with our voices and hearts. (51 A)
wrath: As an attribute of God, the doctrine that God intensely hates all sin. (12C.13)
“young earth” theory: A theory of creation that views the earth as relatively young, perhaps as
young as 10,000 to 20,000 years old. (15E.3)
AUTHOR INDEX
Abelard, Peter, 581
Adams, Jay, 902, 1116, 1137
Addison, Joseph, 148
Adger, John B., 1229
Aldrich, Joseph C., 697
Alexander, Donald L., 760
Alford, Henry, 839
Alleine, Joseph, 697
Allen, Ronald, 1015
Allison, Gregg, 19
Allis, Oswald T., 287, 1137
Andersen, Francis L., 831
Anderson, J. Kerby, 312
Anderson, J. N. D., 608
Anderson, Neil T., 435, 1078
Anselm, 565
Apollinaris, 554
Archer, Gleason L., 98, 103, 283, 524, 1107, 1113,
1133, 1137
Arius, 243, 244
Arminius, James (Jacob), 338, 1224
Arndt, William, 98, 103
Athanasius, 58, 64, 231, 245, 565, 911
Augustine, 98, 260, 332, 911
Austin, Stephen A., 306, 312
Babbage, S. B., 946
Bacchiocchi, Samuele, 469
Baillie, John, 88
Baker, D. L., 40
Baker, John P., 769
Baker, J. P., 632, 849, 1084
Baldwin, H. Scott, 19
Balmer, Randall H., 99
Banks, Robert J., 871
Bannerman, James, 871, 946
Barclay, D. R., 312, 452
Baring-Gould, Sabine, 903
Barker, Kenneth, 99, 301
Barnes, Robert D., 299
Barr, James, 88, 103, 113
Barth, Karl, 122, 443, 677
Basinger, David, 331, 353, 689
Basinger, Randall, 331, 341, 353, 689
Bastible, James, 971, 1228
Bauckham, Richard J., 605, 902, 1107, 1137
Bavinck, Herman, 158, 164, 169, 177, 247, 260, 330,
1224
Note: Bavinck is also indexed under “Sections
in Evangelical Systematic Theologies” at the
end of each chapter.
Baxter, Richard, 698, 947
Beasley- Murray, G. R., 986
Beckwith, Roger T., 57, 58, 66, 71, 826, 1001, 1155
Beechick, Allen, 1107, 1137
Beegle, Dewey M., 88, 103
Beisner, Calvin, 260
Bennett, Arthur, 394
Bennett, Dennis, 786, 1022, 1041, 1084
Bennett, Rita, 786, 1022, 1041, 1084
Berg, Caroline V. Sandell, 745
Berkhof, Louis, 40, 113, 163, 232, 256, 279, 330, 356,
473, 481, 482, 484, 507, 508, 509, 600, 605,
628, 664, 679, 808, 826, 926, 927, 951, 967,
975, 995, 1097, 1099, 1110, 1116, 1146, 1160,
1225
Note: Berkhof is also indexed under “Sections
in Evangelical Systematic Theologies” at the
end of each chapter.
Berkouwer, G. C., 88, 125, 353, 373, 452, 483, 512,
565, 605, 689, 720, 734, 760, 808, 871, 986,
1001, 1107, 1137, 1225
Bickersteth, Edward H., 260
Bietenhard, H., 589
Bilezikian, Gilbert, 461, 462, 465, 469, 938, 942, 947
Birdsall, J. N., 71
Bizer, Ernst, 1227
Blaising, Craig A., 860, 871
Blamires, Harry, 1155, 1166
Blocher, Henri, 301, 312
Bloesch, Donald G., 260, 512, 1225
Blomberg, Craig, 113
Blue, Ken, 894, 1063, 1066, 1085
Bock, Darrell L., 860, 871
Bockmuehl, Klaus, 760
Boettner, Lorraine, 1137
Bohlin, R. G., 313
Boice, James Montgomery, 40, 103, 360, 370, 374,
715, 720, 1225
Bonar, Horatius, 698, 1002
Borland, James A., 937, 941
Borror, Gordon, 1015
Boston, Thomas, 452
Bounds, E. M., 394
Bowman, Robert M., Jr., 260
Boyce, James Pettigru, 1225
Note: Boyce is also indexed under “Sections in
Evangelical Systematic Theologies” at the
end of each chapter.
Bradley, W. L., 313
Brandt, Doug, 19, 262
Bray, Gerald L., 40, 154, 224, 260, 565, 622
1258
AUTHOR INDEX
1259
Brewer, Greg, 1094
Bridge, Donald, 374, 1001, 1044, 1059, 1085
Bromiley, Geoffrey W., 99, 183, 224, 410, 885, 986
Brother Lawrence, 394
Brown, Colin, 146, 356, 374
Brown, Harold O. J., 241, 260, 555, 565
Brown, John, 605
Brown, R., 986
Bruce, F. F., 57, 66, 71, 565
Bruner, Frederick Dale, 651, 786
Brunner, Emil, 443
Bube, Richard H., 279
Budgen, Victor, 1036, 1050, 1085
Buis, Harry, 1155
Bultmann, Rudolf, 420, 474
Burge, G. M., 947
Burgess, Stanley M., 764
Burtchaell, James Tunstead, 88
Burton, E. D., 908
Buswell, James Oliver, 1225
Note: Buswell is also indexed under “Sections
in Evangelical Systematic Theologies” at the
end of each chapter.
Butzer, Karl W., 291
Caird, G. B., 1126
Calvin, John, 98, 316, 328, 329, 330, 332, 334, 335,
336, 344, 347, 363, 560, 587, 624, 685, 719,
855, 856, 857, 864-65, 879, 881, 885, 911,
995, 1039, 1045, 1225
Note: Calvin is also indexed under “Sections in
Evangelical Systematic Theologies” at the
end of each chapter.
Cameron, Nigel M. de S., 24, 40, 312, 353, 1155
Campbell, Donald K., 947, 1226
Campbell, John McLeod, 605
Carson, D. A., 40, 61, 66, 71, 74, 87, 103, 113, 353,
360, 370, 374, 394, 400, 512, 593, 651, 659,
689, 734, 808, 829, 835, 858, 871, 885, 892,
939, 947, 1004, 1034, 1040, 1045, 1050, 1055,
1085
Carson, Herbert M., 1015
Carter, Charles W., 651, 1226
Note: Carter is also indexed under “Sections in
Evangelical Systematic Theologies” at the
end of each chapter.
Carter, R. Kelso, 89
Caulley, T. S., 651
Cennick, John, 1108
Chafer, Lewis Sperry, 571, 715, 760, 854, 860, 861,
1142, 1226
Note: Chafer is also indexed under “Sections in
Evangelical Systematic Theologies” at the
end of each chapter.
Chantry, Walter J., 365, 367, 720, 1036, 1085
Charles, R. H., 400
Charnock, Stephen, 146, 154, 183, 224
Chrysostom, John, 909, 917
Clairvaux, Bernard of, 850
Clark, Ellyn, 19
Clark, Gordon H., 146
Clark, R. E. D., 715
Clark, Stephen B., 469, 947
Clement of Alexandria, 231
Clements, Roy, 1050, 1055, 1085
Clines, David J. A., 320, 327, 339, 443, 462
Clotz, J. W., 312
Clouse, Bonnidell, 469
Clouse, F. G., 1107, 1137
Clouse, Robert G., 469, 1115, 1137
Clowney, Edmund P., 129, 394, 632, 858, 871, 892,
947, 1004
Cobb, John B., Jr., 166
Cohen, I. L., 285
Coleman, Robert E., 698
Collins, G. N. M., 524
Colwell, J.E., 469, 488,512
Conn, H. M., 469
Cooper, John W., 488, 826
Copernicus, 273
Coppedge, Allan, 689, 760
Cottrell, Jack W., 338, 339, 340, 342, 343, 344, 345,
348, 349, 469, 676, 682, 986, 1226
Note: Cottrell is also indexed under “Sections
in Evangelical Systematic Theologies” at the
end of each chapter.
Cousin, Anne R., 220, 1167
Cowper, William, 354
Cox, G. S. R., 885
Craig, Samuel G., 1229
Craig, William Lane, 172, 348, 353, 608, 622
Cranfield, C. E. B., 264, 588
Crick, Francis, 285, 286
Crockett, William V., 1155
Croly, George, 653, 787
Custance, Arthur C., 287, 312
Daane, James, 344, 345
Dabney, Robert L., 1226
Note: Dabney is also indexed under “Sections
in Evangelical Systematic Theologies” at the
end of each chapter.
Darby, John Nelson, 860, 1100
Darwin, Charles, 275, 279, 282, 285
Davidheiser, Bolton, 312
Davids, R H., 744, 826
Davis, John Jefferson, 35, 40, 1138, 1224
Davis, Percival, 279, 282, 291, 292, 309, 312
Davis, Stephen T., 88, 103, 172, 260
Deere, Jack, 374, 1063, 1085
Deissmann, G. Adolf, 573
DeKoster, L., 902
Delitzsch, Franz, 227, 472, 488
Demarest, Bruce, 22, 40, 123, 125, 512, 611, 808, 1227
Note: Demarest is also indexed under “Sections
in Evangelical Systematic Theologies” at the
end of each chapter.
Dennison, James T., 1229
Denton, Michael, 274, 283, 312
De Young, Donald B., 312
Dickason, C. Fred, 410, 435, 1077, 1078
Diehl, D. W., 183
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1260
Dillard, Raymond, 19
Dio Chrysostom, 1051
Diodorus Siculus, 611, 1051
Dioscurides of Cilicia, 1051
Dockery, David S., 113
Dodd, C. H., 575,711
Doerksen, Vernon D., 1229
Donaldson, J., 824
Downs, Perry G., 761
Dumbrell, William J., 524, 1107
Dunbar, David G., 66, 71
Dunn, James D. G., 773, 786
Dwight, Timothy, 965
Eaton, Michael, 319
Eckelmann, Herman J., Jr., 298, 299, 313
Eddy, Mary Baker, 131
Edgar, Thomas, 1036, 1085
Edwards, David L., 1150
Edwards, Jonathan, 1226
Note: Edwards is also indexed under “Sections
in Evangelical Systematic Theologies” at the
end of each chapter.
Edwards, Paul, 34
Edwards, William, 573
Eidsmoe, John, 902
Eldredge, Niles, 282
Elliot, Charlotte, 721
Ellis, E. E., 1085
Elwell, Walter, 35, 605
Engle, Paul E., 1015
Epiphanius, 909
Erickson, Millard, 41, 251, 301, 305, 443, 473, 483,
499, 565, 611, 855, 912, 929, 996, 1107, 1138,
1159, 1224, 1226
Note: Erickson is also indexed under “Sections
in Evangelical Systematic Theologies” at the
end of each chapter.
Ervin, Howard M., 769, 771, 775, 786
Eusebius, 58, 62
Eutyches, 560
Evans, Mary J., 469, 947
Fairchild, J. H., 1226
Farnell, F. David, 1050, 1052, 1085
Fawcett, John, 886
Featherstone, William R., 827
Fee, Gordon D., 113, 459, 940
Feinberg, Charles L., 1137
Feinberg, John S., 331, 353, 513, 689, 826, 860, 871
Feinberg, Paul D., 103, 1107, 1113, 1132, 1134, 1137
Ferguson, S. B., 452
Fields, Weston W., 287, 312
Figard, Steve, 19, 262
Finney, Charles G., 1226-27
Note: Finney is also indexed under “Sections in
Evangelical Systematic Theologies” at the
end of each chapter.
Fitzmyer, Joseph, 460
Flavel, John, 353
Flew, Anthony, 608
Foh, Susan T., 463, 464, 469, 947
Forsyth, P. T., 394
Foster, Richard J., 394
Frair, Wayne, 277, 279, 280, 282, 291, 292, 312
Frame, John M., 21, 41, 79, 154, 355
France, R. T., 146, 154, 1102, 1103, 1126, 1127
Friesen, Garry, 137
Fuller, Daniel P., 97, 524, 622
Fung, Ronald Y. K., 947
Gaffin, Richard B., Jr., 622, 651, 786, 838, 871, 1034,
1035, 1036, 1038, 1040, 1041, 1042, 1050,
1052, 1085
Galen of Pergamum, 1051
Galileo, 273
Gange, Robert, 312
Garret, James Leo, 1227
Gee, Donald, 1041, 1059, 1085
Geehan, E. R., 41
Geisler, Norman L., 87, 103, 146, 312, 366, 367, 374,
513,611
Gentry, Kenneth L., Jr., 1036, 1050, 1053, 1085
Gentry, R. V., 312
Gerstner, John H., 1155
Gill, John, 600, 1227
Note: Gill is also indexed under “Sections in
Evangelical Systematic Theologies” at the
end of each chapter.
Gilmore, John, 1166
Gish, D. T., 312
Godfrey, William Robert, 99, 689
Goetchius, E. V. N., 234
Golder, Michael, 552
Gordon, Adoniram Judson, 849
Gould, Stephen Jay, 282
Graham, Billy, 410
Grant, Sir Robert, 210
Green, Michael, 107, 435, 552, 605, 651, 786, 979,
980, 987, 1085
Green, William Henry, 71
Greig, Gary, 374, 1063, 1085
Grensted, L. W„ 605
Grenz, Stanley J., 41
Grider, J. K., 838, 1166
Grier, W. J., 1138
Griffin, David R., 166
Griffith Thomas, W. H. See Thomas, W. H. Griffith
Gromacki, Robert G., 1086
Gross, Edward N., 374
Grotius, Hugo, 582
Grudem, Wayne, 61, 74, 87, 132, 327, 374, 405, 414,
426, 440, 442, 454, 460, 467, 470, 573, 579,
582, 590, 591, 600, 620, 685, 739, 741, 792,
797, 808, 823, 826, 863, 878, 889, 902, 906,
909, 915, 920, 937, 939, 947, 974, 1031, 1037,
1040, 1050, 1054, 1075, 1082, 1083, 1086
Gruenler, Royce Gordon, 166, 260
Gundry, Patricia, 469, 947
Gundry, Robert H., 488, 838, 1107, 1138
Guthrie, Donald, 62, 236, 543, 546, 566, 646, 1159
Guthrie, William, 808
AUTHOR INDEX
1261
Habermas, Gary, 608, 622
Hackett, Stuart, 146
Haley, John W., 103
Hallesby, O., 394
Halsne, Doug, 19
Harper, Michael, 1040, 1059
Harrison, E. F., 1015
Harris, Murray J., 233, 236, 260, 363, 543, 566, 610,
611, 612, 613, 622, 768, 826, 829, 838
Harris, R. Laird, 71
Hartshorne, Charles, 166
Hawthorne, Gerald, 651
Hayford, JackW., 1086
Heard, J. B., 488
Heber, Reginald, 261
Heijenoort, John van, 34
Held, Heinrich, 1088
Helm, Paul, 87, 170, 183, 353, 1155
Hendriksen, William, 158, 1138
Hennecke, E„ 69
Henry, Carl F. H., 57, 87, 125, 166, 170, 452, 885, 1227
Note: Henry is also indexed under “Sections in
Evangelical Systematic Theologies” at the
end of each chapter.
Heppe, Heinrich, 1227
Note: Heppe is also indexed under “Sections in
Evangelical Systematic Theologies” at the
end of each chapter.
Hering, Jean, 363
Herodotus, 917
Hick, John, 552
Hirsch, E. D., Jr., 113
Hodge, Archibald, 606
Hodge, Charles, 22, 251, 363, 560, 947, 953, 1227, 1229
Note: Hodge is also indexed under “Sections in
Evangelical Systematic Theologies” at the
end of each chapter.
Hodges, Zane C., 715, 720
Hoehner, Harold, 19, 365
Hoekema, Anthony A., 452, 488, 513, 651, 667, 698,
708, 720, 734, 761, 786, 809, 826, 838, 1107,
1115, 1138, 1156, 1166
Hofius, O., 356
Holmes, Arthur, 196
Hoover, A. J., 146
Hort, F. J. A., 947
Horton, Michael Scott, 360, 374, 1086
Horton, S. M., 651
Houghton, S. M., 885
House, H. Wayne, 41, 469, 947
Houston, Graham, 1040, 1050, 1086
Houston, James, 312, 394
How, William Walsham, 72
Hoyle, Fred, 284
Hubbard, D. A., 1156
Hubbard, Robert L., 113
Hughes, Philip Edgcumbe, 99, 263, 363, 452, 513,
566, 667,924, 965, 1150, 1227
Hummel, Charles E., 312, 1050, 1086
Hunter, W. Bingham, 394
Hurley, James B., 469, 947
Ignatius of Antioch, 67, 1149
Inch, Morris A., 114
Irenaeus, 878
Irving, Edward, 1043
Jepsen, Dee, 470
Jeremias, Joachim, 593
Jerome, 58
Jewett, Paul K., 470, 987
Jocz, Jakob, 524
Johnson, Phillip E., 274, 279, 280, 282, 284, 292, 312
Johnson, R. K., 513
Joppie, A. S., 410
Josephus, 56, 59, 243, 465, 797, 917, 1102
Kaiser, Christopher B., 183, 224, 260, 312
Kaiser, Walter C., Jr., 114, 524
Kantzer, Kenneth S., 34, 885
Kaplan, M. M., 285
Kassian, Mary A., 470
Kautzsch, E., 227
Kearsley, R., 667, 809
Keil, J. K. F., 227
Kelly, J. N. D., 792
Kelly, Thomas R., 394
Kennedy, D. James, 698
Kerkut, G. A., 312
Kethe, William, 668
Kevan, Ernest F., 698, 708
Kidner, Derek, 228, 265, 266, 303
Kik, J., 1138
Kingdon, David, 19, 885, 987, 1151
Kirby, G. W., 947
Kirk, J. A., 374
Kirkpatrick, William J., 314
Klein, William W„ 113, 689
Kline, Meredith G., 52, 55, 71, 301, 303, 452
Kling, August J., 273
Klooster, F. H., 689
Knight, George W. Ill, 19, 74, 470, 598, 920, 947
Koch, Kurt, 1078
Kofahl, Robert E., 281, 284, 285, 304, 312
Kramer, Helmut, 1051
Kraueter, Tom, 1015
Kroeger, Catherine, 251, 947
Kroeger, Richard, 251, 947
Kromminga, C. G., 720
Kruse, Colin, 363
Kuyper, Abraham, 41, 52, 87, 125
Kydd, Ronald A., 1044
Ladd, George Eldon, 474, 488, 622, 651, 771, 863,
864, 871, 1097, 1107, 1121, 1138
Laidlaw, John, 452, 488
Lake, Kirsopp, 58, 69, 824, 908
Lane, A. N. S., 559
Laney, J. Carl, 902
Lathbury, Mary A., 53
Law, William A., 394
Leiman, S. Z., 71
Lenski, R. C. H., 560
Lester, L. P., 313
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1262
Letham, Robert, 251, 632
Lewis, Arthur H., 1116
Lewis, C. S., 374, 435, 513, 702
Lewis, David C., 1045
Lewis, Gordon R., 22, 123, 146, 183, 224, 1227
Note: Lewis is also indexed under “Sections in
Evangelical Systematic Theologies” at the
end of each chapter.
Liefeld, Walter L„ 470, 937, 942, 948
Lightfoot, J. B., 363, 906, 914
Lightner, Robert R, 1107, 1138
Lincoln, Andrew T., 1166
Linder, R. D., 902
Lindsell, Harold, 103
Little, Paul, 698
Litton, Edward Arthur, 924, 925, 1227
Note: Litton is also indexed under “Sections in
Evangelical Systematic Theologies” at the
end of each chapter.
Lloyd-Jones, D. Martyn, 786, 885, 1038
Longenecker, Richard, 566
Longstaff, William D., 762
Lowrey, Robert, 987
Lucian of Samosata, 1051
Luther, Martin, 68, 375, 484, 558, 722, 727, 729,
855, 856, 865, 879, 881, 911, 994, 995
Maatman, Russell, 313
MacArthur, John F., Jr., 698, 715, 720, 1034, 1040,
1086
Machen, J. Gresham, 41, 452, 720, 866, 876
Macleod, D., 622, 947
MacMillan, John A., 435
Mallone, George, 435, 1039, 1086
Manson, P. D., 1015
Marcel, Pierre Ch., 987
Marshall, D. W., 885
Marshall, I. Howard, 114, 322, 332, 338, 339, 340,
566, 678, 683, 809, 947, 1001
Martens, Elmer, 524
Martin, Hugh, 606
Martin, James P., 1156
Martin, Ralph P., 363, 871, 1015
Martyr, Justin, 917
Massey, James Earl, 114
Mattern, Jack, 783
Mavrodes, George I., 146
Maxson, J. Robin, 137
McBrien, Richard P., 1224, 1227
Note: McBrien is also indexed under “Sections
in Representative Roman Catholic System-
atic Theologies” at the end of each chapter.
McCheyne, Robert Murray, 691
McClain, Alva J., 1138
McClelland, S. E., 435
McComiskey, Thomas E., 19, 41, 183, 410, 521, 524
McCown, Wayne, 114
McDonald, H. D., 52, 452, 488, 556, 605
McDowell, Josh, 147, 609
McGaughy, Lane C., 234
McGee, GaryB., 764, 786
McGrath, Alister E., 261, 566, 605, 734
McKim, Donald K., 88, 93, 103
McKnight, Scot, 114, 808
McNeill, John T., 328, 1226
McRay, J. R., 71
Melito of Sardis, 58
Menninga, Clarence, 304, 313
Metzger, Bruce M., 57, 59, 66, 69, 71, 96
Mickelsen, A. Berkeley, 1 14
Mickelsen, Alvera, 470, 947
Miethe, Terry L., 608
Migne, J. P., 909
Mikolaski, S. J., 245, 261
Miley, John, 1227, 1230
Note: Miley is also indexed under “Sections in
Evangelical Systematic Theologies” at the
end of each chapter.
Milligan, George, 1134
Mills, Pauline Michael, 453, 1015
Milne, Bruce, 965, 1227
M’Intyre, D. M., 395, 755
Montgomery, James, 411, 809
Montgomery, John Warwick, 79, 87, 103
Moo, Douglas J., 19, 68, 481, 938, 969, 1079, 1086,
1107, 1113, 1132, 1137
Moorehead, P. S., 285
Moreland, J. P., 79, 99, 172
Morey, Robert A., 606
Morison, Frank, 608, 622
Morowitz, Harold J., 285
Morris, Henry M., 304, 306, 313
Morris, John D., 304, 313
Morris, Leon, 189, 380, 555, 575, 579, 606, 610, 659,
711, 720, 734, 910, 947, 1134, 1156
Morris, William, 34
Morrow, T. W., 41
Mortenson, Terry, 19, 262
Moule, C. F. D., 374, 566, 651, 1015
Moulton, J. H., 1134
Mounce, Robert H., 930, 931
Mueller, John Theodore, 1228
Note: Mueller is also indexed under “Sections
in Evangelical Systematic Theologies” at the
end of each chapter.
Mullins, Edgar Young, 1228
Note: Mullins is also indexed under “Sections
in Evangelical Systematic Theologies” at the
end of each chapter.
Mundle, W., 356
Murray, Andrew, 395
Murray, Iain, 1138
Murray, John, 444, 481, 513, 524, 571, 606, 640, 670,
698, 714, 720, 724, 734, 744, 752, 753, 761,
809, 838, 840, 849, 987, 1167, 1228
Note: Murray is also indexed under “Sections
in Evangelical Systematic Theologies” at the
end of each chapter.
Nash, Ronald, 87
Nathan, Rich, 1040, 1086
Neale, John Mason, 436
AUTHOR INDEX
1263
Nestorius, 555, 560
Nettles, Thomas J., 19, 689
Neuer, Werner, 470
Neumark, Georg, 225
Newman, Robert C., 298, 299, 307, 313
Newton, John, 948, 949
Nicholson, Steve, 19
Nicole, Roger, 57, 611
Oden, Thomas, 1228
Note: Oden is also indexed under “Sections in
Evangelical Systematic Theologies” at the
end of each chapter.
O’Donovan, Oliver, 622
Oepke, Albrecht, 967
Olsen, R. L., 313
Olson, Arnold T., 1228
Omanson, R. L., 871
Orgel, L. E., 286
Origen, 58, 62, 245, 581, 909
Ortlund, Raymond C., Jr., 395, 440, 454, 462, 937
Osborne, Grant R., 114, 680, 789, 790, 1086
Osterhaven, M. E., 524, 1001
Ott, Ludwig, 531, 578, 728, 729, 817, 818, 971, 972,
992, 1224, 1228
Note: Ott is also indexed under “Sections in
Representative Roman Catholic Systematic
Theologies” at the end of each chapter.
Otto, Randall E., 594
Owen, John, 606, 712
Pache, Rene, 651
Packer, J. I., 35, 40, 52, 71, 87, 103, 114, 125, 137, 147,
154, 183, 224, 261, 381, 606, 611, 651, 689,
698, 708, 712, 715, 720, 734, 761, 786, 885,
1155, 1228
Palmer, Edwin H., 652
Parker, T. H. L., 353
Payne, D. F., 301
Payne, Philip B., 566
Pelagius, 499
Penn-Lewis, Jessie, 435
Pentecost, J. Dwight, 435, 524, 1138
Peters, G. N. H., 524
Peterson, David, 1015
Peterson, Erik, 1134
Peterson, Michael L., 513
Philo, 531
Phypers, David, 986, 1001
Pieper, Francis, 994, 1228
Note: Pieper is also indexed under “Sections in
Evangelical Systematic Theologies” at the
end of each chapter.
Pink, A. W., 353, 513, 734
Pinnock, Clark H., 52, 87, 88, 320, 322, 338, 339,
340, 341, 347, 349, 671, 680, 683, 689, 1150
Piper, John, 154, 216, 224, 440, 454, 470, 683, 689,
741, 909, 920, 937, 938, 947, 1006
Pitman, M., 313
Plantinga, Alvin, 513
Plato, 531
Plotinus, 531
Plummer, Alfred, 363, 1072
Plutarch, 531,611,909, 1051
Polybius, 573
Pope, William Burt, 1228
Note: Pope is also indexed under “Sections in
Evangelical Systematic Theologies” at the
end of each chapter.
Poythress, Vern S., 41, 670, 689, 741, 849, 871, 940,
1086, 1138
Preus, Robert D., 41, 87
Prince, Derek, 395
Prior, K., 761
Provenzola, Tom, 19
Purkiser, W. T., 1228
Note: Purkiser is also indexed under “Sections
in Evangelical Systematic Theologies” at the
end of each chapter.
Pytches, David, 1086
Rad, Gerhard von, 462
Radmacher, Earl D., 87
Ramm, Bernard, 114, 301, 313, 513
Rapinchuk, Mark, 19
Rayburn, Robert G., 1015
Rayburn, R. S., 524
Reid, W. S., 689
Reiter, Richard, 1107, 1113, 1137
Renehan, James, 773
Rengstorf, K. H., 907
Reymond, Robert L., 19, 24, 566, 571, 632, 1036,
1037, 1042, 1086
Rice, Richard, 338, 347
Richards, Lawrence O. A., 947
Ridderbos, Herman N., 71
Ridderbos, N. H., 301
Roberts, A., 824
Roberts, Evan, 435
Robertson, O. Palmer, 524, 902, 1086
Robertson, Pat, 763
Robinson, H. W., 452
Robinson, J. A. T., 473
Rogers, Jack B., 88, 93, 103
Rosenthal, Marvin, 1107
Ross, A., 622
Ross, Hugh, 313
Rothwell, Don, 19
Rufinus, 586
Runia, Klaas, 566
Rusch, W. H., 313
Ruthven, Jon, 1044, 1086
Ryle, J. C., 761
Ryrie, Charles, 513, 524, 652, 720, 1228
Note: Ryrie is also indexed under “Sections in
Evangelical Systematic Theologies” at the
end of each chapter.
Sabellius, 242
Sammis, James H., 525
Saucy, Robert L., 19, 183, 224, 860, 871, 947, 1050,
1087
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1264
Schaeffer, Francis, 103, 274, 290, 313, 902
Schaff, Philip, 59, 244, 556, 586, 865, 1168
Schatzmann, Siegfried, 1087
Schep, J. A., 838
Schlegel, Katharina von, 489
Schneemelcher, W., 69
Schreiner, Thomas R., 216, 460, 680, 683, 690, 797,
920, 941
Schultz, Samuel J., 114
Schlirer, Emil, 418
Segraves, Kelly L., 281, 284, 285, 292, 304, 312
Seneca, 572
Shakespeare, William, 322
Shank, Robert, 690, 809
Shedd, William G. T., 1228
Note: Shedd is also indexed under “Sections in
Evangelical Systematic Theologies” at the
end of each chapter.
Silva, Moises, 114
Sire, James, 114, 147
Smeaton, George, 606, 652
Smedes, Lewis B., 849
Smith, David R., 395
Smith, S. M., 550, 551, 826
Smith, Walter Chalmers, 184
Smith, Wilbur M., 1167
Snaith, Norman, 443
Snyder, Howard A., 871
Socinus, Faustus, 581
Song, R. J., 1156
Spear, Wayne, 395
Spencer, Aida B., 461, 462, 470, 938, 942, 948
Spiceland, J. D., 374
Springer, Kevin, 374, 764, 783, 1063, 1085, 1087
Sproul, R. C., 114, 566, 652, 690
Stacey, W. D., 474
Steele, David N., 690
Stein, Robert H., 566
Stephanou, Eusebius A., 1044, 1087
Stevenson, John O., 19
Stone, Samuel J., 847, 872
Storms, C. Samuel, 690, 1087
Stott, John R. W., 606, 652, 774, 786, 881, 902, 948,
1021, 1150
Stowell, Hugh, 396
Strauch, Alexander, 948
Strauss, James D., 339, 682
Strong, Augustus H., 252, 484, 491, 801, 928, 929,
930, 931,966, 967, 1122, 1229
Note: Strong is also indexed under “Sections in
Evangelical Systematic Theologies” at the
end of each chapter.
Stuart, Douglas, 113
Swete, Henry Barclay, 560, 623, 652
Tasker, R. V. G., 68, 363
Tatian, 365
Taylor, Jack R., 1015
Tenney, Merrill C., 623
Tertullian, 231, 365, 917
Thaxton, C. B., 313
Thiessen, Henry Clarence, 1229
Note: Thiessen is also indexed under “Sections
in Evangelical Systematic Theologies” at the
end of each chapter.
Thigpen, Paul, 1044
Thiselton, Anthony C., 114
Thomas k Kempis, 395
Thomas, Curtis C., 690
Thomas, Robert L., 513, 1036, 1050, 1053, 1087
Thomas, W. H. Griffith, 1229
Note: Thomas is also indexed under “Sections
in Evangelical Systematic Theologies” at the
end of each chapter.
Thompson, J. A., 301
Thompson, J. G. S. S., 1087
Thornwell, James Henley, 1229
Thucydides, 573
Tiller, J., 948
Toon, Peter, 623, 708, 948
Torrance, D. W., 363
Torrance, T. F., 363
Tozer, A. W., 154, 183,224
Travis, S. H., 1107, 1138, 1156
Tucker, Ruth A., 470, 937, 942, 948
Turner, M. M. B., 1043, 1050, 1087
Turretin, Francis, 606, 1229
Tuttiett, Lawrence, 1156
Twelftree, G. H., 435
Unger, Merrill F., 435, 786
Ussher, James, 273
VanGemeren, Willem, 524, 871, 1107
Van Kampen, Robert, 1107
Van Leeuwen, Mary Stewart, 470
Van Til, Cornelius, 41, 88, 126, 147, 154, 224, 667,
1229
Van Till, Howard J., 313
Vawter, Bruce, 88
Verduin, Leonard, 443
Vermes, G., 418
Vos, Geerhardus, 41, 52, 538, 1107, 1138
Wace, Henry, 59
Wagner, C. Peter, 763, 929, 931, 1044
Wainwright, Geoffrey, 1015
Wallace, Ronald S., 566, 606, 948, 1001
Wallis, Arthur, 395
Walvoord, John F., 35, 566, 849, 947, 1107, 1138,
1155
Ware, Bruce A., 166, 216, 680, 683, 690, 797
Warfield, Benjamin B., 41, 88, 103, 353, 358, 373,
400, 690, 1018, 1043, 1087, 1229
Note: Warfield is also indexed under “Sections
in Evangelical Systematic Theologies” at the
end of each chapter.
Warner, Timothy M., 428, 435
Watson, David C., 871
Watson, Richard, 1230
Watson, T. E., 987
Watson, Thomas, 720
Watts, Isaac, 607, 1139
AUTHOR INDEX
Webber, Robert E., 1015
Weeks, Noel, 137
Weinrich, William, 937
Wells, David F., 41, 566, 698
Wells, Paul, 88
Wenham, David, 374
Wenham, John W., 88, 224, 234, 513, 623
Wesley, Charles, 43, 453, 623, 633, 911, 1108
Wesley, John, 879
Westcott, Brooke Foss, 71
Westminster Seminary Faculty, 88
Whisenant, Edgar, 1094
Whitcomb, John C., 306, 313
Whitefield, George, 911
White, John, 395, 652, 894, 902, 1087
White, R. E. O., 761, 786, 809, 838
White, R. Fowler, 1050, 1087
Wilder-Smith, A. E., 313
Wiles, Maurice, 552
Wiley, H. Orton, 496, 1230
Note: Wiley is also indexed under “Sections in
Evangelical Systematic Theologies” at the
end of each chapter.
Wilkenson, J., 1087
Willard, Dallas, 395, 761
Williams, Don, 374
Williams, J. Rodman, 1230
Note: Williams is also indexed under “Sections
in Evangelical Systematic Theologies” at the
end of each chapter.
Wilson, R. McL., 69
Wimber, John, 374, 764, 783, 1045, 1063, 1087
Woodbridge, John D., 41, 61, 66, 71, 74, 87, 88, 99,
103
Wood, Leon J., 652
Wood, Rick, 1124
Wright, D. F., 261
Wright, Nigel, 435
Wright, N. T., 735
Yandell, Keith, 147
Yee, Tet-Lim, 591
Yocum, Bruce, 1055
Youngblood, Ronald, 301, 313
Young, Davis A., 279, 298, 304, 306, 313
Young, Edward J., 59, 88, 103
Young, Francis, 552
Zahn, Theodor, 71
Ziesler, J. A., 735, 761
Zinzendorf, Count Nikolaus, 735
Zuck, Roy B., 1226
Zwingli, Ulrich, 995
1265
HYMN INDEX
A Mighty Fortress Is Our God 375
All People That on Earth Do Dwell 667
Angels From the Realms of Glory 410
Be Still, My Soul 488
Blest Be the Tie That Binds 886
Blest the Man That Fears Jehovah 470
Break Thou the Bread of Life 53
Call Jehovah Thy Salvation 809
Children of the Heavenly Father 745
Christ the Lord Is Risen Today 623
Christian, Dost Thou See Them? 436
Come, O Come, Thou Quickening Spirit 1088
Come, O Creator Spirit 652
Come, Thou Almighty King 1048
Fairest Lord Jesus 566
From Every Stormy Wind 395
Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken 948
God Moves in a Mysterious Way 353
God, Be Merciful to Me 513
Great God, What Do I See and Hear! 1157
Hallelujah, Praise Jehovah! 314
Here, O My Lord, I See Thee Face to Face 1002
Holy, Holy, Holy 261
How Firm a Foundation 137
I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say 698
I Love Thy Kingdom, Lord 965
I Sought the Lord, and Afterward I Knew 708
I Will Thee Praise, My God, O King 155
If Thou but Suffer God to Guide Thee 225
Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise 184
Jehovah’s Perfect Law 115
Jesus Shall Reign Where’er the Sun 1139
Jesus, Thou Joy of Loving Hearts 850
Jesus, Thy Blood and Righteousness 735
Just As I Am 721
Love Divine, All Love Excelling 452
Lo! He Comes, With Clouds Descending 1108
My Jesus I Love Thee 827
O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing 42
O Quickly Come, Dread Judge of All 1156
O Word of God Incarnate 72
O Worship the King 210
Onward Christian Soldiers 903
Rejoice the Lord Is King 632
Spirit of God, Descend Upon My Heart 653, 787
Standing On the Promises 89
Take Time to Be Holy 761
Teach Me, O Lord, Your Way of Truth 126
Ten Thousand Times Ten Thousand 839
The Church’s One Foundation 872
The Law of the Lord Is Perfect 104
The Sands of Time Are Sinking 1167
The Spacious Firmament on High 147
Thou Art Worthy 453, 1015
Trust and Obey 525
Up From the Grave He Arose 987
When I Survey the Wondrous Cross 606
When This Passing World Is Done 690
When We Walk With the Lord 525
1266
SCRIPTURE INDEX (Partial)
This index does not list all the Scripture quotations or Scripture references in this book, but only
those where a passage is discussed in some way; that is, where an argument is made for a particular
understanding of a passage or some other interpretative comments are made.
GENESIS
1:1 287
1:2 267,287-288
1:5 295
1:11 277
1:16 300
1:24 277
1:26 227,442-443
1:31 288, 305
2:4-6 303
2:7 265
2:18 461-462
2:23 462
3:15 118, 520
3:16 463-464
5:1-2 439,454
5:2 440, 462
6:2-4 413
6:2 414
6:6 165
9:8-17 520
50:20 215, 323
EXODUS
3:14 162
4:21 323
20:4-6 187
20:7 158
20:12 296
32:9-14 164
34:6-7 209
NUMBERS
23:19 90
DEUTERONOMY
4:2 54
6:6-7 106
18:18-20 49
29:29 130, 134
32:16-17 417
1 SAMUEL
15:10 165
2 SAMUEL
10:12 335
12:20 822
24:1 324
1 KINGS
8:27 174
2 KINGS
22:14-20 942
1 CHRONICLES
26:24 290-291
2 CHRONICLES
5:13-14 956
NEHEMIAH
9:6 265
JOB
19:25-26 830
PSALMS
12:6 83
19:1 121
19:7 106
22:1 576
27:4 219
45:6-7 227
51:5 496
51:11 637
73:25 219
90:2 264
90:4 170
102:25-27 163
106:35-37 417
110:1 544
111:10 195
119:1 132
119:18 33
119:160 35
PROVERBS
8:22-31 229
8:22 243
9:10 195
ECCLESIASTES
9:11 319
ISAIAH
6:8 227
9:6 236
13:10 1103
14:12-15 413
38:1-6 164
43:7 220
43:25 192
45:7 326,328
46:9-10 171
48:16 229
53:4-5 1063
62:3-5 162
63:10 228
65:20 1128
JEREMIAH
1:9 49
7:31 192
9:23-24 152
19:5 192
31:31-34 522,862
31:35 192
EZEKIEL
36:25-26 702
DANIEL
12:2 1120
12:3 832
HOSEA
6:7 516
JONAH
1:15 326
2:3 326
3:4 165
3:10 165
ZEPHANIAH
3:17-18 163
MATTHEW
1:8-9 290
3:11 766
4:4 75, 118
5:26 818-819
5:48 750
6:9 157
1267
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1268
6:12
386
6:9-12
740
6 : 14-15 ....
386
7 : 21-23 ....
369 , 795
8 : 16-17 ....
1063
11 : 25-26 ...
215
11 : 28-30 ...
694
12 : 31-32 ...
506, 648
12:32
818
12:40
588
13:43
832
13 : 53-58 ...
534
16 : 1-4
370
16 : 16-19 ...
890
16:19
889-891
18:10
400
18 : 15-20 ...
... 896 - 897,900
18:15
894
18:17
898
18:18
890-891
18:20
996
22:44
544
24 : 6-7
1099
24:12
1102
24 : 15-31 ...
1125
24 : 29-31 ...
1126
24:29
1103
24:30
1125-1126
24:44
1093
25:13
1093
25 : 31-46 ...
1141-1142
25:46
1149
26:8
1150
26:39
569
27:46
574
27 : 46 b
576
27 : 52-53 ...
835
27:53
1120
28:2
612
28:6
612
28 : 19-20 ...
27
28:19
237
MARK
1:5
968
1:8
766
1:10
968
1:13
572
3 : 29-30 ....
507
3:29
648
5:8
366
6:2
960
6:5
366
9:29
391 , 432
10:6
296
11:24
384
12:30
479
13:32
560 , 562
16:16
981
16 : 17-18 ...
365
16:17
1077
LUKE
1:35
529 - 30 , 531
2:11
544
3:16
766
4 : 1-11 ....
536
4:14
233
10:20
432
12:10
648
18 : 18-30 . .
716
22:43
406
23:43
592
24:25
93
24:31
611
JOHN
1 : 1-4
234
1 : 1-2
232
1:1
234
1:3
263
1:9
659
1:13
738
1:33
766
3:5
702 , 973
3:7
704
3:11
555
3:16
711
4 : 23-24 ....
1010
4:24
186
5 : 28-29 ....
1119
6 : 38-40 ....
789
6 : 53-57 ....
990
8 : 31-32 ....
793
8:44
415
8:58
169
10:18
571
10 : 27-29 ...
789
10:30
242
12:27
533
13:14
962
13:21
533
14:9
242
14:17
637
14:26
. . 50 , 60 , 77 , 246
14:30
422
15 : 1-7
795
15:26
246
16:7
246
16 : 13-14 ...
60
16:13
77
17:5
... 161 , 220,250
17:17
83
17:21
844
17:24
161
20 : 4-7
612
20:17
593
20:19
610
20:22
769
20:23
891
20:28
235
ACTS
1:1
27
1:4
764
1:5
766
1:8
638
1 : 9-11
617
2:4
764
2:23
327
2:27
588
2:39
979
2:41
970
4 : 27-28 ....
212
4:27
327
4:30
379
6:3
944
7:38
854
8:2
814
8 : 4-25
773
8:38
968
9:17
765
9:31
857
10:40
612
11:6
769
11 : 15 - 17 ....
773
11:16
766
12:15
400
12 : 20-24 . . .
888
13 : 8-11 ....
888
13:48
680
14:15
165
14:23
921
16 : 14-15 ...
978
16 : 16 - 18 ....
888
16:31
716
17 : 30-31 . . .
172
18 : 9-10 ....
335, 675
18:11
335
18:26
943
19:2
774
19:3
774
19:4
774
20 : 22 - 23 ...
643
20:32
747
21:4
1052
21 : 10 - 11 ....
1052-1053
24:14
93
24:15
1120
27:31
336
28 : 17-19 ...
1053
28:17
1052
DMANS
1 : 19-21 ....
121
1:20
142
2 : 14-15 ....
122
3:23
220
3:25
. . . 510 , 568 , 575
4:3
726
4 : 6-8
725
4:16
731
4:17
264
SCRIPTURE INDEX (Partial)
1269
4:25 615
5:12-21 495,516
5:13-14 494
5:18-19 494
6:3-4 968,971
6:16 505
8:1 810,811
8:10 481
8:13 754
8:14 642
8:21 836
8:26-27 381-382,1078-1079
8:28-30 671,673
8:28 194
8:29 676-677
8:30 692, 790
8:34 627
9:5 236
9:11-13 677
9:18 682
9:19 682
9:20-24 682
10:6-7 588
10:13-17 116
10:18 117
11:2 677
11:29 1026
12:6-8 1016, 1020
12:6 1022
13:1 661
14:15 599
15:4 93
16:1 919
16:7 909
1 CORINTHIANS
1:7
1:16
1:22-24
2:9
2:10
2:11
2:13
....1019
.... 978
370 , 371
61
.... 150
416
61
2 : 14 - 3:4 478-479
2:14 33
3:15 818
4:19 215
5:5 895
6:3 1145
7:1 455
7 : 7-9 455
7:7 1016 , 1020
7:12 76-77
8:6 239
8:11 599
10:11 93
10:13 341
10:16 995
11:7 457
11:29 997
12:3 1077
12 : 4-31 358
12 : 4-6 231
12 : 8-10 .... 1016 , 1020 , 1049 ,
1080-1081
12:10 426
12 : 12-27 858
12:13 765-769
12:28 1020,1049
12 : 29-30 1023
12:30 1076
13:1 1072
13 : 8-13 .... 1026 , 1032-1039
13 : 9-10 1083
13:10 1032-1036
13:12 151 , 1162
14 : 13-19 1071
14 : 14-15 389 , 1073
14:14 478,480
14:15 382
14:21 1075
14 : 22-23 1075
14 : 24-25 416
14 : 29-38 1054
14 : 30-31 1056
14:30 1054
14:31 1060
14 : 33-36 939-940
14:33 203
14:36 1054
14:37 76
15 : 12-58 615,829
15 : 22-23 829
15 : 23-25 1130
15:25 1123
15:29 134
15 : 42-44 609 , 831
15:43 832
15:44 832
15:49 445
15:50 833
2 CORINTHIANS
1 : 13-14 107
3:17 233
5:10 1144
6:14 882
7:1 475 , 750
7 : 9-10 713
10 : 3-4 875
11:2 205
12:7 1068
12:12 362-364
13:14 231
GALATIANS
EPHESIANS
1 : 9-10 215
1:9 342
1:10 342
1:11 211 , 317,342
1 : 13-14 791
1 : 22-23 859
2:6 620
2 : 8-9 730
2 : 12-20 862
2:20 1051
3:6 342
4 : 8-9 587-589
4:11 .. 911 , 913 , 915 , 1016, 1020
4:14 32
4 : 15-16 859
5 : 15-16 1010
5:18 781
5 : 21-33 465
5:21 466
5:26 974
6 : 11-12 422
6:17 430
PHILIPPIANS
1:1
1:6
2 : 5-7
2:7
3:9
3:19
3:20
914
791
550
. 550-551
571
1150
. ... 1093
COLOSSIANS
1:15
1:17
1 : 22-23
2:9
2:11-12
2:13
2:19
3 : 18-19
1 THES SALON IANS
1 : 4-5 672
2:6 909-910
4:14 829
4:16 829
4:17 1134
5:3 1150
5 : 19-21 1054
5:23 478 - 479 , 750
2 THESSALONIANS
10:17
997
1:19
908
1:9
1150
11 : 2-16
460
3 : 16-18
521
2:8
1104
11:3
459-460
4:6
738
2:13
674
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1270
1 TIMOTHY
1:11 218
2:4 214,683
2:5 541
2:11-14 938
2:13 461
3:1-7 917,929,940
3:1-2 914
3:2 899, 915-917,930
3:8-13 918-919, 944
3:11 919
4:1-3 272
4:4-5 272
4:10 598,662
5:9-10 917
5:17-18 61
5:17 915
5:18 76
5:19-21 899
5:20 895,899
5:21 237
5:22 918
6:15 218
6:17 272
6:18 272
2 TIMOTHY
1:18 818
2:10 335
2:24-26 421
3:15 127
3:16-17 128
3:16 74,85, 127
TITUS
1:2 82
1:3 543
1:5-9 940
1:5-7 929
1:5 914, 921
1:6 916-917
1:7 930
1:9 915
1:12 1050
2:12-13 1093
2:13 236
3:5 974
HEBREWS
1:1-2 64-65
1:2 547
1:3 48, 176, 220,316, 547
1:8 228
1:10-12 545
1:11-12 163
2:3-4 367
2:8 541
2:9 599
2:14-16 739
2:17 575
2:18 542
3:14 793
4:12 478-479
5:8 534
6:1-2 961
6:4-8 801
6:4-6 ....507-509, 796-801
6:18 83
7:25 627
8:6-13 522
8:8-10 862
10:10 748
10:19 1007
10:26-31 802
10:26-27 507
10:26 598
11:3 263
12:1-2 821
12:10 505
12:23 821
13:17 915
JAMES
1:13-14 328
1:17 163
1:18 700
1:19-20 33
2:10-11 501
2:21 732
2:24 731
3:13 33
3:17-18 33
4:2 377
4:15 214
5:14 912, 1065
5:15 1065
1 PETER
1:2 231
1:5 792-793
1:12 405
2:4-10 863
2:8 327,685
2:11 505
2:21 582
2:24 573
3:13-22 591
3:15 591
3:17 212
3:18-20 587-591, 823
3:21 974
4:6 587,592,823
4:10 958
4:11 1020
4:19 212
5:1-2 912
5:2-5 915
5:2 913
5:4 914
5:5 33
2 PETER
1:1
236
1:20
107
1:21
75
2:1
599
2:4
412-413
3:2
61
3:7
1150
3:8
170
3:9-10
664
3:9
...214, 683-684
3:10
1160
3:16
61, 76
1 JOHN
1:8-10
498
1:8
752
1:10
499
2:2
575, 598
2:19
794
3:6
750-751
3:8
415
4:10
575
5:1
704
5:7
231
5:16-17 ....
, . . 503, 507, 509
5:18
422, 751
2 JOHN
10-11
880, 897
10
877
JUDE
4-5
942
6
413
9
427-428
20
382, 1073
REVELATION
3:5
802
3:10
1132
3:14
243
4:11
263
10:6
173
12:11
813
13:7-8
673
19:13
47
19:16
545
20:1-10
1110
20:1-6
1114-1117, 1131
20:1-3
419, 1115
20:1
1118
20:2-3
1118
20:3
1118
20:4
1115, 1119, 1131
20:5-6
1119, 1120
20:5
1115
22:18-19 ....
64-65
SUBJECT INDEX
Bold type indicates more extensive treatment of a subject or the location of a chapter or section
dealing with that subject.
accountability, age of, 499
actions, human. See choices, human
active obedience, 570-571
Adam and Eve, 460-465
creation of, 265-266
death of, 657
historical, 278-279, 493
Adamic Covenant, 517
administrative covenants, 521
adoption, 736 - 745
a future aspect, 737
definition, 736
distinct from justification, 738-739
follows conversion, 738
includes fatherly discipline, 505, 741
many privileges, 739-742
Scriptural evidence, 736-738
adoptionism, 245
Agabus, 1052-1053
age of accountability, 499
age of earth, 273, 289-309
conclusions, 306-309
the way forward, 308-308
aggressiveness, errors of, 467
allelous , 466
amanuensis, 81
amillennialism, 1109-1110, 1114-1122
Anabaptists, 819-879
analogies used in text
all creation, 159-160
author and play, 322, 340
balloon full of air, 782
buckling seatbelt in car, 1 104
dog, 346
for Trinity, 240-241, 255
glass full of water, 782
human personality, 255
invitation to dinner, 388
jigsaw puzzle, 29
Macbeth, 322
newspaper restaurant critic, 406
physician who has baby, 542
plant, 346
puppets, 345-346, 681
reading a novel, 171
receiving a paycheck, 730
robots, 675, 681
water in sponge, 175
zone defense, 400
angelic languages, 1072-1073
Angel of the Lord, 229, 401
angels, 397-411
Angel of the Lord, 401
definition, 397
do not marry, 400
guardian angels for each person? 399-400
how many are there? 399
judgment of, 1145-1146
names of specific angels, 398-399
only one place at one time, 399
other names for, 397
power of, 400-401
rank and order, 398
serve us, 402
we will judge, 402
when created? 401-402
angels: purposes of, 402-405
carry out God’s plans, 404
examples for us, 404
glorify God, 404-405
reminder of unseen world, 403
show Gods love for us, 402-403
angels: relationship to us
do they appear today? 407-408
don’t receive false doctrine from, 406-407
not to be prayed to, 407
not to be worshiped, 407
protect us, 406
rejoice in our salvation, 405
rejoice in radically mixed church, 405
visit us in disguise, 406
watch our lives, 405-406, 758
we should be aware of, 405-406
anger, 490
Anglican churches. See Episcopalian churches
animal rights movement, 287, 449-450
animals
death of, 292-293, 305
man far superior to, 445-449
annihilationism, 823-824, 1150-1151
anointing with oil, 959, 1065
anthropomorphic language, 159
antichrist, 880, 1098, 1103
antinomy, 35
apantesis , 1134
aphanatos , 611
Apocrypha
not part of Scripture, 57-59
translation of, 69
Apollinarianism, 554
apologetics, 21-22
apostasy, 507 +■ 509, 799
1271
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1272
apostle (term)
broad and narrow sense, 906
claimed by no major church leader, 911
apostles, 905-912
all male, 940-941
authority to write Scripture, 60-62
miracles limited to them? 1042-1043
none today, 906-911
qualifications, 906-907
who were apostles? 907-912
Apostles’ Creed, 586-588, 593-594, 821, 847
Apostles’ Creed (chart), 583-585
Apostles Creed (text), 1169
application of redemption, 657-850
Aquila and Priscilla, 939
Archaeopteryx, 282
archangel, 398
archbishop, 923
Arianism, 243-245
Armenian (people), 338
Arminianism, 331, 346, 347-349, 496, 596, 663,
680-684, 788, 791, 795, 806
Arminius, Jacob (James), 338, 1224
Articles of Religion (Thirty-nine Articles),
1171-1178
artistic activities, 1162
See also creativity
ascension of Christ, 617-620
doctrinal significance for us, 619-620
received additional glory and honor, 618
seated at God’s right hand, 618-619
to a place, 617-618
asceticism, 272, 917
aseity of God, 161
Assemblies of God, 242, 338, 763, 1041, 1059, 1076
associate pastor, 933-934
assurance of salvation, 803-806
given by Holy Spirit, 644
is there evidence of regeneration? 804-805
is there long-term growth? 805-806
is there present trust in Christ? 803
unbelievers give signs of conversion, 794-803
we should not think impossible, 793
what gives genuine assurance? 803-806
See also perseverance of saints
Athanasian Creed, 245, 253
Athanasian Creed (text), 1170-1171
Athanasius, 245
Paschal letter, 64
atonement, 568-607
abandonment by the Father, 574
and healing, 1063-1064
bearing sin, 573-574
bearing the wrath of God, 574-577
blood of Christ: meaning, 579
cause of, 568-569
Christ’s sufferings for us, 571-594
Christ’s “active” obedience, 570-571
Christ’s “passive” obedience, 571-594
complete but not eternal suffering, 577-578
nature of, 570-594
necessity of, 569-570
pain of the cross, 572-577
penal substitution, 579
penalty inflicted by God the Father, 577
physical pain and death, 572-573
vicarious atonement, 579
why have you forsaken me? (meaning), 576-577
atonement: descent to hell? 586-594
1 Peter 3:18-20 (spirits in prison), 589-592
Apostle’s Creed, 586-588, 594
evidence against, 593-594
possible support, 588
atonement: extent of, 594-603
clarification and caution, 601-603
conclusions, 597-600
non-Reformed view, 596
points of agreement, 597
Reformed view, 595-596
unlimited atonement, 596
atonement: NT terms for, 579-580
propitiation, 580
reconciliation, 580
redemption, 580
sacrifice, 580
atonement: views of, 581-582
Example Theory, 581-582
Governmental Theory, 582
Moral Influence Theory, 581
penal substitution, 579
Ransom to Satan Theory, 581
vicarious atonement, 579
attitudes: sinful, 490
attributes of God. See God: attributes of
Augsburg Confession, 865, 994, 1168
author and play analogy, 322, 340
authority of Scripture, 73-89
as ultimate standard of truth, 83
attaches to written words, 84-85
circular argument for? 78-80
claims to be God’s words, 73-77
conviction of, while reading, 77-78
does not imply dictation, 80-81
equals authority of God, 81-82
never contradicted by new facts, 83-84
self-attesting, 78
autographs of Scripture, 96
baptism, 966-987
as means of grace, 954
believers’ baptism view, 969-971
effect, 978-979, 981
Episcopalian view, 952, 971, 975
for both men and women, 458
for the dead (Mormon teaching), 134
household baptisms, 976
meaning, 967-969
mode (immersion or sprinkling), 967-969
necessary for salvation? 973, 981
paedobaptist (infant-baptizing) view, 975-981
parallel to circumcision, 975-976
proper age for, 982
SUBJECT INDEX
1273
Roman Catholic view, 971-975
should it divide denominations? 982-984
sign of covenant, 520
subjects for, 970-981
symbolism of, 978-981
who can baptize? 984
who should be baptized? 970-981
baptism in the Holy Spirit, 763-787
1 Cor. 12:13, 765, 767-769
degrees of power, maturity, 777-784
distinct part of order of salvation? 773
filling doesn’t require tongues, 784
filling with Holy Spirit, 781-784
greater work of Holy Spirit in New Covenant,
770-772
harm from two-class Christianity, 775-777
meaning of phrase in NT, 766-773
Pentecostal view, 764 - 766
second experiences in Acts, 773-775
what happens today? 779-780
what terms are more accurate? 775-784
baptism: symbolism of, 967-969
Baptist churches, teachings, 338, 680, 788-789,
904, 927, 928, 967, 980, 982-983, 1168
Baptist Faith and Message (text), 1199-1203
baptizo , 967
Barth, Karl, 443
beatific vision, 190
beauty, 497, 1163-1164
beauty of God, 219-220
becoming a Christian, 670, 692 - 745
begottenness of the Son, 244, 254
believers’ baptism, 969-971
believers’ church, 967, 982-983
believers, judgment of, 1140-1145
bema judgment, 1142
Bible. See Scripture.
Bible college, 1093
biblical theology, 22
big bang theory, 275
binding and loosing, 890
binding of Satan, 1114-1115, 1117-1118
bishop, 912-914, 924
blasphemy against Holy Spirit, 506-509, 648
blessedness of God, 218-219
blood of Christ, 579
bodies in resurrection. See glorification
body of Christ, 858-859
body, physical
goodness of, 613
growth in sanctification of, 757
See also glorification
Bombardier beetle, 281
Book of Mormon, 69, 79, 131-132
born of water, 702
Brunner, Emil, 443
Buddhism, 893
calling: external, 694
calling: general, 694
calling: internal, 694
Calvinism, 316, 596, 680, 789, 806
See also Reformed theology
Calvin, John, 1226
canon of Scripture, 54-72
Hebrews part of, 62-63
James part of, 62-63, 67-68
Jude part of, 62-63
Luke and Acts part of, 62-63
Mark part of, 62-63
self-attesting, 63
Carthage, Council of, 499
casting out demons. See demons: our relation to
CBN, 763
certain knowledge, 119- 120
cessationist: definition, 1031
cessationists, 1046, 1078
cessationist view. See spiritual gifts: cessation
Chalcedonian Creed, 556-558
Chalcedonian Creed (text), 1169-1170
Chalcedonian Definition, 556-558, 586
Chalcedon, Council of, 556-558
chance, 318-319, 337
charismatic: definition, 763
charismatic churches, teachings, 338, 783, 1012,
1042, 1046, 1059, 1082
charismatic movement, 879, 1016
remarkable recent growth, 1043
cherubim, 398
Chicago Statement on Inerrancy, 1203-1207
chiliasm, 1111
choices, human
Arminian view of, 340-347
caused by God, 320-322, 350
have real results, 321, 331, 333-336
importance of, 333-336
in salvation: real choices? 680-681
reality of, 321, 331, 333-336, 340-341, 343-346
we are responsible for, 333-336
willing choices, 321-322, 331, 347
choirs, 1005
Christ. See Jesus Christ
christening, 971
Christian ethics, 26
Christian growth. See sanctification
Christian Reformed Church, 338, 926
Christian Science church, 131
church, 853-965?? 1088??
and Israel, 859-863, 1113
and the kingdom of God, 863-864
as body of Christ, 858-859
as family, 858
definition, 853-855
existed before Pentecost, 853-855, 860-863
finances, 919
invisible yet visible, 855-857
local and universal, 857-858
marks of, 864-866
metaphors for, 858-859
nature, 853-855
staff members, 920
true and false churches, 864-867
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1274
moderator, 920
treasurer, 920
church discipline, 894-900
and degrees of sin, 504
and Lord’s Supper, 998
as means of grace, 956-957
as sign of more pure church, 874
for what sins? 896-897
how carried out? 897-900
knowledge of sin contained, 897
measures increase in strength, 897-898
of church leaders, 899
church discipline: purposes, 894-896
prevent spread of sin, 895
protect honor of Christ, 895-896
protect purity of church, 895-896
reconciliation, 894-895
restoration, 894-895
church government, 904-949
apostle, 905-912
as sign of more pure church, 874-875
bishop, 913-914
church officers, 905-920
elder, 912-918
how should officers be chosen? 920-923
officers best chosen by congregation, 921-923
other officers, 920
overseer, 913-914
pastor, 913-914
See also apostles
See also elders
church government: forms of, 923-937
conclusions, 936-937
congregational, 928-936
corporate board, 935
episcopalian, 923-925
no government but the Holy Spirit, 936
plural local elders, 932-935
presbyterian, 926-928
pure democracy, 935-936
should women be church officers? 937-944
single elder (single pastor), 928-932
See also women as church officers
church growth
needs strong single pastor? 929, 931
remarkable since 1950, 1124
church: means of grace, 950-965
anointing with oil, 959
baptism, 954
church discipline, 957
conclusions, 962-963
definition, 950
evangelism, 958-959
fellowship, 958-959
giving, 957-958
how many are there? 950-952
laying on of hands, 959-962
Lord’s Supper, the, 954-955
personal ministry to individuals, 959-962
prayer, 955-956
should footwashing be practiced? 962
spiritual gifts, 958
teaching of Word, 952-953
worship, 956-957
church: nature and purpose, 853-872
Church of England, 887, 893
See also Episcopalian churches
church: officer
definition, 905
See also church government
Church of Scotland, 1043
church: power of, 887-903
and power of the state, 892-894
definition, 887
keys of the kingdom, 889-892
must not use the sword, 892
spiritual warfare, 419-433, 887-889
See also church discipline
church: purity of, 873-876
definition, 873
more pure and less pure churches, 873
signs of more purity, 874-876
church: purposes, 867-869
keeping purposes in balance, 868-869
ministry to believers (nurture), 867
ministry to God (worship), 867
ministry to world (evangelism), 867-868
ministry to world (mercy), 867-868
church: separation, 878-883
history of separation, 878-879
separation for conscience, 881-882
separation for doctrine, 880-881
separation for practical reasons, 882
when is cooperation prohibited? 882-883
when is fellowship prohibited? 882-883
church staff, 933-934, 944
church treasurer, 944
church: unity, 876-883
definition, 874
history of unity and separation, 878-879
hope for more growth in today, 17-18
most divisions over minor issues, 882-883
most divisions rooted in pride, 879
New Testament teaching on, 876-878
reasons for separation, 879-883
requires denominational authority? 927
should there be one world church? 864, 876-877
See also church: separation
church: various sizes
city church, 857-858
house church, 857-858
regional church, 857-858
universal church, 857-858
Churches of Christ, 338, 981
circular argument, 78-80
circumcision, 975-976
clarity of Scripture, 105-115
and disagreements over meaning, 108-109
and misunderstandings of meaning, 108-109
and role of scholars, 110-111
definition, 108
classis, 926
SUBJECT INDEX
common grace, 657-668
brings much good to society, 497
creative realm, 661
definition, 657-658
differences from saving grace, 657-658
does not indicate salvation, 665
does not save people, 663-665
don’t reject good from unbelievers, 665
examples of, 658-663
intellectual realm, 659-660
interaction with special grace, 662-663
moral realm, 660-661
physical realm, 658-659
religious realm, 662
should stir us to thanksgiving, 665
societal realm, 661
common grace: reasons for, 664-665
demonstrates God’s glory, 665
demonstrates God’s goodness, 664
demonstrates God’s justice, 664
waiting for some to be saved, 665
communicable attributes, 185-225
definition, 156-157
communication of attributes, 562
Communion, See Lord’s Supper
communion of saints, 821, 847
Communion (term), 992
compassion of God, 200-203
compatibilism, 316
complementarianism, 16
concordist view, 298-300
concurrence (providential), 317-331
conditional immorality, 1150
confirmation (Roman Catholic), 951-952
congregational government, 928-936
conscience, 122, 660, 757, 894
consistory, 926
consubstantial, 244, 556-557
consubstantiation, 994-995
contemporary worship songs, 1222- 1223
continental drift, 298-299
contradiction, 34-35, 538
conversion, 709-721
definition, 709
must include faith and repentance, 713-717
conversion: repentance, 713-717
definition, 713
faith must accompany, 713-717
more than mere sorrow, 713
repentance continues through life, 717-718
conversion: saving faith, 709-713
faith continues through life, 717-718
faith should increase with knowledge, 712-713
knowledge alone not enough, 709-710
knowledge and approval not enough, 710
personal dependence on Jesus needed, 710-712
repentance must accompany, 713-717
cooperation of churches
See church: separation
See church: unity
Copernicus, 273
Coptic Orthodox Church, 556
coral reefs, 299
cosmological argument, 143
Council of Constantinople, 244-246
Council of Nicea, 243-245
Council of Trent, 59, 728-729
covenant community, 975-977
covenants, 515-525
administrative, 521
covenant of grace, 519-522
covenant of redemption, 518-519
covenant of works, 516-518
Mosaic, 521
new, 521-522
old, 521-522
creation, 262-314
a totally free act of God, 271
all reveals something of God, 159- 160
dependent on God, 267-271
distinct from God, 267-271
ex nihilo, 262
made for our enjoyment, 272-273
of Adam and Eve, 265-266
of spiritual universe, 264-265
of time, 266
originally “very good,” 272-273
out of nothing, 262-264
purpose: to show God’s glory, 271-272
work of Son and Holy Spirit in, 266-267
creation: renewal of, 1158-1159
creation: theories of, 275-289
age of earth, 289-309
challenges of evolution, 279-286
concordist view, 298-300
creation with appearance of age, 304-306
Darwinian evolution, 279-287
day-age view, 298-300
flood geology, 306
gap theory, 287-289
literary framework view, 300-304
mature creationism, 304-306
neo-catastrophism, 306
old earth theories, 298-304
secular theories, 275
theistic evolution, 275-279
young earth theories, 304-306
creationism, 484-486
creativity (human), 272, 447, 661, 1160-1161
cross of Christ. See atonement
Cro-Magnon man, 292
crucifixion of Christ
and God’s providence, 327-328
physical pain of, 572-573
See also atonement
Darwin, Charles, 275, 279
Darwinian evolution, 279-287
day- age view, 298-300
days of creation
long periods of time, 293-297
twenty-four-hour days, 293-297
1275
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1276
deacons, 918-920, 928, 932
women as deacons? 944
death, 810-827
definition, 816
of Adam and E ve,forsin> 516-517
of other Christians, 814-815
of unbelievers, 815-816
our own death, 813-814
sorrow not wrong, 814-815
See also intermediate state
death: what happens then? See intermediate state
death of animals, 274
death of Christ. See atonement
death of Christians, 810-815
completes our sanctification, 811-812
completes our union with Christ, 812-813
not a punishment, 810
obedience more important than life, 813
result of life in fallen world, 811
death penalty, 444
Deborah, 942
decrees of God
as creative words in time, 48
as eternal plans, 332-333
degrees of punishment, 1 143
degrees of reward (heaven), 506, 1110, 1142, 1144-1145
degrees of sin, 501-504
deism, 270-271
deity of Christ, 234-235
deity of God the Father, 233
deity of the Holy Spirit, 237-238
delivering to Satan, 895
demon possession, 423-425
demonized (term), 423
demons, 412-436
ability to recognize, 1082
and counterfeit gift of tongues, 1077-1079
as Paul’s thorn in the flesh? 1068
behind false gods of Old Testament, 416-417
cannot be saved, 1152-1153
can’t know future, 415-416
can’t know our thoughts, 415-416
Christians protected from, 705
definition of, 412
final judgment of, 419
in church age, 418-419
influence always destructive, 1083
in Millennium, 419
in New Testament, 418
in Old Testament, 416-417
Jesus’ triumph over, 417-418
limited in power, 415-416
not all evil and sin from, 420-423
not cast out in Old Testament, 417
origin of, 412-414
Satan as head of, 414-415
try to destroy God’s work, 415
under God’s control, 415-416
we should not love, 1152-1153
worshiped in false religions, 417, 421
demons: our relation to, 419-433
a factor in most sin today, 420-423
are they active today? 419-420
authority based on Christ’s work, 427-428
authority of Christians over, 427-433
can Christians be demon possessed? 423-425
demon possession a poor term, 423-425
distinguishing between spirits, 426
excessive curiosity wrong, 432
expect gospel to triumph over, 433
frightening dreams, 429-430
in ministry to unbelievers, 420-421, 433
Michael didn’t rebuke, 427-428
recognizing demonic influence, 425-427
strategic level spiritual warfare, 421
we should not fear them, 428-429
why speak directly to? 429
demythologizing, 420
denominations, 878-879
depravity of, 497
descent into hell. See atonement: descent to hell?
devil, the
meaning of name, 414
See also Satan
dichotomy, 472-473
dictation, 80-81
Didache , the
contradicts or adds to NT, 67
dikaid , 723
view of prophecy, 1054
dinosaurs, 293
diocese, 923
Directed Panspermia, 286
discerning of spirits, 426, 1082-1083
discipline: different from punishment, 810
discipline, church. See church discipline
dispensationalism, 859-863, 1141-1X42
progressive dispensationalism, 860
dispensationalists, 338, 1046, 1113
distinguishing of spirits, 426, 1082-1083
definition, 1082
docetism, 540
as sign of more pure church, 874-875
definition, 540
major and minor, 29-30
dog analogy, 346
dogma, 25
dogmatic theology, 25
Domitian, 1103
Donatists, 878
double predestination, 670
dreams: frightening, 430
dualism, 269-270, 492
dying with Christ, 842-843
dynamis , 638
earth, new. See new heavens and new earth
economic subordination, 251-252
ecumenical movement, 879
ecumenism. See church: unity
edification
SUBJECT INDEX
1277
of the church, 875, 1017
personal, 1008, 1075-1076
Edwards, Jonathan, 1226
effective calling, 692-694
definition, 693
ekklesia , 854-855
elderly people, 450
elders, 912-918
above reproach, 899
discipline of, 897-900
functions of, 915-916
lives must be examples, 916
meaning of “husband and one wife,” 916-917
one over each house church? 913
other names for, 913-915
pastor another name for, 913-914
plural in every church, 912-913
public installation of, 918
qualifications for, 916
term of office, 923
election, 669-684
as a comfort, 673
as motive for evangelism, 674
as reason for praise, 673-674
verses teaching election, 671-674
election: misunderstandings, 674-679
conclusion: unconditional election, 679
not based on foreknowledge of faith, 676-679
not fatalistic or mechanistic, 674 - 676
election: objections, 680-684
God wills to save everyone, 683-684
our choices are not real, 680-681
this makes us puppets or robots, 681
unbelievers never had a chance, 681
unfair, 681-683
we do not have a choice, 680
Elijah, 357
Elisha, 617
emotions, 447, 476, 482, 533-534, 1013
enjoying God, 441-442
en pneumati , 765
entire sanctification, 748 - 749
entygchano , 627
epilepsy, 425
Episcopalian churches, teachings, 338, 680, 879,
904, 921, 923-925, 971, 975, 981, 992, 1012,
1040,
Episcopalian government, 923-925
equality: male and female, 456-459
eschatology, 1091
eternal begetting of the Son, 244, 254
eternal conscious punishment, 1149-1153
eternal security. See perseverance of saints
eternity of God, 168-173
See also God: attributes
ethics, 26,616-617
Ethiopian Orthodox Church, 556
eucharist
definition, 992
Roman Catholic, 951
Eutyches, 555
Eutychianism, 555
Evangelical Free Church, 338, 703, 983
evangelicalism, 17
evangelism, 674, 867-868, 869, 959, 884, 1009, 1148
as means of grace, 959
See also gospel call
evil, 322-330
Arminian view of, 341, 350
God not to be blamed for, 329, 333-334
Gods power over, 349-351
God rightly blames us for, 329
God uses for his purpose, 327
reality of, 329-330
evolution: theory of, 279-287
destructive influence of, 286-287
fossil record doesn’t support, 282-283
laboratory creation of life, 285
macro-evolution, 279
mutations limited in scope, 280
natural selection, 279-281
random mutation as driving force, 276-277
similarity of design doesn’t prove, 283
transitional types: none found, 282-283
exaltation of Christ, 620
Example Theory, 581-582
excommunication, 895
exegesis, 108-109
existence of God
evidence in nature, 121 - 122
See also God: existence of
ex nihilo (creation), 262
ex opera operato, 972, 992
exorcism. See demons: our relation to
exorcism (term), 431
exorcists, Jewish, 418
external calling, 694
extreme unction, 952
ezesatt , 1115, 1131
fairness
in eternal punishment, 1151
in universe, at final judgment, 1147
of God, in not saving all, 402-403
faith
doesn’t replace action, 334-335
endures forever, 1038
opposite of depending on self, 730
saving faith: definition, 710
should increase with knowledge, 712-713
See also conversion: saving faith
faithfulness of God, 195-197
false churches, 864-867, 880
false doctrine, 922, 927
false miracles. See miracles: false
false prophets, 1057-1058, 1098, 1102
family, 447, 741, 940
family of God, 858
See also adoption
fasting
and prayer, 390-391
benefits of, 390-391
when selecting church leaders, 918
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1278
fatalism, 674-676
fatherly displeasure, 505
fear, 337, 428-429
fear of God, 206, 757
fellowship, 874
as means of grace, 958
sometimes must be avoided, 898
fig tree, 1126
filiation of the Son, 254
filioque clause, 246-247
filling with Holy Spirit, 781-784
final judgment, 1140-1148
all secrets revealed, 1143-1144
a motive for evangelism, 1148
a motive for righteous living, 1148
angels will be judged, 1145-1146
annihilationism, 1150-1152
believers will be judged, 1143-1 145
Christians should not fear, 1143
degrees of punishment, 1142-1143
degrees of reward, 506, 1143-1145
enables us to forgive others, 1147-1148
eternal conscious punishment, 1149-1153
Jesus Christ will be the judge, 1142-1 143
justice of, 1147
moral application of, 1 147 - 1 148
more than one judgment? 1141-1 142
necessity of, 1146-1147
satisfies our need for justice, 1147
Scriptural evidence for, 1140-1141
time of, 1142
unbelievers raised for, 836
unbelievers will be judged, 1 143
warnings of, 661
we will help judge, 1145-1146
first fruits, 615
fivefold ministry, 911
flood geology, 306
footwashing, 962
forcing a test on God, 1064- 1065
foreknowledge, 676-679
See also future: God’s knowledge
forensic (term), 724
foreordination: and foreknowledge, 348
forgiveness of sins
every day, 740
given as we forgive others, 386
legal and relational, 386
promised in gospel message, 695
forgiving others, 386, 900, 1147-1148
Formula of Concord, 1168
fossil record, 281-283
fossils, 305
freedom of God, 216
freedom of religion, 892-894
freewill, 330-331,497
fruit: as evidence of salvation, 804
fullness of Israel, 1097, 1099
future: God’s knowledge of, 347-349
future, the, 1091-1167
Gabriel, 399
Galileo, 273
gap theory, 274-275, 287-289
gender-neutral terms, 439-440
genealogies: gaps in, 290-291
general assembly, 926
general eschatology, 1091
general redemption, 596
general revelation, 121, 122-124
gennomenoriy 531
gifts of Holy Spirit. See spiritual gifts
gifts, spiritual. See spiritual gifts
giving: means of grace, 957
glorification, 828-839
continuity with body that dies, 833-835
definition, 828
glorious body, 831-832
imperishable body, 831, 833
living on renewed earth, 1160-1161
nature of resurrection bodies, 831-836
no scars will remain, 615-616
NT evidence, 829-830
OT evidence, 830-831
physical body, 831-833
powerful body, 832
radiance surrounding our bodies, 831-832
renewal of entire creation, 835-836
spiritual body, 832
unbelievers: raised for judgment, 836
glory of God, 220-221, 665
glossolalia. See spiritual gifts: tongues
God, 141-261
acts in time, 171 - 173
and evil, 322-330
cannot lie, 82-83
deserves glory, 442
does not change his mind, 164- 165
emotions of, 165- 166
fear of, 206-207
forgetting sins, 192
imitation of, 868
immanence of, 267-271
infinite and personal, 167-168
knows all things possible, 190- 191
knows future, 171 - 172
necessary existence, 162
no physical body, 158-159, 186-188, 448-449
no spatial dimensions, 174-175
presence of shown by Holy Spirit, 647-649
present especially in heaven, 1158-1159,
1162-1163
present in different ways, 175-177
rejoices over us, 441 -442
repentance of, 164- 165
sees all time at once, 170- 171
sees events in time, 171 - 172
sorrow of, 686
transcendent yet immanent, 267-271
we can grow in likeness to, 449
worthy of worship, 1005
SUBJECT INDEX
God: attributes, 156-225
aseity, 161
beauty, 219-220
blessedness, 218-219
classification of, 156-157
communicable: defined, 156-157
compassion, 200-202
eternity, 168-173
faithfulness, 195-197
freedom, 216
glory, 220-221, 665, 1151-1152
goodness, 197-199, 658, 664
grace, 200-202
happiness, 218-219
holiness, 202-203
immutability, 163-168
impassibility, 165-166
incommunicable, 156-184
incommunicable: defined, 156-157
independence, 160-163
infinity, 157, 168, 173
invisibility, 188-190
jealousy, 187, 205-206, 386, 1005
justice, 204-205, 495, 664, 682-683, 1151-1153
justice: in not saving all, 402-403
knowledge, 190-193
love, 199-200, 1150
mercy, 200-202, 664
no one attribute most important, 180
omnipotence, 216-218
omnipresence, 173-177
omniscience, 190-193
order, 203-204
patience, 200-202
peace, 203-204
perfection, 218
power, 216-218
righteousness, 204-205, 509-510
self- existence, 161
simplicity, 177-178
sovereignty, 216-218
spirituality, 186-188
timelessness, 169
truthfulness, 195-197
unchangeableness, 163-168
unity, 177-181
will, 211 -216, 332
will: necessary and free, 212-213
will: of decree, 214
will: secret and revealed, 213-216, 683-684,
1066
wisdom, 193-195
wrath, 206 - 207, 574 - 577
God: decrees of, 332-333
God: existence of, 141-148
evidence in nature, 142- 143
evidence in Scripture, 142- 143
need God to reveal, 144, 149
people’s inner sense of, 141-142
proofs for, 143- 144
God: knowability of, 149- 155
exhaustive knowledge impossible, 151-152
knowledge of God himself possible, 152
not just facts about God, 152
true knowledge possible, 151-152
God: names of, 157-160
God: the Trinity, 226-261
adoptionism, 245-246
analogies all inadequate, 240-241, 255
Arianism, 243-247
beyond our comprehension, 255-256
definition, 226
deity of the Father, 233
deity of the Holy Spirit, 237-238
deity of the Son, 234-237
differences between the persons, 248-256
economic subordination, 248-252
errors, 241-248
eternal begetting of the Son, 244, 254
eternal existence as Trinity, 241, 249-252
eternal subordination in role, 251-252
filioque clause, 246-247
importance of, 247
in New Testament: fuller revelation, 230-231
in Old Testament: partial revelation, 226-230
modalism, 242
modalistic monarchianism, 242
necessary existence as Trinity, 241
no simple explanation, 239-240
not a contradiction, 256
oneness of God, 238-239
ontological equality, 251
practical application, 256-257
relation between persons and being, 252-255
Sabellianism, 242
subordination, 244-245
three persons in God, 231-233
tritheism, 247-248
God-breathed Scripture, 74
good
definition of, 197
experienced in heaven, 1163
goodness of God. See God: attributes
gospel call, 694-696
elements of, 694-695
facts of salvation, 694
importance of, 695-696
invitation to repent and believe, 694-695
promise of forgiveness, 695
Gospel of Thomas, 67
government
civil, 661-663, 665, 868, 887, 892-894
must not enforce doctrine or worship, 892-894
providential, 331-332
Governmental Theory, 582, 586
grace, 729-730
covenant of, 519-522
irresistible, 700
of God, 200-202
grace: means of. See church: means of grace
graphe , 61
1279
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1280
Great Commission, 27-28
great tribulation, 1113, 1131-1135
great white throne judgment, 1141-1 142
Greek philosophy, 481 -482
grieving the Holy Spirit, 505
groaning in prayer, 381-382
Grotius, Hugo, 582
guardian angels, 399-400
guidance, 642-644, 1040-1042
cessationist view, 1042-1043
hadgs , 586-589
hands, laying on. See laying on of hands
Hannah, 392
head coverings, 457, 460
head (meaning of word), 459
headship. See male headship
healing
all can pray for, 1023-1024
See spiritual gifts: healing
heart, 479
heaven
definition, 1159
See also new heavens and new earth
heavenly city, 1162-1 164
Hebrews: part of canon, 62-63
Heidelberg Catechism, 587
hell, 1149-1153
definition, 1149
helper (Eve as), 461-462
heresy, 880
hermeneutics, 109
hierarchy (church government): definition, 920
Hinduism, 893
historical theology, 21
Hitler, Adolf, 287, 816, 1103-1104, 1105, 1151
holiness, 875, 1011-1012
holiness, growth in. See sanctification
holiness of God, 202-203
Holy of Holies, 378
holy orders, 952
Holy Spirit, 634-653
a distinct person, 232-233
and virgin birth of Christ, 529-530
blasphemy against, 506-509, 648
deity of, 237-238
more powerful work in new covenant, 770-773,
1017-1018
phenomena indicating God’s presence, 641,
647-649
within people in OT, 637
Holy Spirit: baptism in. See baptism in the Holy
Spirit
Holy Spirit: gifts of. See spiritual gifts
Holy Spirit: work of, 634-653
empowers, 636-639
gives assurance to us, 644
gives evidence of God’s presence, 641 -642
gives life, 636
gives power for service, 636-639
guides and directs God’s people, 642-644
illumines, 645
provides a God-like atmosphere, 644
purifies, 640
reveals, 640-645
revelation to prophets and apostles, 640-641
teaches, 645
unifies, 645-647
varying evidence of God’s presence, 647-649
we do things “in” the Holy Spirit, 648-649
homoiousios, 244
homoousios , 244
hope, 1038
household baptisms, 976, 978
Huldah, 941-942
human choices. See choices, human
human race
age of, 291-292
See also man
humiliation of Christ, 620
humility, 33-34
husband of one wife, 916-917
hyootasso , 465-466
hypostatic union, 558
ICBI, 16, 95
ICBI Chicago Statement (text), 1203-1207
illumination, 645, 1041-1042
image of God, 442-450
all humans share in, 449-450
distorted by fall, 444-445
great dignity in, 449-450
implications for racial equality, 450
implications for unborn, for weak, 450
meaning, 442-444
mental aspects, 446-447
moral aspects, 446
physical aspects, 448-449
recovered progressively in Christ, 445
relational aspects, 447-448
restored completely in future, 445
spiritual aspects, 446
imago Dei, 442
imitation of Christ, 845-846
immaculate conception, 531
immanence of God, 267-271
immanent: definition, 267
immersion (baptism by), 967-969
imminent: definition, 1097
immutability of God, 163-168
impassibility of God, 165-166
impeccability of Christ, 537
impressions from God, 128-129
imputation, 495, 574, 726-729
imputed righteousness, 728
incarnation
definition, 543
See also Jesus Christ: one person
in Christ. See union with Christ
incommunicable attributes, 156-184
incomprehensibility of God, 149-151
incorruptible body, 616
SUBJECT INDEX
1281
independence of God, 160- 163
independent churches, 927
individuality: not lost, 846
inerrancy of Scripture, 90- 104
allows for free quotations, 92
allows for ordinary language, 91 -92
allows for round numbers, 91
allows for textual variants, 96
allows for uncommon grammar, 92
allows for vague statements, 91-92
and infallibility, 93
applies to original manuscripts, 95-96
definition, 90-91
human language doesn’t prevent, 97-98
not a poor term, 95
not limited to faith and practice, 93-95
problems with denying, 99- 100
problem texts, 98-99
infant baptism
See baptism: paedobaptist view
See baptism: Roman Catholic view
infants: guilty of sin? 499-501
infants: salvation of, 500-501
infinity of God, 157, 168, 173
infralapsarianism, 679
infused righteousness, 728
inherited sin, 494-498, 530-532
inspiration of Scripture
definition, 75
See also authority of Scripture
in spirit (worship), 1010
installation of officers, 918
integrative theology, 22
intellect: sanctification of, 756
intellectual activity, 482, 497, 659-660, 665,
1093
intercalation, 861
intercession (of Christ), 627-628
intermediate state, 816-824
believers: go to God’s presence, 816-822
no second chance for salvation, 592-593,
822-824
prayer for the dead? 822
purgatory not taught in Bible, 817-819
soul sleep not taught in Bible, 819-821
unbelievers: go to punishment, 822-824
what happened in Old Testament? 821-822
internal calling, 694
interpretation of Scripture, 108- 109
interpretation of tongues, 1074-1076
in the Holy Spirit, 647-649
prayer, 1073
invisibility of God, 188-190
invitation to believe, 694-695
irresistible grace, 700
Irvingites, 819
Islam, 893
See also Qur’an
Israel, salvation of, 1099, 1104
Israel and the church, 859-863
James: as apostle, 62, 908
jealousy of God. See attributes of God
Jehovah’s Witnesses, 234-235, 1094
not a true church, 865
Jesus Christ, 529-633
as example, 541
as king, 628-629
as mediator, 541
as priest, 626-628
as prophet, 624-626
as representative, 540
as ruler, 541
as sacrifice, 540-541
crucifixion of, 326-327
exaltation of, 620
humiliation of, 620
obedience on our behalf, 570-571
person of, 529-567
prays for us, 627-628
Jesus Christ: ascension. See ascension
Jesus Christ: atonement. See atonement
Jesus Christ: death of. See atonement
Jesus Christ: deity, 23-237, 543-553
Apollinarianism, 554
did Jesus give up divine attributes? 549-552
divine attributes, 547-549
emptying himself? 549-552
eternity, 548
immorality, 548-549
is the incarnation “unintelligible”? 552-553
Jehovah’s Witnesses: denial of, 234-235
Kenosis theory, 549-552
knowing time of his return, 562
Mark 13:32, 560, 562
monophysitism, 557
necessity of, 553
Nestorianism, 554-555, 557
omnipotence, 547
omnipresence, 548
omniscience, 547-548
other claims to deity, 545-547
Phil. 2:7, 549-552
Scriptural claims, 543-547
Son of God, 546-547
Son of Man, 546
sovereignty, 548
the word “God” used of Christ, 543-544
the word “Lord” used of Christ, 544-545
worthy of worship, 549
Jesus Christ: humanity, 529-543
birth of, 529-532
death of father, 537
docetism, 540
human body, 532-533
human emotions, 533-534
human mind, 533
human soul, 533-534
human weaknesses and limitations, 532-535
necessary for first redeemed body, 542
necessary to be example, 541-542
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1282
necessary to be high priest, 542
necessary to be mediator, 541
necessary to be representative, 540
necessary to be substitute sacrifice, 540-541
necessary to fulfill man’s purpose, 541
necessity of human nature, 540-542
not married, 455
temptations, 536-537
ubiquity (Lutheran view), 558-559
view of people near him, 534-535
virgin birth, 529-532
will be a man forever, 542-543
Jesus Christ: offices of, 624-633
as priest, brings us to God, 626-628
as priest, offered himself, 626
as priest, prays for us, 627-628
king, 628-629
our roles as prophet, priest, king, 629-630
priest, 626-628
prophet, 624-626
Jesus Christ: one person, 554-563
all actions belong to the person, 561-562
Apollinarianism, 554
brief summary sentence, 562
Chalcedonian Definition, 556-558
communication of attributes, 562
conclusion, 563
different views of person of Christ, 554-558
Eutychianism, 555-556, 560-561
how deity and humanity combine, 558-563
incarnation: definition, 543
Monophysitism (Eutychianism), 555-557, 560
monothelite view, 560
Nestorianism, 554-555, 561
some actions unique to each nature, 558-561
titles and actions intermixed, 562
two centers of consciousness, 560-561
two wills, 560-561
Jesus Christ: resurrection. See resurrection and
ascension
Jesus Christ: Second Coming. See return of Christ
Jesus Christ: sinlessness, 535-539
biblical evidence, 535-537
could Jesus have sinned? 537-539
impeccability, 537-539
Jesus Christ: states of, 620
Jesus Christ: suffering of. See atonement
Jesus Christ: temptations. See temptations of Christ
Jesus Christ: union with. See union with Christ
“Jesus only” Pentecostals, 242
Jewish exorcists, 418
Jonah, 326
Joseph, 323, 327
Joseph (father of Jesus): death of, 537
joy, 441, 1005-1006, 1163-1164
Judas, 794
judgment. See final judgment
judgment of the nations, 1141
Junias (Junia?), 909
justice of God. See God: attributes
justification, 722-735
a legal declaration by God, 723-724
and Christ’s resurrection, 615
based wholly on grace, not merit, 729-730
comes to us through faith, 730-732
definition, 723
God declares us to be just, 725-726
God imputes righteousness to us, 726-729
not lost when Christians sin, 504-506
why by faith? 730-732
Kenosis Theory, 549-552
kephale , 460
keys of the kingdom, 889-892
“kinds” of animals, 276-278
kingdom of God, 863-864
knowability of God. See God: knowability of
knowledge
certainty of, 119-121
faith should increase with, 712-713
of God, 190-193
kyrios , 544-545
language, human use of, 446
languages, history of, 1069-1070
last rites, 952
Latter-day Saints, Church of. See Mormon Church
laws (civil), 497, 504, 660-662, 891-893
Christians should influence, 893
See also government
laying on of hands
as a means of grace, 959-962
continuity through history? 925
in healing, 1065-1066
no haste: in ordaining elders, 918
leaders, discipline of, 897-898
leading by Holy Spirit, 642-644
liberal churches, teachings, 17, 780, 1092, 1151,
1223
characteristics, 875-876
true churches? 967
life: what if created in laboratory? 285
limbo, 821
limbus infantum , 821
limbus partum , 821
limited atonement, 594-603
literary framework view, 300-304
liturgy, 1012
living creatures (heavenly), 398
long-term projects, 1093-1094
Lordship salvation, 714-715
Lord’s Prayer, 214, 376-377
Lord’s Supper, 988-1002
as a means of grace, 954-955
consubstantiation, 994-995
exclusion from, 898
given to infants? 996
how is Christ present in? 991-996
how often? 999
Lutheran view, 994-995
meaning, 990-991
SUBJECT INDEX
Old Testament background, 988-990
Protestant view (non-Lutheran), 995-996
restricted to baptized persons? 996-997
Roman Catholic view, 991-994
self-examination, 997
sign of covenant, 520
transubstantiation, 991-994
unworthy participation, 997-998
who should administer? 999
who should participate in? 996-997
Lord’s Supper: meaning, 990-991
Christ’s death, 990
Christ’s love for me, 991
many blessings reserved for me, 991
my faith in Christ, 991
spiritual nourishment, 990
unity of believers, 990
we benefit from Christ’s death, 990-991
losing salvation. See perseverance of saints
love, 705, 1164
love for Christ, 875
love for God, 199-200
Lucifer, 413
luck, 337
Lutheran churches, teachings, 338, 484, 563, 680,
821, 864-865, 966, 975, 981, 994-995, 1159,
1167
Luther’s Small Catechism, 994
lying, 196-197
Macbeth, 322
macro-evolution, 279-280
major doctrine, 29-30
male headship before fall, 460-465
Adam created first, 461
Adam named Eve, 462
Adam, not Eve, represented race, 463
curse distorted previous roles, 463-464
Eve created as helper, 461 -462
Gen. 3:16, 464
God held Adam responsible, 463
human race named “man,” 462-463
redemption reaffirms creation order, 464-465
serpent came to Eve first, 463
male leadership in church, 937-944
man, 439-489
age of human race, 291 -292
far superior to animals, 445-449
more like God than anything, 449-450
rules over creation, 447-448
man: creation of, 439-453
for God’s glory, 440-441
in image of God, 442-450
not needed by God, 440-441
man: essential nature, 472-489
creationism, 484-486
dichotomy, 472-473
do animals have a spirit? 478
man is “body and soul,” 475
man is “body and spirit,” 475
monoism, 473
pre-existentianism, 484
soul and spirit interchangeable, 473-474
soul can sin, 475-476
soul departs at death, 474
spirit and soul do same things, 476 - 477
spirit can sin, 475-476
spirit departs at death, 474
traducianism, 484-486
trichotomy, 472-473
trichotomy: arguments for, 477-483
unity of, 473
we can exist without body, 483
we have an immaterial nature, 483
where do souls come from? 484-486
man: male and female, 454-471
different in roles, 459-467
distinct roles before fall, 460-465
Eph. 5:21-33, 465-466
equal in importance, 456-459
equal in personhood, 456-459
headship and submission, 459-467
interpersonal relationships, 454-456
marriage, 466-467
mutual submission? 465-466
reflect God’s character, 454-459
role differences reflect Trinity, 459-460
See also male headship
man in image of God. See image of God
man (term): use of “man” for human race, 439-440
marriage, 447, 454-456, 466-467, 661
in heaven? 400
martyrdom, 813, 824, 1152
Marx Karl, 287
Mary, 529-532
mass (Roman Catholic), 991-994
Massachusetts Bay Colony, 887
material creation
good in God’s sight, 272, 482, 613
shows much common grace, 665
to be enjoyed by us, 272
will be renewed, 1158
will remain and be “good” forever, 835-836,
1160
materialism, 268
mature creationism, 304-306
meaning in life, 162-163, 440-442, 450
means of grace. See church: means of grace
medicine, use of, 1064- 1065
mentally retarded persons, 450
mercy of God, 200-201
Methodist churches, teachings, 338, 680, 921, 975,
1168
Michael, 398-399, 427-428
micro-evolution, 279
middle knowledge, 348-349
midtribulation rapture, 1113, 1133
millennium, 1109-1139
amillennialism, 1109-1110, 1114-1122
definition, 1109
historic premillennialism, 1111-1112,
1127-1131
1283
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1284
postmillennialism, 1110-1111, 1122-1127
premillennialism, 1111-1114, 1127-1131
pretribulational premillennialism, 1112-1114,
1132-1135
three views of, 1109-1114
ministry to individuals, 959-962
minor doctrine, 29-30
miracles, 355-375
among ordinary Christians, 358-359, 362
characteristic of New Covenant Age, 358-359
definition, 355-358
do not prove apostleship, 364-365
false, 368-369
in answer to prayer, 356-358
limited to apostles? 1042-1043
need for care in reporting, 358, 368
Norman Geisler’s view, 366-367
not always immediate, 366
not always successful, 366
power for received at Pentecost, 638
purposes for, 359-361
restricted to apostles? 361-368
should we seek today? 369-371
various definitions, 355-358
which gifts are miraculous? 1027-1028
worked by unbelievers, 368-369
miracles (gift of). See spiritual gifts: miracles
miracles: false
God’s power greater than, 368-369
not worked by believers, 369
precede Christ’s return, 1099, 1101
miracles: purposes, 359-361
aid in evangelism, 360
bring glory to God, 361
confirm gospel, 359-360
demonstrate arrival of kingdom, 360
encourage faith, 360
gospel not weakened by, 360
help those in need, 360-361
remove hindrances to ministry, 361
show compassion of God, 361
miracles: seeking today
believers not rebuked for, 370
right purposes, 369-371
wrong purposes, 370
mission boards, 878
modalism, 242
modalistic monarchianism, 242
mode of inspiration, 80
money, giving of: as means of grace, 957
monism, 473
Monophysite churches, 878
Monophysitism, 556-556
Montanists, 878
moral argument, 143
Moral Influence Theory, 581
Mormon Church, 134, 407
not a true church, 865
See also Book of Mormon
mortal sin, 503-504
Mosaic covenant, 521
motives for obedience, 757-758
music, 1012, 1162
mutations (in evolution), 280-282
mutual submission? 460, 465-466
mystical union, 841
names of God, 157-160
natural law, 356
natural science, 196, 309, 319, 356, 497, 659, 1093
and Scripture, 273-275
no final conflict with Bible, 274-275
providence as basis for, 317
natural selection, 280-281
Nazarene, Church of the, 338
Neanderthal man, 292
necessity of Scripture, 116-126
definition, 116
for certain knowledge of God’s will, 119-121
for knowing the gospel, 116-118
for maintaining spiritual life, 118-119
for salvation, 116-118
not for knowing God’s existence, 121-122
not for knowing God’s moral laws, 122-124
neo-catastrophism, 306
Nephilim, 414
Nero, 1103
Nestorianism, 554
Nestorius, 555
new covenant, 521-522
differences from old covenant, 977
New Hampshire Baptist Confession (text),
1196-1198
new heavens and new earth, 1158- 1167
earth renewed in many ways, 836
eating and drinking in, 1160- 1161
heaven a place, 617-618, 1158-1160
heavenly city, 1 162 - 1 163
motive to store treasure there, 1163
not "timeless,” 1162-1163
our resurrection bodies in, 1161-1 162
physical creation renewed, 613, 1159-1160
place of beauty and joy, 1163-1164
presence of God, 1163-1164
seeing God, 1164
we live eternally in, 1158-1163
we will know one another in, 834-835
what is heaven? 1158-1159
where is heaven? 617-618, 1159-1160
will earth be renewed or replaced? 1160-1161
New Testament apocrypha, 59
New Testament canon, 60-69
New Testament theology, 22
Nicene Creed, 244-246, 586
Nicene Creed (text), 1169
Nicodemus, 702, 710
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 287
nightmares, 429-430
obedience
as condition of continuing in covenant, 519-520
as evidence of salvation, 804-805
SUBJECT INDEX
1285
more important than preserving life, 813, 817
motives for, in Christian life, 757-758
obedience, growth in. See sanctification
officers of church, 912-920
old covenant, 521-522
old earth theories, 298-304
Old Testament canon, 54-60
Old Testament theology, 22
omnipotence of God, 216-218
omnipresence of God, 173-177
omniscience of God, 190- 193
one body in Christ, 844
ontological argument, 143
ontological equality, 251
order of God, 203-204
order of salvation, 669-670, 763, 773,
ordinance (term), 966
ordinances: as means of grace, 874
ordination, 905, 917-918, 1020
ordo salutis , 669-670
Origen, 62, 245, 581
original guilt, 495
original pollution, 496
original sin, 494-495, 530
Orthodox churches, teachings, 246, 252, 556, 878,
1169
overseer, 912-914
paedobaptism: definition, 975
paedobaptist view, 975-981
pantheism, 268-269
parachurch organizations, 878
Paradise (term), 593
paradox, 34-35
parish, 923-924
parousia. See return of Chirst
parousia (term), 1092
particular redemption, 595-603
particular redemption (term), 596
passive obedience (term), 570-571
passivity, errors of (marriage), 467
pastor
one of elders, 926, 933
See also elders
pastor (term), 913-914
pastor, associate, 933-934
paternity of the Father, 254
patience of God, 200-202
peace of God, 203-204
Pelagianism, 499
Pelagius, 499
penal substitution, 579
penance (Roman Catholic), 952
Pentecostal: definition, 763
Pentecostal churches, teachings, 338, 763-784,
764-766, 1016, 1046, 1073, 1081-1082
remarkable recent growth, 1043-1044
Pentecost, Day of, 770-773, 1070
people of God, 861-863
peppered moths, 279
perfection of God, 218
perfectionism, 750-753
perseverance of saints, 788-809
Heb. 6:4-6, 796-801
those born again will persevere, 788-792
those who persevere were born again, 792-794
unbelievers give signs of conversion, 794-803
See also assurance of salvation
personal eschatology, 1091
perspicuity of Scripture. See clarity of Scripture
perspicuity of Scripture (term), 108
Pharaoh: hardening heart, 323-324
Pharaoh’s magicians, 357
philosophical theology, 21
Phoebe, 919
physical body
goodness of, 613
growth in sanctification of, 757
See also glorification
physical creation. See material creation
physical weakness, 757
pictorial day theory, 300-304
Pietist churches, 879
plenary inspiration, 75
polygamy, 917
poor, care for the, 868, 875, 959
postmillennialism, 1010-1011, 1122-1127
different idea of millennium, 1122-1123
power of church. See church: power of
power of God, 217-218
power of the state, 892-894
praise. See worship
prayer, 32 - 33, 212, 214, 376 - 396, 874, 876, 918,
955-956, 1011, 1078-1079
according to God’s will, 382-384
adding “if it is your will,” 383-384
and confession of sins, 385
and fasting, 390-391
and forgiving others, 386
and humility, 386
and obedience, 385
and praise, 392
and thanksgiving, 392
and waiting on the Lord, 388-389
assurance in, 384
changes the way God acts, 377-378
continuing over time, 387
earnestness in, 387-388
effectiveness of, 377-392
emotion in, 387-388
for unbelievers, 662
groaning in, 381-382
helped by knowing Scripture, 382-383
help of Holy Spirit in, 381-382
in Jesus’ name, 379-380
in private, 389
in the Holy Spirit, 1073
in the Spirit: meaning of, 382
knowing God’s will in, 382-384
Lord’s Prayer, 376
means of advancing kingdom, 377
miracles in answer to, 357-358
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1286
of faith, 1067
of unbelievers: does God hear? 378, 662
only possible through Christ, 378-379
reasons for, 376-377
repeating words in, 387
setting should avoid distractions, 1012
to Jesus, 380-381
to receive Christ, 717
to the Holy Spirit, 380-381
unanswered, 391-392
with faith, 384-385
with others, 389-390, 458
prayer for the dead, 817, 822
predestination (term), 670
predestination: double, 670
pre-existentianism, 484
premillennialism, 1111-1114, 1127-1131
historic, 1111-1112, 1127-1131
pretribulational, 1112-1114, 1131-1135
Presbyterian churches, teachings, 338, 680, 904,
975, 1168
Presbyterian government, 926-928
presbytery, 926
presence of God, 175-177, 641, 647-649
preservation (providential), 316-317
pretribulation rapture, 1132-1135
failed predictions of, 1094
for church, not Israel, 860
See pretribulation rapture
pride, 879, 912, 1005
priesthood of believers, 630, 934
priests
Episcopalian, 924
Roman Catholic, 924
primogeniture, 461
Priscilla, 939
Priscilla and Aquila, 943-944
procession of the Spirit, 246-247, 254
process theology, 166-167
progressive dispensatinoalism, 860
proofs of God’s existence, 143-144
prophecy (gift of). See spiritual gifts: prophecy
prophetes , 1050-1052
propitiation, 510, 575, 580
Protestantism, 727, 861, 866, 879, 893, 921, 952,
995-996, 1103, 1168, 1169
providence, 315-354
a reason for thanksgiving, 337
a remedy for fear, 337
and animals, 318
and evil, 322-330
and human lives, 320-322
and inanimate creation, 318
and nations, 319-320
Arminian view of, 338-351
chance, 318-319
definition, 315
events caused by God and creature, 319
no "luck” or “chance,” 337
random events, 318-319
punishment: different from discipline, 810
punishment, eternal. See eternal conscious punish-
ment
puppets: humans far greater than, 345-346
purgatory, 817-819
Puritans, 879
purity of church. See church: purity
purpose in life. See meaning in life
Qur’an, 69, 79
racial equality, 194, 405, 450, 459
random mutation, 276-277
ransom (in redemption), 580
Ransom to Satan Theory, 581
rapture, 860, 1100
realized millennialism, 1116
reason, 34-35, 446
reconciliation
in church, 894-895
in redemption, 580
rector, 924
redemption (atonement), 580-581
redemption: covenant of, 518-519
Reformation, Protestant, 722, 727-729, 817, 864,
867,878, 893,973, 1168
Reformed churches, teachings, 601-603, 680, 776,
966, 975, 1041-1042, 1046, 1160, 1168
Reformed theology, 16, 316, 601 -603, 670, 680,
788-789, 806
regeneration, 699-708
and Christ’s resurrection, 614-615
comes before saving faith, 702-704
evidence follows conversion, 704-706
evidence of, 803-805
exact nature is mysterious, 701-702
if real, must bring results, 704-706
instantaneous, 701
of infants, 500
totally a work of God, 699-702
Regent University (CBN), 763
religion, freedom of, 892-894
remaining a Christian. See perseverance of saints
renewal of creation, 835-836
repentance
definition, 713
See conversion: repentance
resurrection, 608-617
both Father and Son participated in, 614
did Jesus pass through walls? 610-612
doctrinal significance of, 614-616
ensures our justification, 615
ensures our regeneration, 614-615
ensures our resurrection bodies, 615-616
ethical significance, 616-617
nature of Christ’s body, 608-613
New Testament evidence, 608
resurrection body. See glorification
resurrection of believers. See glorification
return of Christ, 1091 - 1108
all agree on final results, 1094- 1095
could Christ come at any time? 1095-1105
SUBJECT INDEX
disagreement over details, 1095
no one can know when, 1093-1094
personal and bodily, 1092
signs preceding, 1097-1099
sudden and visible, 1092
verses predicting sudden return, 1095-1097
we should long for, 1092-1093
return of Christ: signs of, 1097-1105
antichrist, 1098, 1103
conclusions from signs, 1099, 1104-1105
false Christs, 1098, 1102
false prophets, 1098, 1102
false signs and wonders, 1098, 1102
given to stir up our expectation, 1100
gospel to all nations, 1097, 1098, 1101-1102
great tribulation, 1097, 1098, 1100, 1101, 1102
man of sin (or lawlessness), 1098-1099,
1103-1104
rebellion, 1098-1099, 1104
salvation of Israel, 1099, 1104
signs in heavens, 1098, 1103
signs not given to deny imminence, 1099
revelation
essential to prophecy, 1056- 1057
work of Holy Spirit, 640-645
revelations today
subject to Scripture, 131 - 132
See also spiritual gifts: prophecy
reward, degrees of, 1142, 1144-1145
right, 1152, 1164
definition, 204, 493
righteousness of God. See God: attributes
right hand of God, 618-619
robots: humans far greater than, 345-346
roles: male and female. See man: male and female
Roman Catholic Church, 484, 556, 680, 861,
878-881, 887, 893, 904, 920-921, 923, 924,
925, 951-952, 954, 966, 979, 981, 984, 1103,
1169, 1232
a true church? 864-867
and Orthodox Church, 246
authority of church tradition, 128-129, 132
charismatic renewal in, 763, 780
Christ’s sacrifice in the mass, 578
Lord’s Supper, 991-994
mortal and venial sins, 503-504
seven sacraments, 951-952
Statement on Biblical Fundamentalism,
855-856
view of Apocryhpha, 57-60
view of baptism, 971 -975
view of birth control, 133
view of church, 855-857
view of immaculate conception, 531
view of justification, 722, 727-729
view of kingdom of God, 864
view of limbo, 821
view of Purgatory, 817-819
view of Trinity, 245, 253
ruling with Christ, 619-620, 630, 1131, 1160
Sabellianism, 242
sacerdotalism, 951
sacrament (term), 966-967
sacraments, 875, 951
sacraments (Roman Catholic), 951-952
sacrifice, 580
salvation, 657-850
God’s justice in not saving all, 402-403
in Old Testament, 117-119
only through faith in Christ, 117
salvation: loss of See perseverance of saints
Salvation Army, 866
Samson, 324
sanctification, 746-762
affects whole person, 756-757
beauty and joy of, 758
completed at Christ’s return (body), 749 - 750
completed at death (soul), 749 - 750
completed by experience of death, 811-812
definite beginning at regeneration, 747 - 748
definition, 746
differences from justification, 746-747
God and man cooperate, 753-756
God’s role, 753-754
increases through life, 748 - 749
in Hebrews, 748
motives for Christian obedience, 757-758
never free from sin in this life, 750-753
of emotions, 756
of intellect, 756
of physical body, 757
of spirit, 757
of will, 756-757
our role, 754-756
power over sin, 614-615
three stages, 747 - 753
through sickness, 1068-1069
Wesleyan /Holiness view, 748
Sandemanians, 715
Satan, 412-415
meaning of name, 414
other names for, 414
sin of, 412-414
Satan and demons, 412-436
See also demons
Saul: loss of Holy Spirit, 803
saving faith
definition, 710
See also conversion: saving faith
science. See natural science
Scofield Reference Bible, 860
Scripture, 47-138
and natural science, 274 - 275
authority, 73-89
canon, 54-72
clarity, 105-115,933-934
inerrancy, 90-104
inspiration, 75
Luke’s gospel as, 62
necessity, 116-126
1287
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1288
Paul’s writings as, 61-62
sufficiency, 127-138, 1042
truthfulness, 90- 104
secondary causes, 328, 343
second chance for salvation? 592, 822-823
Second Coming (of Christ). See return of Christ
second experiences, 773-775, 779-780, 781-782
seeing God face to face, 1033, 1164
seeking miracles, 369-371
self- existence of God, 161
self-interest, 491
selfishness, 491
semeion , 363
separation of churches. See church: separation
seraphim, 398
session (church government), 926
session (of Christ), 618-619
Seventh-day Adventist Church, 1150
Shakespeare, William, 322
sheol, 588
Shepherd of Hermas, 67
significance for life. See meaning in life
signs: prophecy and tongues as, 1075
signs and wonders. See miracles
signs and wonders (terms), 356
signs of an apostle, 362-365
signs of Christ’s return. See return of Christ: signs of
signs of covenants, 517, 520
simplicity of God, 177-178
sin, 490-514
always irrational, 493, 661
Arminian view of, 338-341
confessing to others, 385
consequences after justification, 732
definition, 490-492
God not to be blamed for, 333-334
habitual, 422-423
origin of, 492-493
punishment of, 509-510
unpardonable sin, 506-509
we are responsible for, 333-334
See also sin: actual sins
sin: actual sins, 498-509
ability doesn’t limit responsibility, 499
all people sinful before God, 498
are infants guilty before God? 499-501
damage in relationship with God, 502-504
degrees of sin, 501 - 504
harmful results in life, 502-504
punishment of, 509-510
salvation of infants who die, 500-501
unpardonable sin, 506-509
sin: degrees of, 501-504
sin: greater and lesser, 502-504
sin: inherited, 494-498
corrupt actions, 497-498
corrupt nature, 497
inherited corruption, 496-498
inherited guilt, 494-496
unable to please God, 497-498
sin: of Christians, 501 -506
damages in life, 504-506
danger of unconverted evangelicals, 506
degrees of sin, 501 -504
may bring God’s discipline, 732
no loss of justification, 504-505
power over, 747 - 748
relationship with God damaged, 504-506
singing, 1012-1013
singing in the Spirit, 1074
singleness, 455-456
single-pastor government: needed for church
growth? 928-929, 931
sinless perfection, 748
sitting with Christ, 618-619
slavery, 943
slaying in the Spirit, 640
Smith, Joseph, 407
society
common grace seen in, 661-663
involvement in, 868
restraint from fear of judgment, 1148
Socinianism, 581-582
Son of God (title), 546-547
Son of Man (title), 546
sons of God: marrying daughters of men, 414
sorrow, 1152
at death of others, not wrong, 814-815
soul, 472-477
origin of, 484-486
Paul’s use of term, 480
See also man: essential nature
soul sleep, 819-821
Southern Baptist churches, 1124, 1168
sovereignty of God, 216-218
speaking in tongues. See spiritual gifts: tongues
speaking the truth, 196
special revelation, 123
spiration of the Spirit, 254
spirit: Paul’s use of term, 480
spirit (human), 472-477
See also man: essential nature
spirit can sin, 475-476
spirits in prison, 589-591
spiritual body, 609, 832-833
spiritual gifts, 1016-1088
and natural abilities, 1016, 1023-1024
as means of grace, 958
characteristic of new covenant age, 1018
classifying, 1021-1022
definition, 1016
foretaste of age to come, 1019
given to every believer, 1030-1031
higher gifts, 1029
intercession, 1021
lists, 1019-1021
musical gifts, 1017, 1022
no gift possessed by all, 1023
no two people’s gifts identical, 1021
relation between gift and office, 1020
SUBJECT INDEX
1289
spiritual gifts: cessation? 1031-1046
1 Cor. 13:8-13, 1032-1039
are some gifts dangerous? 1046
both sides need each other, 1046
did some gifts cease in history? 1043-1045
does prophecy equal Scripture? 1039- 1042
guidance, 1040-1042
meaning of “the perfect,” 1032-1039
miracles limited to apostles? 1042- 1043
only accompany new Scripture? 1043
spiritual gifts: general, 1016-1048
how many are there? 1019-1022
how to discover, 1028- 1030
how to seek for, 1028-1030
in history of redemption, 1017-1019
may vary in strength, 1022-1025
miraculous or non-miraculous? 1027-1028
not a sign of maturity, 1030-1031
purpose in New Testament age, 1019
temporary or permanent possession? 1025-1027
tools for ministry, 1030- 1031
spiritual gifts: healing, 1063-1069
anointing with oil, 1065
common methods, 1065-1066
example of Jesus, 1066
forcing a test on God, 1064
health in history of redemption, 1063-1064
how should we pray? 1066-1067
in the atonement? 1063
laying on of hands, 1065
purposes, 1064
role of faith in, 1065 - 1066
what about using medicine? 1064- 1065
what if 30 percent healed? 1045
what if God does not heal? 1067-1069
spiritual gifts: miracles, 1062- 1063
spiritual gifts: other, 1080-1083
discerning of spirits, 1082-1083
word of knowledge, 1080- 1082
word of wisdom, 1080-1082
spiritual gifts: prophecy, 1049-1061
1 Cor. 14:29-38, 1054-1055
1 Thess. 5:19-21, 1054
Acts 21:10-11, 1052-1054
Acts 21:4, 1052
apostles like OT prophets, 1050
apostles’ preparation for future, 1055
content: anything edifying, 1059-1060
difference from teaching, 1058
how to encourage, 1060- 1061
how to regulate, 1060- 1061
how to represent authority today? 1055-1056
less authority than Scripture, 1052-1055
many people can prophecy, 1060
meaning of word “prophet,” 1050- 1052
no public evaluation by women, 939
not equal to Scripture, 1039-1042
not God’s very words, 1052-1055
potential for abuse, 1040
related to much Christian experience, 1025
revelation distinguishes this gift, 1056- 1057
sign for unbelievers, 1075
too subjective? 1058- 1059
value to church, 1076
we should “earnestly desire,” 1060
spiritual gifts: teaching, 1061 - 1062
See also teaching of the Word
spiritual gifts: tongues, 1069-1079
as sign of baptism in Holy Spirit, 765, 1076
danger of demonic counterfeit? 1077
definition, 1070
in private prayer, 389
not all speak in tongues, 1076- 1077
not always known languages, 1072
not ecstatic, 1073-1074
not same as praying in the Spirit, 382
not understood by speaker, 1071 - 1072
prayer or praise spoken to God, 1071
praying with spirit, not mind, 1073
related to other prayer, 1024
Rom. 8:26-27, 1078-1079
sign for unbelievers, 1075
singing in the Spirit, 1074
tongues in history of redemption, 1069-1070
value to church, 1076
with interpretation, 1076
without interpretation, 1074-1076
spiritual power: as sign of more pure church,
874-875
spiritual warfare, 412-436, 888-889
strategic level, 421
See also demons: our relation to
spirituality of God, 185- 188
sprinkling (baptism), 967-969
Stalin, Joseph, 1103, 1151
state, power of the, 892-894
storing treasure in heaven, 1163
strategic level warfare, 421
subjective guidance, 128, 131
submission (in church), 915
submission (in marriage), 464
See also male headship
submission, mutual? 460, 466
subordinationism, 244-245
suffering
God uses for our good, 812
include sickness, 1067-1068
sufficiency of Scripture, 127-138
and finding God’s will, 128-135
and subjective guidance, 128
at each stage of history, 129-131
definition, 127-128
suicide, 503, 817
supernatural/natural world, 1027- 1028
supralapsarianism, 679
survival of the fittest, 280-281
sword, to take up, 892
synod, 926
Syrian Jacobite Church, 556
systematic theology
and humility, 33-34
and praise, 37
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
1290
and prayer, 33
and reason, 34-35
application to life, 16-17, 23
arrangement of topics, 31-32
benefits to life, 28-30
definition, 21
how to study, 32-37
meaning of “systematic,” 24
objections to, 30-32
reasons to study, 26-28
relationship to other disciplines, 21-23
teaching (gift of), 1061 - 1062
teaching of the Word, 867-868, 874, 915, 952-953,
1058
by women, 938-939, 942
definition, 1061
technology, 446, 497, 659, 665, 1162
teleological argument, 143
temptations of Christ, 536-537, 560, 571 -572
Ten Commandments, 501-502
territorial spirits, 421
teshuqah , 463
textual variants, 96
theistic evolution, 275-279
theological seminary, 1093
theology
biblical, 22
disorganized, 23-24
dogmatic, 25
historical, 21
integrative, 22
New Testament, 22
Old Testament, 22
philosophical, 21
systematic, 21, 22-23
theophany, 189
theos , 234-236, 543-544
third wave: definition, 763
Thirty-nine Articles, 338
Thirty-nine Articles (text), 1171-1178
this generation, 1126
Thomas, Gospel of, 67
thorn in the flesh, 1068
time, 1162-1163
created by God, 169, 266
creatures always exist in, 173
God sees all equally vividly, 170- 171
God sees events in and acts in, 171 - 172
wise use of (by us), 1010
timelessness of God, 169
Timothy: what office? 918
tohu , 287
tongues, speaking in. See spiritual gifts: tongues
to take up the sword, 892
total depravity, 497
traducianism, 484-486
transcendence of God, 267-271
translations of Bible, 112
transubstantiation, 991-994
treasure in heaven, 1 163
tribulation, the great, 1131 - 1135
trichotomy, 472, 477-482
and one view of regeneration, 701-702
Trinity Hymnal , 42
Trinity, the. See God: the Trinity
tritheism, 247-248
trust (term), 711
truth, 195-197,659
definition, 83, 195, 493
truthfulness of God, 195-197
truthfulness of Scripture, 82-84, 90-104
TULIP (acronym), 596, 679
two-class Christianity, 775-777
ubiquity (Lutheran view), 558, 563, 995
unbelievers
fear of God will influence conduct, 1 148
God’s justice in not saving all, 402-403
judgment of, 1142-1143
prayers of, 378
right to help, 868
unborn children, 450
unchangeableness of God, 163-168
unconditional election, 679
unconverted evangelicals, 506, 794-795
unforgivable sin, 506-509
union with Christ, 840-850
actions done “in Christ,” 843-844
Christ is in us, 845
completed by death, 812-813
during our lives now, 842-844
dying and rising with Christ, 842-843
in God’s eternal plan, 841
new life in Christ, 843
one body in Christ, 844
personal fellowship with Christ, 846-847
we are in Christ, 841-844
we are like Christ, 845-846
we are with Christ, 846-847
union with the Father, 847
union with the Holy Spirit, 847-848
Unitarianism, 581
United Pentecostal Church, 242
unity of church
hope for growth in, 17-18
See also church: unity
unity of God, 177-181
unlimited atonement, 596
unpardonable sin, 506-509
unseen world, 1027-1028, 1073
Ussher, Archbishop James, 273
venial sin, 503-504
vicar, 923-924
vicarious atonement, 579
Vineyard Christian Fellowship, 764
virgin birth of Christ, 529-532
warning passages, 792-794
Wesleyan /Holiness churches
view of perseverance, 788
view of sanctification, 748
SUBJECT INDEX
1291
Westminster Catechism, 441, 587, 1005
Westminster Confession (text), 1179-1196
will: sanctification of, 756-757
will of God, 211-218
will of God: two types, 332
wisdom of God, 193-195
wise use of time, 1010
witness. See evangelism
women as church officers, 937-944
1 Cor. 14:33b-36, 939
1 Tim. 2:11 -14, 938-939
1 Tim. 3:1-7 and Titus 1:5-9, 940
did Priscilla teach Apollos? 943
example of apostles, 940-941
history of church, 942
male leadership in whole Bible, 941 -942
relationship between family and church, 940
servant leadership needed, 943
should gifts determine ministry? 942
slavery: a parallel issue? 943
what if called by God? 942-943
women vote in the congregation, 943
women as deacons, 944
wonders (term), 356
Word of God
as a person (Christ), 47
as God’s decrees in time, 47-48
as speech by God, 47 - 50
in written form, 49-50
several forms, 47-53
spoken through human lips, 48-49
See also Scripture
word of knowledge, 1080-1082
word of wisdom, 1080- 1082
work of the Holy Spirit. See Holy Spirit: work of
works: covenant of, 516-518
worldwide church government? 877
worship, 1003-1015
as a means of grace, 957
as sign of a more pure church, 874
definition, 1003-1005
enough time needed, 1013
how enter into genuine worship? 1010- 1013
in spirit and truth, 1010
not the only purpose of church, 868-869
one purpose of the church, 867
purpose of, 1003-1005
setting should avoid distractions, 1012
singing, 1012
value, 1009-1010
worship: results, 1005-1009
God delights in us, 1006- 1007
God draws near to us, 1007-1008
God ministers to us, 1008-1009
the Lord’s enemies flee, 1009
unbelievers recognize God’s presence, 1009
we delight in God, 1006
we draw near to God, 1007 - 1008
wrath of God. See God: attributes
wrong: definition, 492
wrongdoing: all will be paid for, 1147
ydm , 293-297
young earth theories, 304-307
Zondervan Get an A! Study Guides
Systematic Theology
Laminated Sheet
Wayne Grudem and Erik Thoennes
Trustworthy information, easy access. Six pages packed
with critical information provide an ideal study aid for stu-
dents and a quick, helpful reference for pastors.
Information on the sheets comes from Dr. Wayne
Grudem’s award-winning Systematic Theology, an intro-
duction with a strong emphasis on the scriptural basis for each doctrine and teaching,
clear writing, frequent application to life, and a contemporary approach to subjects of
special interest to the church today.
No more hunting through textbooks, laboring over self-made study cards, or fum-
bling with sticky notes. These durable, three-hole punched, laminated pages provide a
quick overview of systematic theology in a handy, at-a-glance format. Great for under-
standing the often complex doctrines, preparing for exams, refreshing your memory,
writing papers, or preparing sermons.
Available in stores and online!
0 ZONDERVAN*
Bible Doctrine
Essential Teachings of the Christian Faith
Wayne Grudem
How do we know the Bible is God’s Word? What is sin and
where did it come from? How is Jesus fully God and fully
man?
What are spiritual gifts? When and how will Christ return?
If you’ve asked questions like these, then “systematic
theology” is no abstract term. It’s an approach to finding
answers every Christian needs to know.
Bible Doctrine takes a highly commended upper-level textbook on systematic theol-
ogy and makes it accessible to the average reader. Abridged from Wayne Grudem’s
award-winning Systematic Theology, Bible Doctrine covers the same essentials of the
faith, giving you a firm grasp on seven key topics in less than 600 pages:
•The Doctrine of the Word of God
•The Doctrine of God
•The Doctrine of Man
•The Doctrine of Christ
•The Doctrine of the Application of Redemption
•The Doctrine of the Church
•The Doctrine of the Future
Like Systematic Theology, this book is marked by its clarity, its strong scriptural
emphasis, its thoroughness in scope and detail, and its treatment of such timely topics
as spiritual warfare and the gifts of the Spirit. But you don’t need to have had several
years of Bible school to reap the full benefits of Bible Doctrine. It’s easy to under-
stand— and it's packed with solid, biblical answers to your most important questions.
Available in stores and online!
0 ZONDERVAN*
Christian Beliefs
Twenty Basics Every Christian Should Know
Wayne A. Grudem, Edited by Elliot Grudem
Christian Essentials Made Plain and Simple
God doesn't call every Christian to go off to seminary, but
there are certain matters of doctrine— that is, the church's
teaching— that every Christian simply must know. Theology
is important because what we believe affects how we live. If
you're a relatively new believer in Jesus, or if you're a more
mature Christian looking for a quick brush-up on basics of
the faith, Christian Beliefs is for you.
This readable guide to twenty basic Christian beliefs is a condensation of Wayne
Grudem s award-winning book on systematic theology, prized by pastors and teach-
ers everywhere. He and his son, Elliot, have boiled down the essentials of Christian
theology for the average layperson and made them both clear and applicable to life.
This short book— less than 150 pages— is ideal for small groups and church classes.
You will learn about the Bible, the characteristics of God, what it means that we are
created in the image of God, what God has done for us in Christ, the purpose of the
church, and much more. Each chapter includes questions for personal review or group
discussion.
Based on Systematic Theology, this summary will certainly help beginners
with Christ to get the hang of their faith.
— J. I. Packer, Regent College, Vancouver, British Columbia
As Wayne Grudem s Systematic Theology contracts into a compact book , / do
not lose my enthusiasm for the truth he loves and the clarity of his words .
—John Piper, Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Available in stores and online!
ZONDERVAN*
We want to hear from you. Please send your comments about this
book to us in care of zreview@zondervan.com. Thank you.
Bzondervan*
ZONDERVAN.com/
AUTHORTRACKER
follow your favorite authors
OVER 400,000 COPIES IN PRINT
An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine
Wwe Grudem
M
IN CANADA
USD $49.99
ISBN 978-0-310-28670-7
54999
ZONDERVAN
Sugg. Retail Price
MISSISSAUGA
1| r LIBRARY 3YSTEN
Wayne Grudem
is research professor of Bible and theology at Phoenix Seminary in Phoenix, Arizona.
He previously taught for twenty years at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois. He holds
degrees from Harvard (BA), Westminster Seminary (MDiv), and Cambridge (PhD). He is the author of a
number of books and is the editor of Are Miraculous Gifts for Today? He was 1998-1999 president of the
Evangelical Theological Society.
CENTRAL
Systematic t
"Wayne Grudem understands that every Christian 'does theology,' that doctrine inevita-
bly finds its application in the believer’s life. Clearly written, this volume demonstrates an
appreciation for the rich diversity of traditions within the body of Christ while at the
same time reminding us that our faith is rooted in historic Christian truth."
-ellowship Ministries
"If y° u were hoping to find a student's textbook of theology that seeks your spiritual no
less than your intellectual formation, rejoice. Wayne Grudem has written exactly what you
wanted, and he has done so very competently indeed."
J. I. Packe
"Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem is a fair-minded, thorough text in systematic
theology — the best I have seen in recent years in terms of convenient organization, clarity,
and a willingness to tackle the most salient issues of the day. This is an admirable blending
of the scholarly and devotional elements seldom achieved in academic books."
Paige Patterson - President, Southwestern Baptist TheologicaliSeminary
Systematic Theology is remarkable for its extraordinary juxtapositions. It is penetrating
but not confusing; forthright and unequivocal but not reckless or overstated; readable
and clear but not superficial; biblically grounded, even biblically saturated, but not
textually careless or glib; devout and reverent but not uncritical or naive; practical but
not trendy or sentimental; comprehensive but not majoring on minors; a book for the
church but not parochial or sectarian. I expect to turn to it for decades."
John Piper, 8.ethlenem BaptistC-hurch, Minneapolis
Altogether a magnificent achievement which deserves to be widely used among
evangelicals."
Gerald Bray/Bqjfsdn Diviiyty'Schobl
Grudem has opened the windows to let fresh air blow away mustiness and permit
the Holy Spirit to infuse soundly biblical, clearheaded evangelical theology with new
life and power."
Jack W. )r
i the Way,
Wayne Grudem is research professor of Bible and theology at Phoenix Seminary in Phoenix, Arizona.
He previously taught for twenty years at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois. He holds
degrees from Harvard (BA), Westminster Seminary (MDiv), and Cambridge (PhD). He is the author of a
number of books and is the editor of Are Miraculous Gifts for Today? He was 1998-1999 president of the
Evangelical Theological Society.
This entire book is available on a CD from Bits & Bytes
Computer Resources, 623 N. Iowa Ave., Whitefish, MT 59937.
Cover design Tammy Johnson
Cover photo: Vincent Macnamara, Trevillion Images
ZONDERVAN-
ZONDERVAN.com/
AUTHORTRACKER
follow your favorite authors
RELIGION / Christian Theology / Systematic
USD $49.99
ISBN 978-0-310-28670-7
llllllllllllllllllllllllllllll 54999
CENTRAL
